Animal testing for medical research

I look forward to a beneficial discussion and elaboration of ideas. Before I delve into the facts and data that show medical experimentation on animals is cruel and absurd, I first will explain why animals deserve equal recognition. Animals possess the right to not be harmed “the basic principle of equality does not require equal or identical treatment; it requires equal consideration. ” -Peter Singer The above quote from Animal Liberation explicitly states the true, underlying essence of what equality consists. The measure of equality is not how we treat our fellow creatures, it is determined by our thought and desire to take into consideration other species. I will, briefly, seek to show why speciesism violates the aforementioned quality. [1] “The question is not ‘Can they reason? ’ nor ‘Can they talk? ’ but ‘Can they suffer? ’” -Jeremy Bentham In this quote, Jeremy Bentham, the founder of the Utilitarian school of ethical philosophy, establishes the capacity to suffer as the defining characteristic that guarantees equal consideration. The monumental impact of this claim should redefine how animals are perceived. By labeling them as lesser creatures incapable of expressing sentiments comparable to humans, we are effectively depriving them of the rights that humans demand for themselves. Animals possess the capacity to suffer to the same degree as humans. The act of denying animals equal consideration when attempting to commit harm against them violates moral principles that are ascribed to certain species, but not others. The act of denial is morally reprehensible, as is the act of demeaning a human being, the same would be true if applied to the rest of the earth’s species. [1] Testing necessitates significant harm to the animals as a result of experimentation The process of experimentation causes significant harm and psychological damage to the animal. As I showed in my previous contention, animals deserve better treatment. . http://www.youtube.com... . http://www.youtube.com... The above videos were recorded from Experimental Head Injury Lab at the University of Pennsylvania. They took videotapes recording the deliberate and methodical inflicting of severe head injuries on unanesthetized chained baboons. Copies of the videotape were sent to the media, to University officials, and to government agencies which eventually suspended federal funds for the experiments. [2] Statistics don’t lie. On average, 20 million animals are killed annually, with three-fourths for medical purposes and the rest to test various products. The inhumanity continues as the report states that 8 million are believed to be forced participants in painful experiments. To worsen the act even more, 10 percent of these animals do not receive painkillers during the experiment. “Moreover, it is argued, the lives of all creatures, great and small, have value and are worthy of respect. This right to be treated with respect does not depend on an ability to reason. An insane person has a right to be treated with respect, yet he or she may not be able to act rationally. Nor does a right to be treated with respect rest on being a member of a certain species. Restricting respect for life to a certain species is to perform an injustice similar to racism or sexism. Like the racist who holds that respect for other races does not count as much as respect for his or her own race, those who support painful experimentation on animals assume that respect for other species does not count as much as respect for members of his or her own species. "Speciesism" is as arbitrarily unjust as racism or sexism. The right to be treated with respect rests, rather, on a creature's being a "subject of a life," with certain experiences, preferences, and interests. Animals, like humans, are subjects of a life. Justice demands that the interests of animals be respected, which includes respect for their interest to be spared undeserved pain. ”[2] The above quote perfectly illustrates my attitude towards animal rights. Animals are unnecessary variables that are not required for efficacious research to occur Statistics show irrefutably that animal-based methods used in preclinical testing to select drugs for human use are unreliable. In fact, studies show that if you flipped a coin to guess how a human will respond to a certain drug, your prediction would actually be as accurate as if you tested the drug on a nonhuman animal. The U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the pharmaceutical industry all acknowledge this. The FDA reports that 92 percent of drugs approved for testing in humans fail to receive approval for human use. This failure rate has increased from 86 percent in 1985, in spite of all the “advances and refinements” intended to make animal tests more accurate. In addition, more than half of the few drugs approved are later withdrawn or relabeled due to serious or lethal adverse effects in humans. For example, the arthritis drug Vioxx appeared to be safe in animal studies, but was withdrawn from the market in 2004 after causing over 60,000 deaths in the U. S. alone. In 2007, the FDA revealed that serious and fatal adverse drug events have more than doubled between 1998 and 2005. [3] Still, even if other species were in fact good models for human biomedical research, other factors would contaminate the results. Stress, routinely experienced by animals in labs, negatively influences the reliability of animal research data. Stress influences heart rate, pulse, blood pressure, muscular activity, and hormone levels and can modify the normal values of these variables significantly. In one study, researchers discovered that not only is stress a common factor for mice in labs—just having a researcher present can alter a mouse’s behavior—but they also experience “sympathy pains” for the mice surrounding them. “In other words, seeing another mouse in distress elevates the amount of distress the onlooker displays. ” This unaccounted for and likely unobserved stress in research animals can significantly skew the interpretation and results of research data. In this case, the “average researcher, when testing for toxicity effects in mice for example, likely assumes that they are starting at a pain baseline [an assumed average level of pain], when in truth the surrounding environment is not benign and can significantly affect results. ” Add to this the fact that some species like chimpanzees have been held in laboratory confinement for decades, used in multiple protocols, and as they are transferred from lab to lab, their records are filled with inaccuracies and omissions. [3] I promise to elaborate more in the next round concerning the above quote; however I currently only have 1 hour and 30 minutes to post an argument. I am running out of time and apologize for leaving a massive quote unexplained. I will rectify this in the following round. I will also respond to my opponent’s first round assertions in the next round. I don’t see any sources to back up his claims; therefore they are able to be dismissed until he provides supporting evidence. I thank my opponent for participating in this debate, I look forward to reading his arguments. Sources [1] . http://www.peta.org... [2] . http://www.scu.edu... [3] . http://www.neavs.org...