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Annually, millions of animals suffer and die in painful tests in order to determine the safety of cosmetics. Substances like eye shadow and soap are tested on rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, dogs, and many other animals, despite the fact that the test results do not help prevent or treat human illness or injury.

Cosmetics are not required to be experimented on animals, and since non-animal alternatives exist, it’s difficult to understand why some companies still choose to conduct these brutal and unnecessary tests. Cosmetic companies murder millions of animals every year just to put a few more dollars into their pockets. The companies who perform these tests claim that they establish the safety of both the products and their components. However, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates cosmetic products, does not require animal testing in any way, shape, or form. Some of the tests used on animals are eye, toxicity, and skin irritant tests.

In eye irritant tests, a liquid, flake, granule, or powdered material is placed directly into the eyes of rabbits. The animals are often immobilized in cages from which only their heads may show. They do not receive anesthesia during the tests. After placing the irritants into the rabbits’ eyes, scientists record the damage to the eye tissue at specific intervals over a period of seventy-two hours. The tests sometimes can last anywhere from seven, up to eighteen days. Side effects from these experiments include swollen eyelids, ulceration, bleeding, swollen irises, massive deterioration, and blindness. During the tests, rabbits’ eyelids are usually held open with clips. Many animals break their necks while restrained, attempting to escape.

Toxicity tests, otherwise known as lethal dose or poisoning tests, record the amount of a material that will kill a percentage, sometimes even up to one-hundred percent, of a group of lab animals. In these tests, a liquid is forced into the animals stomach linings, and through holes slit in their throats. Scientists observe the animals’ reactions which may be convulsions, severe asthma attacks, malnutrition, rashes, boils, and bleeding from facial features. This test was developed in 1927 and the testing continues until at least fifty percent of the animals die. Like eye irritant tests, lethal dose tests are unreliable and have too many variables to have an accurate result.

Alternatives to cosmetic testing are far less expensive and more accurate. Animals obviously have different biological systems than humans, and therefore the tests cannot be as accurate as the current tests of modern day science. Some animal-free alternatives are cell and tissue cultures, corneas from eye banks, and sophisticated computer and mathematical models. Companies may also calculate a formula using ingredients already proven safe by the FDA. Most cruelty-free companies use a combination of many methods to ensure the safety of a product.

Lobbying by animal welfare groups has resulted in federal, state, and local legislation severely restricting animal experimentation. Under the U.S. Animal Welfare Act, all animals used in biomedical research must be bought from vendors licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The USDA inspects laboratories where animals are used and enforces federal laws regarding treatment and care of the animals. Scientists have also taken action to prevent the abuse of the animals, in part because abused animals may not result in reliable data. The American Physiological Society, the National Institutes of Health, and many other organizations have joined together in order to lay down guidelines and rules for the use and treatment of experimental animals. Currently, there are also many universities with animal welfare committees.

In a national survey conducted by the American Medical Association, seventy-five percent of Americans are against using animals in cosmetic testing. Hundreds of companies have responded by switching to cruelty-free test methods. To help put an end to animal testing, people can stop buying products that were tested on animals, call or write to these companies, or write to your congressional representative about the alternatives that currently exist.

Scientific researchers use animal experimentation for biomedical and veterinary research to enhance human health and possibly the welfare of other animals. They claim that successful medical treatments including antibiotics, vaccines and other drugs have been developed with the aid of animal experiments, and such research a crucial means of investigation of and the development of treatments for serious diseases. Some organisations are completely opposed to all animal experimentation, arguing that medical advances do not justify it. It is important that the effects of drugs can assessed before clinical trials on humans begins. Provided that it is carefully controlled, I do think animal experiments for medical research are justified, as long as it is really necessary and no other type of research is possible.

An area that I do strongly disagree with is the use of animals for testing toxicity of substances, such as cosmetics and shampoo. Public opinion is against this type of testing as it is seen as cruel and unnecessary, and many products are now sold as ‘not tested on animals’. The Body Shop, a retailer of beauty products, pioneered this approach in the Eighties and many retailers followed suit.

Organisations

In Britain there is an organisation dedicated to the welfare of animals, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA). There are many others, frequently supported by charitable donations, for example donkey sanctuaries and hedgehog hospitals. Some animal rights activists favour direct action, such as protests and demonstrations. Animal rights extremists have been in involved in illegal action such as arson attacks on laboratories or on the researchers themselves.

Genetic modification

What is genetic modification?

Genetic engineering is the method of changing the inherited characteristics of an organism in a predetermined way by altering its genetic material, or deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Genetically modified foods are those where this technique has been used on the plants or animals that enter the food chain. For example, genetic modification has been used to improve the texture of a tomato and to make it last longer. What concerns many people is that the long term effects of consuming such foods cannot be predicted, and consumers have rejected ‘GM’ ingredients in the foods they buy.

Benefits

The process of genetic engineering has great potential. For example, the gene for insulin, needed for treating diabetics, is normally found only in higher animals. With genetic engineering it can now be introduced into a bacterial cell. The bacteria can then be grown in large quantities, giving an abundant source of so-called “recombinant” insulin at a relatively low cost. Another important use of genetic engineering is in the manufacture of recombinant factor VIII, the blood-clotting agent missing in patients with haemophilia. Virtually all haemophiliacs who received factor VIII before the mid-1980s have contracted acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) or hepatitis from viral contaminants in the blood used to make the product. The possibility of viral contamination is eliminated completely with the use of recombinant factor VIII. Other uses of genetic engineering include increasing the disease resistance of crops, producing pharmaceutical compounds in the milk of animals, generating vaccines, and altering livestock traits.

Hazards

While the potential benefits of genetic engineering are considerable, so may be the potential dangers. For example, the introduction of cancer-causing genes into a common infectious organism, such as the influenza virus, could be hazardous. Consequently, in most nations, experiments with recombinant DNA are closely regulated, and those involving infectious agents are permitted only under the strictest conditions of containment. Another concern is that, despite stringent controls, some unforeseen effect might occur as the result of genetic manipulation.

Animal experimentation by scientists can be cruel and unjust, but at the same time it can provide long term benefits for humanity. Animals used in research and experiments have been going on for 2,000 years and keep is going strong. It is a widely debated about topic all over the world. Some say it is inhuman while others say it’s for the good of human kind. There are many different reasons why people perform experiments and why others total disagree with it.

Each year 20 million animals are produce and breed for the only purpose but to be tested on. Fifty-three thousands of animals are used each year in medical and veterinary schools. The rest is used in basic research. The demand for animals in the United States is 50 million mice, 20 million rats, and about 30 million other animals. This includes 200,000 cats and 450,000 dogs. The world uses about 200-250 million animals per year.

The problem with working with animals is that they cannot communicate their feelings and reactions. Other people say that they can communicate and react to humans just a well as one person to another. Some of the animals the research’s use are not domesticated which makes them extremely hard to control and handle.

The experiments that go on behind closed doors are some of the most horrific things a human could think of too torture somebody or something. Animals in labs are literally used as models and are poked at and cut open like nothing is happening. When drug are tested on animals only one in eight thousand reach the drugstore shelves and are approved by the Food and Drug Administration or FDA. There are numerous tests that animals are put through. Toxicity testing or testing determining if a substance is poisonous or not. Animals are exposed to chemicals through inhalation, ingestion, eye contact, and skin contact. They are induced or other words they were normal until a scientist inject chemicals, microorganisms, or other substances into them to produce a disease or to create symptoms of a specific condition. They are put in cages that are covered in their own feces and excrement in small cramped windowless rooms in a laboratory where they know they are going to die. They are bred to die and that’s their only reason they where born on this earth so that the scientists can test the effects of drugs and disease. Scientists actually stand and watch animals die from diseases. They induce hemophilia (excessive bleeding) in dogs, epilepsy (causes seizures) in mice, glaucoma (eye disease) in rabbits, and deafness in cats.

There are three main reasons why animals are used in experiments are research on disease, behavior, and education. Research of how the cells function and how disease works. What causes the disease? What can prevent those diseases and how to cure them? Research’s test drugs, chemicals, or products to determine safety and effectiveness. Tested on drugs, discovery new surgery, and to test vaccine or to invent one. They are used in cosmetics to test their efficiency. They are used in the military to test effects of war, radiation, sickness, and impact forces of objects. The behavior of animals and what affects them. How various organisms and organs respond to events of everyday life? It can benefit in education in school and universities. Students dissect and practice on animals in surgery. It trains them in medicine and science teaching anatomy and biology.

Humans and scientist can benefit from animal research by finding cures and helping people, but it costs a lot of money and takes away a lot of money from government funding which good go to help the homeless or build shelters. It is and will always be a long debated about subject. On one hand it will considerably help increase the advancements in medicine and science, but on the other hand it is extremely cruel and is one of the most inhuman things to do. The facts are animal experimentation will be going on for some time and there’s nothing we can do because it helps people in so many different ways.