Argument against Intrusive Animal Testing
One of the most controversial topics in research has been animal testing with some schools of thought arguing for its high positive impact on developing life-saving drugs and
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Argument against Intrusive Animal Testing
One of the most controversial topics in research has been animal testing with some schools of thought arguing for its high positive impact on developing life-saving drugs and medications while others argue against it for its inhumane treatment of animals. There are various laboratory situations when animals are used for testing purposes. The first is when testing the toxicity of certain chemicals whereby the animals are forcefully exposed to the chemicals through injection, feeding or inhalation. The second situation is whereby animals are included in experiments that entail genetic manipulation to either add or get rid of one or more genes. Other situations include infliction of wounds on animals to test healing and treatment procedures and prolonged periods of deprivation or restraint to allow them to be observed or examined. The use of animals for testing remains legal, with the Animal Welfare Act of 2006 specifying about the importance of providing them with proper housing, food and water, among other basic needs. This essay explores various laboratory experiments to find out whether intrusive animal testing is of importance and justifiable. Therefore, the paper analyses the differences between in-vivo and vitro, the negative aspects of animal intrusive testing, the alternatives to animal testing as a solution and the recommendations to be used in medical testing. Even though animal testing has some benefits, animals should not be subjected to intrusive testing because of its negative effects on animals as well as advancements in biotechnology, medicine and pharmaceutical companies that provide viable alternatives which can be used to test in various research fields.
Medical fields use two types of testing – in vivo and in vitro, to make knowledge advancements and over the years, despite the rampant ethical concerns about in vivo studies, the technique has brought several benefits in conducting research in various scientific fields. In pharmaceutical studies, in vivo testing has been beneficial in testing the safety and effectiveness of drugs, this determining their usability in human species. Six case studies demonstrated that the dog species could be used to predict the effects of drugs on human beings since the toxicity effects of the drugs in dogs can be used to predict their toxicity in human beings (Prior et al., 2019). Non-human primates are crucial in establishing the safety of drugs in human beings, for instance, monoclonal antibodies (Prior et al., 2019). In the field of medicine, in vivo animal testing has been crucial in testing the effectiveness of key medical equipment and ensuring their safety for human use. Animal testing has been used in the development of various medical devices such as catheters, pace makers, hip prosthesis, dialysis machine, magnetic resonance imaging device and cochlear implant among others (Sachot & Vitale, 2019). Therefore, through numerous animal testing, advancements in medical innovations have been facilitated and human beings have benefited from these innovations, as new technology has been created from the results of the experiments.
In spite of the transformational role animal testing has had on the development of medical devices and drug testing, there are various challenges experienced by animals, human beings, as well as the researcher, as a result of animal testing. Animal testing is not justifiable to the cruelty in the experiences of the animals and the cases when the procedures used in the laboratory tests become dangerous. Some animal tests entail causing pain or injury to animals which is cruel towards animals. During processes to evaluate system toxicity of medical drugs or devices, animals may have equipment or substances rubbed onto their skin or injected into their bodies which is painful or may cause injuries (Sachot & Vitale, 2019). Also, some of the animal tests entail depriving them of their basic needs which can be a dangerous exercise for their physical and psychological well-being. Laboratory research may entail denying the animals food, water, isolation and stress which is detrimental to their well-being (Kehinde, 2013). The cruelty and dangerous nature of the experiments raise concerns about the well-being of animals as they are used for scientific research, thus raising the need for the development of different methods to alleviate suffering of animals.
Animal testing is also critiqued due to its potential for unreliability and thus, ineffectiveness in medical and scientific research about humans. There exist various differences between the functioning of the human and animal bodies due to species differences which may make the results of animal testing unreliable in understanding human beings. In a study using animals to test the effectiveness of monoclonal antibodies for human beings, there were significant dissimilarities in the set-up of certain pathways between human beings and non-human primates making the tests less reliable in assessing the toxicity of the antibodies in human beings (Prior et al., 2019). According to Langley Gill, 2016 he describes the mismatch as a species barrier which reduces the ability to apply animal findings to the human species. Moreover, human beings are also affected by other external factors which make animal tests unproductive in fully understanding human functioning and processes. The diet of human beings varies from that of animals and these differences may result in difficulties in making comparisons, for instance about their tolerance to carcinogens (Sachot & Vitale, 2019). Also, animals used in research live in a cage while human beings live freely (Lahvis, 2017). The physical, biological and environmental differences between human beings and animals make animal testing less reliable in drawing conclusions about human body.
There are several ethical concerns surrounding animals testing which make it unjustifiable. The first ethical concerns the harm versus benefits derived from animal testing. Animal testing may entail putting a rat in a cage which raises concerns about welfare implications versus the value of the findings (Kehinde, 2013). The animals used in the process are exposed to torture and suffering when they are injected with the test chemicals. Some of the test involve finding out the levels of toxicity and this always results in death for the animals and this is cruel to the animals used in the process. Because of this the interests of animals should be protected as animals also feel pain. Just like human beings, animals also have intrinsic value that should be respected and protected, and this is why it is unethical animals to such amounts of torture because of medical testing. There also exists ethical questions about the methodologies used in scientific research involving animals. Animal samples are prone to methodological errors such as selection and reporting bias (Sachot & Vitale, 2019). Animal testing is marred with unethical practices in the methodologies as well as the canonical principles of benefit and harm which reduce their effectiveness for research purposes.
The effectiveness of animal testing is unjustifiable due to its economic costs. There are significantly high economic costs that come with animal testing. Some animals take a long time before they are old enough for tests to be conducted on them. For example, there are animals that take up to five years to get into full maturity period for tests to be conducted on them, and through their maturation period a lot of resources have to be used. Due to this, there is high wastage of resources such as food, water, upkeep and space as the animals have to be retained for certain period of time (Sachot & Vitale, 2019). Apart from that some companies will spend a lot of money in conducting the tests so that they can achieve the correct data and information. In pursuit of accuracy a company ends up spending a lot resources and this is why animal testing is very costly. When compared to animal testing, in-vitro testing is cheaper because a complete Chromosome aberration test is estimated to cost $30,000 in animal testing and $20,000 in vitro testing and this shows that animal testing is always costly compared to other methods (Adeleye et al., 2015). The wastages involved in animal testing raise serious concerns about the economic viability of relying on animals in experimentation and research.
Over time, there has been research that has developed a series of alternatives that can be used instead of animals in research, thus negating the justifications that some scientists use to continue with intrusive animal testing. There are alternatives that can be categorized into computer modelling techniques, human cells (in vitro) as well as human volunteers that pass as viable animal-free options for research. Some examples of the tested alternatives to animal testing include ex vivo and in vitro 3D human skin models, organs on chips, stem cells, omic technologies, in silico modelling techniques and Toxicity Testing in the 21st century technique (Sachot &Vitale, 2019). These alternatives are not only more ethical choices, but are also less expensive yet still as useful as animal testing. (Doke & Dhawale, 2015). With the existence of these alternatives, it becomes impractical for scientists to avoid the switch to animal-free testing in research.
Instead of relying on animal testing as a form of medical testing, other safe methods should be adopted. There is need for a paradigm shift in medical testing to reduce the use of animal intrusive testing procedures and increase the use of available alternatives that are animal-free. There is need for legalization harmonization to reduce the use of animal intrusive testing. Scientific actors should be legally and professionally sanctioned to adopt and implement the (3Rs Principle- replacement, reduction, refining (Sachot & Vitale, 2019). There is need for increased collaboration between scientists to support the paradigm shift in animal testing. There should be an increase in sharing of data in scientific fields and organize refinement techniques to reduce number of animals involved in experiments (Myers et al., 2017). The responsibility to shift from animal intrusive testing does not lie with scientists alone, it requires cooperation between the various players including government and non-governmental actors, professional bodies, environmentalists as well as the general public.
Indeed, animal testing does provide some benefits to scientific research, however the practice comes with key adverse effects on the animals which can be reduced through the use of available alternatives that are animal-free. The challenges include ethical considerations in the event that scientists carry out dangerous tests that endanger the health of the animals, methodological challenges that arise when animal tests do not produce reliable data (since humans and animals are essentially different), and economic challenges in animal testing for toxicology due to the need to set aside resources such as food and space to cater for the needs of the animals. Today, the use of animal testing has been restricted to necessity and justifiable experiments. Due to the challenges of animal testing as well as current restrictions, it is more viable to rely on animal-free alternatives that have been developed through research in biotechnology, medicine and pharmaceutical industries. These alternatives include the use of computer modelling technologies, use of human cells (in vitro) as well as the recruitment of human volunteers. Medical research institutions are taking bold steps in considering new methods for medical testing and this shows that there is hope for medical testing disappearing in the near future. The following study has indicated that we do not need animals to conduct successful medical tests and this is why animal testing should be reconsidered.
References
Adeleye, Yeyejide, et al. "Implementing Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century (TT21C): Making safety decisions using toxicity pathways, and progress in a prototype risk assessment." Toxicology 332 (2015): 102-111.
Doke, Sonali K., and Shashikant C. Dhawale. "Alternatives to animal testing: A review." Saudi Pharmaceutical Journal 23.3 (2015): 223-229.
Kehinde, Elijah O. "They see a rat, we seek a cure for diseases: the current status of animal experimentation in medical practice." Medical Principles and Practice 22.Suppl. 1 (2013): 52-61.
Lahvis, Garet P. "Point of view: unbridle biomedical research from the laboratory cage." Elife 6 (2017): e27438.
Langley, Gill. "Response to “Comment on ‘Lessons from Toxicology: Developing a 21st-Century Paradigm for Medical Research’”." Environmental health perspectives 124.5 (2016): A85-A85. Accessed
Langley, G. (2016). Response to “Comment on ‘Lessons from Toxicology: Developing a 21st-Century Paradigm for Medical Research’”. Environmental health perspectives, 124(5). Accessed 20th June 2021 from https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/full/10.1289/ehp.1611305
Myers, Dayna Kerecman, et al. "From in vivo to in vitro: The medical device testing paradigm shift." ALTEX-Alternatives to animal experimentation 34.4 (2017): 479-500.
Prior, Helen, et al. "Integration of consortia recommendations for justification of animal use within current and future drug development paradigms." (2019): 319-325.
Sachot, Nadège, and Vitale Augusto. "Medical Devices Biological Safety Assessment: Towards Animal-free Testing." dA Derecho Animal: Forum of Animal Law Studies. Vol. 10. No. 1. 2019.
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