Animal Testing

Finding the Cure Animal testing is used in the process of finding a cure for diseases but I wouldn't say that the cure for a disease is found just from testing on animals. The diseases get cured when they start using human trails and improving the drugs at the last stage for the best results. You said that "The alternatives to animal testing are not reliable", but most of the time is animal testing isn't reliable either. Furthermore once scientist start human trails, that is when they learn that some drugs that were tested on animals whether they have any effect on humans or not. In today's day and age there is more non-human testing methods being developed. Since scientists are able to create human tissue and have the actual human gene information I believe there is no point in going back to testing on animals. There are scientist who are working on human tissues and have created human ears and bladders through scientific experiments. If scientist enforced these techniques more than animal testing can become obsolete and not needed anymore. Technology The technology in this time is very advanced and can offer a great alternative to animal testing. Sure, using a computer might not be as good as using real organisms but it can help and reduce the amount of animals being tested on enormously. Computers can be an effective tool for conducting certain experiments and research. Technology is also advancing rapidly each year offering more and more reliable testing techniques. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is also a great piece of technology that can be used to help examine diseases through human scans. Negative Effects You mentioned that animal testing reduces the risks of negative effects that a drug can have on human but even after animal testing scientist don't know how the drug will affect the human body. There are many warning signs and side effects on almost every drug out there, so testing on animals doesn't take all of the negative effects away. Animal testing may even be the reason why there are so many side effects on medication nowadays. Unfair Treatment Even though animal test may reduce some negative effects and may reduce human suffering it still isn't right on many accounts. Animal testing is an unfair and excruciating process that innocent animals have to endure. You stated that, "We live in a society that values human life over the lives of animals". Which is very true but who are we to say that we are more important than other living animals? It's morally wrong to inflict pain on one species in order to help another. Just because animals cannot verbally express their emotions and feelings doesn't mean they don't have any or feel pain. The fact that these animals can feel everything that is being tested on to them through the experiments makes this whole issue unsettling. There are company's out there that don't need to be using animal testing but are anyway. The FDA doesn't require animal testing for cosmetics but companies are still killing millions of animals each year while they test there cosmetic products on animals. Researchers should be using more reliable test subjects instead. However, there are a few companies that do use non-animal testing to make sure there products are safe like Avon and Mary Kay. More companies need to realize what they are actually administering to the animals and need to try alternative techniques because they do exist and they are available.