Animal Testing

Finding the Cure Discovering new medications is like everything with life, it is developed in stages. For medicine, one of the stages is testing the drugs on animals to see their effectiveness. While this sometimes could be fatal, it proves to be a necessary step towards finding the cure. You quoted my statement about other methods of testing being unreliable, and you stated, "but most of the time is animal testing isn't reliable either." So, you admit that other forms of testing are not reliable. Animal testing may not always be reliable, but of the methods that we have today, it is the most reliable of the bunch. Technology I will in no way attempt to discredit the advances we have made in science. Over the course of history, and especially in recent years, we have made great strides in the field of science and medicine. However, there is one variable with computer engineering that it impossible to create, the unknown variable. A computer simulation of the effects of medicine, lack the ability to produce the unknown. Computer simulations have come a long way since their first use, however they still are unable to account for every variable of our bodies. They are produced using the model of a perfect specimen, and we all know that all of our bodies are different in many different ways, that the computer cannot account for. While the MRI, is a great tool. You state it "can be used to help examine diseases through human scans", that's exactly what it does, examine diseases, and this information is used to help find a cure, it is not an alternative to animal testing. I will acknowledge that computer simulations have some use towards finding the cures to different diseases, but I will not say they are the replacement for animal testing. You stated, "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." To my knowledge, this debate was about whether or not we should have animal testing, not whether or not we should reduce it. Negative Effects Testing a drug on an animal, tells the scientist a great deal how the drug will react in the human body. Many animals replicate the human body pretty well, and through this they are able to see how the drug will react if it is placed into a human host. If we were to skip animal testing, and put medications straight to human trials, the human fatality rate, would be extremely high. Through animal testing, they are able to work out the kinks of the drugs, that way there is not a high human fatality rate when they enter the human trials. You made a comment that there many drugs that have warning signs and side effects, and that testing on animals doesn't rid the medication of the negative side effects. This is true, animal testing does not get rid of all the negative side effects, however, (and if you quote me on this, don't forget the however part) animal testing is able to eliminate most negative side effects, and alert us of what the side effects are. You also stated, "animal testing may even be the reason why there are so many side effects on medication nowadays." I think that you misunderstand the point of animal testing. Animal testing tells us of these side effects, that way we are able to fix the ones we can and alert the public of the ones we are unable to. You have to remember that before a drug hits the market with these side effects, they also undergo human trials to further get rid of these effects. Based on that logic, human trials also is not successful. It is not that animal testing created these side effects, they are the side effects they are unable to prevent. Unfair Treatment The FDA is very strict on their policies regarding unfair treatment of animals, along with many other laws and regulations. In a lab, there are many different process that take effect with the animals. For one, animals are bred in the lab for the soul purpose of being apart of the animal testing process. A close friend of mine worked in lab where testing on animals was utilized. When animals are being tested on, it is required that all policies and procedures of animal testing are followed. Part of this policy is ensuring that animals are given pain relief if they are experiencing any type of pain. If an animal is deemed unable to survive, it is euthanized to put the animal out of its pain and misery. Animal testing has been a crucial part of science since the beginning. Many diseases have been cured through some form of animal testing, whether it be past of present.