Animal Testing

(INTRODUCTION) (REBUTTAL) “As one reads the first set of arguments presented by my opponents (mostly copy and pasted), they will surely notice a great number of errors, generalizations and hypocrisy.” I will already start my rebuttal, towards your intro. My opponent states that my arguments were mostly copied and pasted, with a negative tone. May I ask what is wrong about copy and pasting some something that helps your argument?. Is it plagiarism? No. “Animal testing is unethical” (the short statement at the beginning of the point) Fair enough, but think of it this way. What is worth more: The life of a human being? Or a mouse? Not only is it more ethical to save the human life, but the life of a mouse will allow us humans to test drugs (By drugs I mean medical drugs, not recreational type.) No drug, and I mean NO DRUG WHATSOEVER would be allowed without medical testing, And since we are on this topic, I would prefer to test on a mouse than a HUMAN. “The reality of animal testing is that annually, in labs across Canada and USA, millions of animals are subjected to torturous disease-ridden conditions, and an appalling amount die. Lets look at the numbers: According to CCAC (the Canadian Council on Animal Care), in 2011, 3.3 million animals where used by testing institutions certified by CCAC. The annual report continues to state that 35% of these animals where used in experiments causing "severe pain near, at, or above tolerance threshold of anesthetized conscious animals". This means, over 1 million animals including, dog"s cats, and primate"s suffered/ died horribly without the use of any anesthesia.” I will break this down in multiple parts: I would like to show you how many lives of humans have been saved. Starting with one animal tested that has saved millions of humans. Penicillin. “would not have saved countless Allied lives, during and after D-Day. Instead of having enjoyed fifty and more years of the antibiotic age, it is argued here, that we would have had to rely upon highly developed sulphonamides, so-called “super sulfas”, and other chemically-derived antibacterial drugs. Indeed, it might be the case that, even well into this new millennium, the antibiotic age has yet to dawn, and medicine is still waiting for someone to chance upon penicillin. Here we discuss what might have happened had Flemming not discovered penicillin and come to the conclusion that the medical armoury available today would have been far different and might have relied solely upon highly developed varieties of sulphonamides or similar, synthetic, non-antibiotic antibacterial agents.” {1} “This simple animal test led directly to the saving of literally millions of lives, both human and animal.” {2} So already we have at least, if not more, people and animals that have been saved by only one animal testing case than animals died in all of animal testing. If my opponent wants more examples, please tell me next round. How do you know that they suffered without anesthesia? “1) Animals experience pain 2) Millions of animals experience pain/die because of animals testing, yearly. This brings us to the fundamental question: is this animal suffering ethically acceptable?” So do humans. hundred’s of millions of people would experience pain/die if there was no animal testing. Yearly. For the sake of human lives, then yes. You are making a binary arguments without any nuance. Our technology is not advanced enough to simulate the many diseases that plague the world. Again, what is worse? A mouse with diabetes or your own child with diabetes? “Well, I will ask you: Could you harm, mutilate or kill your own dog?” If it were to save millions of humans and animals, then yes I think everyone would. Also, there are WAY more rats and mice used than cats and dogs. “Approximately 95 percent of all lab animals are specially-bred rats and mice. Non-human primates account for less than one-fourth of 1 percent; dogs and cats combined, less than one-half of 1 percent. The balance includes rabbits, guinea pigs, woodchucks, pigs, sheep, armadillos, leeches, zebra fish, squid, horseshoe crabs, sea snails and fruit flies.” {3} (ARGUMENTS) ARGUMENT 3: Remember, drugs are made up of several thousands of compounds, some could be dangerous to us humans. Also, some compounds that are safe by themselves may be dangerous by mixed with other compounds. Sometimes scientists may not be able to detect these problems, so before human trials begin, they will get a head start on fixing these problems. Now, animals may react differently to humans, but many will react very closely/identically to humans. Most people deal with the cold and the flu with medicine, however, what if the medicine did not work or made things worse? What if it was untested? You see, the truth is that we have to test on animals. Why? If we didn’t test it, we might be selling a highly dangerous or even deadly drug to people. We could be selling liquid/solid poison. For the last time. A human, or a mouse? Your child or a rat? Think about it. ARGUMENT 4: I would like to share something and, as the argument title says, “put thing into perspective.” Did you know that we eat over 159 million cattle, pigs, sheep, and chickens a year. {4} But look at this: “we only use around 26 million animals for research, 95% of which are rodents, birds and fish. We eat more than 1,800 times the number of pigs than the number used in research, and we consume more than 340 chickens for every research animal.” {4} That itself is enough proof that if we put it in perspective, we are barely even using, not killing, using, a extremely small amount of animals that we use daily. But, that’s not all. These animals have saved hundreds of millions of animals and humans lives. Just look at my rebuttal. (CONCLUSION) Once more, thanks. DDD (REFERENCES) {1} http://www.sciencedirect.com... {2} http://speakingofresearch.com... {3} http://www.mofed.org... {4} http://animal-testing.procon.org...