This House Would Ban Animal Testing

Hello everyone. I am here today to propose the motion that this house would ban animal testing. My model is that we will phase out all animal testing over the next ten years while governments, the EU and the UN etc. fund research into new alternative methods. My first point is that animals have a right not to be harmed. 100 million vertebraes are experimented on around the world each year and unfortunately, not all of them have been treated well. You are probably familiar with the Silver Springs monkeys Case. These were 17 wild-born macaque monkeys from the Philippines who were kept in the Institue of Behavioral Research in Silver Spring, Maryland. From 1981 to 1991, these monkeys had been cut afferent ganglia that supplied sensation to the brain from their arms, then used arm slings to restrain the good arm to train them to use the limbs they could not even feel. The monkeys lived in incredibly filthy conditions for TEN YEARS before exposed to the public. My second point is that animals are very different from humans and therefore make poor test subjects. It was reported by the Food and Drug Administration that 92% of the drugs and medicine that pass in animal tests, fail in humans. For example, during the 1960s, thalidomide was extensively tested on numerous animals including 11 breeds of rabbits, 15 strains of mice, 8 species of primates, various breeds of cats, dogs and ferrets only to name a few. Altogether, hundreds if not thousands of animals were tested using thalidomide. Thalidomide was a medicine prescribed to pregnant women to reduce morning sickness. Unfortunately, it resulted in huge deformation of the babies' limbs, brain, eyes and other facial features as well as causing blindness, the inability to walk or talk etc. Over 10,000 babies worldwide were effected and few survived. This 'extensive' animal testing which was initially a huge project for scientists had failed to predict any hazards or side effects from thalidomide. I think that because evolution and genetics show that animals and humans differ in profoundly different ways, animal models will never be able to recapitulate what happens in the human condition. I know that some animals for example rats, have a few similarities with the human anatomy, however....we are not all just oversized 70kg rats! My third point is that due to modern technology and research, there are actually many alternatives to animal testing. Here I only name a few. -The In Vitro Testing: Scientists and engineers at the Harvard Wyss Institute have invented "organs-on-a-chip" including "lung-on-a-chip" and "gut-on-a-chip". These tIny devices contain human cells in a 3-dimensional system that mimics human organs. These chips can be used instead of animals for disease research, drug testing and toxicity testing. -The In Silico Testing: This is a wide range of sophisticated computer models that simulate human biology and the progression of developing diseases. Basically, these models can accurately predict how a drug will react in the human body. Referring back to the thalidomide disaster, if the 'In Silico' testing had been used, we could have discovered immediately the dangers of the drug and would have saved so many lives. In the USA, 97% of medical schools and colleges have already completely replaced the use of animal testing with better alternatives like the ones mentioned. These alternatives are much more effective than animal testing and will reduce the deaths of both animals and humans. Thank you for reading and I beg you to oppose. (1st round: main points 2nd round: rebuttal 3rd round: conclusions)