SHOULD ANIMAL TESTING BE ALLOWED (Essay Sample)

Should Animal Testing Be Allowed Name Course Institution Professor Date Should Animal Testing Be Allowed Animal testing is a highly controversial topic that has spurred ethical and practical concerns with diverse advocacies. Supporters opine that animal testing has been crucial in the progress of medicine, making key discoveries and therapies possible. Nonetheless, critics express overwhelming ethical issues facing the practice and the argue that other available and more accurate methods should be used. Animal testing should be highly regulated and replaced with scientifically advanced and humane methods to promote wellbeing and respect rights of all sentient beings. Animal testing is the backbone of many scientific findings such as medical therapies and organ transplants. The procedure has been crucial in major scientific breakthroughs which have saved humanity. Proponents cite that technological advancement in the field of medicine, such as the production of vaccines and treatments of different ailments, require the use of animals (Landi et al., 2021). Supporters argue that animals provide essential information that on complex structures and functions that cannot be derived from other artificial alternatives. For instance, insulin research which has saved hundreds of thousands of lives was based animal tests (Landi et al., 2021). Thus, the ban of animal testing will negatively affect advances in medical studies and endanger people's lives and health. Nevertheless, animal testing is riddled with several ethical concerns such as pain and suffering that animals are subjected to in labs. The concepts of the 3Rs —Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement— therefore call for the limitation of the use of animals in experiments and fairness to animals where use cannot be avoided (Díaz et al., 2021). These animals such as mice, rats, and primates, get confined, experience harmful experiments, and are exposed to premature death. For ethical reasons, living organisms should not be treated this way, especially when there are better solutions. Moreover, there are many substitutes for animal testing in the scientific field, and the new technologies are efficient and moral. Animal-free methods such as in vitro testing, computer modeling, and imaging have been proven to be quite effective. Organ on-chip and human cell-based assays are closer to mimicking human physiology than animal testing (Ingber, 2020). These alternatives also prevent the suffering of animals while providing reliable results for various researches. For instance, the European Union has effectively enforced the laws and policies on non-animal-based testing in cosmetics, thus proving that the approaches are plausible (Ingber, 2020). Therefore, these scientific alternatives should be considered where possible to spare the animals the damage. Lastly, the reliability of the results provided by animal-based studies are still questionable in translating their effects on animals to humans. Variations from one species to another can provide inaccurate information and lead to pointless clinical trials and substantial losses. About 95% of the drugs that pass animal tests fail to produce significant effects in human beings (Landi et al., 2021). This high failure rate mean that animal models are not the best way to advance science and medicine. Therefore, it is wise to adopt more successful methods with minimal ethical concerns. In summary, it can be deduced that moving away from animal...