Animal Testing Agencies

It’s the talk of the town, does it help? Animal testing is a big discussion topic all over. There are many reasons for testing, cosmetics, medicine, or science. We all have our reasons, but what actually happens to the animals? Animal testing is also considered animal experimentation. It involves animals that are purpose bred, while others are caught or bought from dealers. It is estimated that 50 to 100 million smaller animals are used. This includes many species of worms or flies. While the larger animals are used, they are not shown in the statistics. The research is performed inside universities, medical schools, pharmaceutical companies, farms, defense establishments, and commercial facilities that provide animal-testing services to industry. One way to experiment on animals is to test a burn injury. The animal is burned alive and then the scientists remove chunks of the animal’s flesh to provide more study. To measure the amounts of head trauma, the animal is strapped down to a table and multiple blows to the head causing brain damage. And that’s just the beginning.
Many drugs are used on smaller animals, many people who took the anesthetic Methoxyflurane, proved to have kidney failures when in the testing showed none. The arthritis medication Flosint, was fatal when it passed tests on monkeys, rats, and dogs. A cough medicine that was tested on monkeys, and other animals, passed but proved fatal on humans. The cough medicine was called Opren. The Antidepressant, Zelmid caused severe neurological problems when it actually passed tests on rats and dogs with flying colors. Practolol caused blindness in 78 people and killed 23. The animal tested drugs that passed the tests, end up killing or severely harming humans, 61% of the time.
Humans and animals are completely different from one another in many ways; physiologically, metabolically, antomically, genetically, and psychologically. For example, we deposit plaque which is fatty acids in our blood vessels, rodents deposit in their liver. We also have a gall bladder when rats do not. Cats do not have an enzyme that disables them to break down the pain reliever, ibuprofen The list just goes on and on.
Animal tests can not be used to test for different animals. Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University tested similarities between rats and mice, and found that only 30% of the time, a drug that cures a disease in rats cures the same disease in mice. Animal testing is only good for that animal that is being tested on. The only true scientific model for a rat is another rat. Likewise, the only true scientific model for a human is another human. There are between 25 and 50 billion animals killed in laboratories each year. That doesn’t even include those that have not died. The animals that are still being tested on, the one’s that have an impairment due to the tests. If the tests don’t work on humans the way the do on animals, then why do we still pay for it to be performed?