Testing on animals

Most nations allow the use of animals for the art of medical experiments. However, some countries have made it illegal for a test to be carried out using some animals that are known to be endangered. For example, the number of great apes has been decreasing, and medical researchers have also been discouraged from using them to perform their experiments. In most cases, the animals used for experiments are subject to pain, but to monitor the incidence against research standards, they have been developed to allow humane handling of these animals. For example, researchers are supposed to provide these animals with a fine dwelling and diet. Unfortunately, this does not hinder the killing of these animals, for example, those transmitted with an airborne or infectious illness which may spread to human being and cure has not been identified. This fact shows that despite available legal frameworks to protect animals, animal cruelty is a considerable concern. Additionally, the researchers are encouraged to seek alternative measures to perform their tests and minimize harm to these animals. Therefore the paper will consider an argument against the use of animals to conduct experiments.

Considering that the animal experimentation is vital for designing treatment for illnesses affecting human beings, therefore setting rules governing these conducts is essential. This activity is morally acceptable as long as it happens within the legal confines. Therefore formulating laws that streamline the experiments is a critical requirement for the scientists. The laws will limit the researcher from subjecting the animals to unnecessary sufferings (Latham 1). The American system governing the animal studies have left gaps in the legal provisions that are used by scientist to brutalize animals during their studies. Therefore accommodating a legal pathway that may benefit the animals and reduce their suffering has been an interest of scholars and some of the animal researchers. Some of the ways animal suffering comes are when scientific studies have been conducted, and the use of animals has not been substantially justified. In most cases, there are other laboratory methods that may be used to confirm a phenomenon without using an animal. Therefore a scientific study that utilizes animals and cannot generate valuable scientific knowledge should not be allowed. In some cases when estimating the potential suffering that an animal under a study will experience the researcher ratchets its down or ratchets up the expected scientific contribution which is a violation of animal right on the pretext of valuable studies (Latham 4). Another way animal suffering may be considered where an unnecessary pain to an animal occurs without a strict need to induce it to achieve the result. Additionally, some scholars may use more animals than required to undergo the same pain and suffering. Also, some scientist may use less sentient animals for a study instead of replacing them which raises more concern about the harm that animal experience while human scientist uses them for their studies. Therefore a legal guidance will require the scientist to consider approaches that will minimize the suffering that these animals encounter during their work. The researchers should be compelled to observe the research protocol to reduce the harm to animals. However, this has not been achieved hence the need to stop the animal experiments.

Additionally, the use of animals for the medical researchers as if not enough torment for the animals human beings have started to use them in their cosmetic research studies. Some of the cosmetic products include mascara which has little value as compared to the suffering an animal will encounter. Some animals used in these barbaric activities include the mascara with the guinea pig and the bunnies with the shaving creams studies. These makeup products are prepared by compromising the life of another living being. Testing these makeup on the animals is a form of animal cruelty that people should fight and maybe start promoting those make-ups which have not been tested on animals. Some companies which have harkened to the outcry to stop cosmetic test on animals include Tarte and Clinique. These companies have realized that the animal brutality affected the image of their products, and hence avoiding such hostile activities is a humane measure which will also impact positively on their market share for their products. These companies have been inspired by companies such as Josie Maran and Stella McCartney who started a cosmetics line with products free from animal tests and had been positively welcomed by the public (Abby para 3). The society has become aware of this brutality and resent products from the companies that promote these harmful activities. Studies have shown that due to the improvement on the scientific technology, the ability to assess the effectiveness and safety of products and products have become easier. However, some scientists prefer to use animals, and this is considered unnecessary suffering. This situation calls for all law and policy makers to streamline the legal provisions and protect animal rights from these merciless people. Some companies have not been able to stop these conducts, which has forced some regions such as the European Union to ban the cosmetic tests using animal subjects. Some of the grounds to halt these test include the skin irritation and the intense toxicity on the animals. The ban also includes the importation of cosmetic products that had been tested on animals. This strictness shows the brutality on animals is intense and hence the need to intensify the war against the perpetrators.

Additionally, the banned cosmetic test in the European Union region, in the USA and Canada they are taking place due to the weak legal and ethical frameworks. For instance, they force animals such as rabbit mice, and bunnies to breathe through poisonous gas, rub irritating chemicals, and spray their eyes with these products to see the reaction among other torture. This fact means that despite many nations such as Indian, Norway, and Israel among another ruling against cosmetic tests on the animal the fight on this issue is still a challenge. However, the consumers are urged to voice their opinion by avoiding such products and consider animal test-free products. However, the customers for these products have concerns about the effectiveness of the cruelty-free cosmetics or how to ascertain a product is not a result of animal cruelty. These issues have made the public adamant of making bold moves against the perpetrators of these heinous activities. Additionally, some people have not understood the experiences animals have to encounter before they get the products they enjoy. This situation is delaying the revolution from cosmetics from the animal test, hence the need for government to intensify their position against the act. Soaps and shampoos are among the cosmetic products that have potentially been tested on animals before shelved for people to purchase and use (Cole 2). This is a challenge too since some products from some manufacturers are more efficient, and clients have become loyal to the companies. This situation, therefore, makes it difficult to shift to the unpredictable products to save an animal life. Thousands of animals each year die due to the cosmetic tests which they have to endure (Cole 90). The researchers leave the animals in seething pain without administering any drug. This cruelty assumes that animals have no emotions and this kind of abuse is what prompts the fight against the use of an animal for cosmetic and medical tests.

A study in the European Union revealed that a conflict had arisen following the ban of cosmetic test on animals and marketing of the relevant products based on the factual information such the intensity of animal cruelty that had been presented. At the beginning of the year 2003, the European Union enacted the legislation to fight the animal test for the cosmetic products and importation of the same products. The ban applied to all member states without prejudice. The ban was strict that companies were not allowed to market products whose ingredients involve animal tests. The ban was implemented in phases, and by 2013 the document with the policy had enacted all elements and so was adopted. The directive required the producers of the cosmetics to provide communities with safe products which have to be tested before delivered to the market. The products need to indicate all ingredients and relevant conditions that should be observed to avoid adverse outcomes after use. One the products have been tested and confirmed the European center for the validation of the alternative methods have to approve the alternative testing procedure for the same product (Fischer 178). However, this process for alternative validation has been a challenge to establish the only option remained animal tests. This was a new procedure that contravened the ban on animal test for cosmetic products. The reason for the re-establishment of the animal tests as the alternative method for confirming the safety of the product was due to the lack of any alternative approach. Additionally, the animal tests were the only reliable methods to establish the toxicity of products, while efforts to develop secure methods being underway. This situation affected the marketing and producing cosmetics from an animal test. It even raised the concern of why the animal tests as a source of validating safety were allowed by the marketing of the same denied permission. Cosmetic manufacturers also challenged the directive by stating that it infringed their right of pursuing an economic activity and do business as a European Union citizen of a member country (Fischer 180). This situation was considered an infringement of the fundamental rights. This case shows the struggle in the European Union to implement the ban on a cosmetic test using animals.

However, the animal and human research operate within the standardized procedure that is meant to keep them safe from unnecessary harm. Therefore, the Nuremberg Code and the Belmont result are some of the documents that noted the abuse of human subjects when used in scientific studies which facilitated the ban of the use of human and preference of animals as a safer method (Ferdowsian 475). For this reason, the guidelines to experiment using animals have been designed but with many inconsistencies that leave gaps for the researcher to abuse the animal. It also has no explicit ethical stipulation that keeps researchers from harming the animals during the test. The outcome of this situation is designing policies which are poorly informed and hence ineffective in protecting the animal rights. Studies have revealed that animal as a living being has emotions, cognition, and experience harms such as fear and pain just like human beings but researchers have shown no concern of these aspects when using animals for their tests. These findings have been shared with the public and hence the reason for the outcry to ban the use of animals in experiments for cosmetic, medical or other products for human consumption. The animals after the experimentation and released have been shown to encounter emotional, physical, and psychological effects which disorient the animals life. The need for using animals for experiments started in the 1800 and intensified in the 20th century as it was discovered it was an effective method to discover human treatment of various conditions (Ferdowsian 477). These studies were common in America and Europe before moving to other parts of the world. In the late 1880s, people, especially in Europe, revealed raised concern on the use of animals but there were no legal frameworks to handle the issue. The same trends have continued to grow with little being done by some nations, for instance, ban cosmetic test while permitting for medical tests. In American none of those has been banned and hence dragging the fight on this issues. It is important for the globe to unite in dealing with this concern.

Additionally, the animal rights groups have come up recently to show their anger against the use of animals to experiment. Despite the animal tests being attributed to the discovery of key human medicine such as vaccines, medication for cancer, and transplant techniques, concerns have been raised on the procedures applied on animals to achieve these results. The animal right movements have cited that there are alternative methods such as the vascular model which allows fluid dynamics which makes it possible for scholars to study blood flow without using animals. The model is effective and has all major circulatory vessels and a heart supporting the flow (Hajar 39). The scientist can also use this model to study how various devices will work on a human being which can help reduce the suffering of animal subjects in scientific experimentation. The researcher’s claim that the animal tests are the standard experiments that provide reliable findings. This application has hesitated the requirement for governments to ban this practice to alleviate suffering on animals. This is bad news for animals since they remain the best option for scientific studies as they minimize false positive as compared to other experimental studies. Despite all these, there is need to use different effective scientific test to get desired results that hurting animals.

Furthermore, approximately 120 million animals are used across the world for scientific purposes to supply the biomedical field. The types of experiments used are either basic or applied experimentation. The basic research refers to the use of animals to study human diseases and other basic biological features. Whereas implemented is the use of animals to study drugs, toxicity, and establish the safety of products such as cosmetic before human consumption (Akhtar 409). These activities are meant to steer the efforts of developing the efficacy and safety of the humane treatment. The animals test have been the gold standards for preclinical assessments of treatments even without further examination of its validity. A study revealed that animal test has a poor predictive value of how a treatment will work on a person; therefore they cannot entirely be relied upon to predict the outcome on human beings. Such claims confirm that some animal test which results in unreliable findings harm animals and so there is need to abolish experimentation using animal subjects. This situation requires urgent ethical guidance since the total harm exerted on the animal during these experiments is too high compared to their results. The challenge is that most biomedical practitioners still have faith in the animal experimental and hope to overcome the limitation and the unreliability associated with this practice. This situation confirms that despite the knowledge that these experiments only yield more harm than perceived benefits the researchers seem to enjoy the experience and not willing to avoid this barbaric act.

Additionally, in 1952 two authors Russel and Burch public an article titled The Principles of Human Experimental which gained popularity among animal researcher for its insight. The authors stated that it was vital to reduce, reduce, refine and replacement of the animal subjects. This article brought that concept of 3r which encouraged the researcher to minimize the number of animals used in a study. As shown above, some researcher uses more animals to conduct a study which requires less or with results which have little value. The thinking behind the 3r principle was that making more animals suffer unnecessarily is an act of cruelty towards animals and hence should be stopped (Ferdowsian and Nancy 10). When refining the study, it means the researcher should focus on experimenting on animals by inflicting minimal pain. Finally, replacement refers to the use of alternative subjects to conduct the experiments which will potentially give same results to the animals. The three “r” is currently used as the main guide for the animal experimentations to reduce the harm posed to these subjects during scientific studies. The presence of this article confirms the animals are suffering and no means that alleviate that hence the need to call off the whole activities.

In conclusion, the practice of animal experimentation started in the 1800s in Europe and American, and by the late 1800s, people had begun to realize that the exercise was harming the animals. Approximately 120 million animals are brutalized across the world for various biomedical and cosmetic studies among others, and this should be stopped. Some nation’s such as India, Israel, Norway, and the European Union have placed bans on these activities, but some such as Canada and USA are a huge promoter. The use of animals for cosmetic products experimentation is the most tormenting as it irritates the animals’ skin and eyes and also sensitivity which leads to death. Therefore it should be a global concern to stop these activities and save animals from such kind of brutality.

Work cited

Abby, Ellin. “Leaving Animals Out of the Cosmetics Picture.” ProQuest, Newyork Time magazine, 2017.

Akhtar, Aysha. "The flaws and human harms of animal experimentation." Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics24.4 (2015): 407-419.

Cole, Natasha. "Cruelty-Free Cosmetics 101." Natural Life, 2015 Annual, pp. 87-91. EBSCOhost, libdb.smc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=tr ue&db=c9h&AN=112092934&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Fischer, Kristian. "Testing Bans and Marketing Bans under the Cosmetics Directive: How to find a balance between the protection of animal welfare and the right to develop and market cosmetic ingredients." European Food and Feed Law Review 4.3 (2009): 172-184.

Ferdowsian, Hope R., and Nancy Beck. "Ethical and scientific considerations regarding animal testing and research." PloS one 6.9 (2011): e24059.

Ferdowsian, Hope. "Human and animal research guidelines: aligning ethical constructs with new scientific developments." Bioethics 25.8 (2011): 472-478.

Hajar, Rachel. "Alternative to animal testing." Heart views: the official journal of the Gulf Heart Association 12.1 (2011): 39.

Latham, Stephen R. "US law and animal experimentation: a critical primer." Hastings Center Report 42.s1 (2012).