Animal Testing- A Boon or a Bane
A blog by International Veterinary Students' Association (IVSA), India.
A blog written By: Aadhya Sharma
WHAT IS ANIMAL TESTING?
The term "animal testing"
also referred to as "animal research" or "animal
experimentation" is a controversial practice which refers to the use of
non-human living animals for the practice of scientific experiments and procedures
for the purposes of testing hypotheses, studying diseases, evaluating the
safety and effectiveness of medications and assessing the effects of chemicals,
cosmetics, household cleaners, food additives, pharmaceuticals and industrial-
agro-chemicals before their approval for human use. The animals that are used
for research are- rodents ( mice and rats) , guinea pigs, rabbits , hamsters ,
non-human primates ( monkeys) , dogs , cats, birds, fishes and many more.
Why is this a topic of concern?
The question of how far human self-interest can go in the name of using
animals for research. If ethical and moral principles are compromised, will
humanity prove to be limited to humans alone, justifying the exploitation of
those often referred to as the "voiceless"?
As the definition says- “controversial practice”, there are two sides to
this coin as well: supporters who argue the benefits and positive aspects of
the practice, and critics who highlight the potential drawbacks and ethical
concerns.
Supporters’ Perspective:
Myth 1: Animals used in research are abused and mistreated.
Fact: Valid and reliable scientific outcomes are closely linked to
proper animal care. For research, findings to be credible, animals must be
cared during the entire study. Poor animal welfare compromises the results and the
integrity of the scientific conclusions drawn from the research.
Myth 2: Animal research is scientifically invalid or a fraud because animals and humans are biologically different.
Fact: Despite differences, there are significant similarities in the
biology of humans and animals. For example, chimpanzees share over 99% of their
DNA with humans, while mice share more than 98%. Animals are susceptible to
many of the same diseases that affect humans, including cancer, diabetes, and
heart disease, making them valuable models for studying these health
conditions.
Myth 3: Millions of pets are stolen and sold for research experiments.
Fact: The animals used in research are not randomly taken from pet
owners or stolen. They are specifically bred in controlled environments or
sourced from licensed breeding institutions. Ethical guidelines significantly
limit the use of wild-caught animals, ensuring that research is conducted with
proper oversight and adherence to ethical standards.
 |
| Percent relatedness to humans* |
Animal
Welfare Standards in Research
The well-being of animals used in research is regularly monitored to ensure
ethical treatment. For each species under study, daily care and observation is
provided in the following manner:
- Environment: Ideal room temperature,
humidity and ventilation maintained.
- Housing: Cages are designed to meet
appropriate size, construction, and location requirements. Rules on how
many animals can be accommodated in each pen are also followed.
- Bedding and Sanitation: Animals are provided with
suitable bedding (litter materials) to check hygiene and comfort. Regular
sanitation using disinfectants is followed.
- Nutrition and Hydration: Animals are given access to
proper food and ad libitum water supply.
- Behavioural and
Psychological Health: Research facilities offer sensory and motor
stimulation, allowing animals to express species-specific behaviors. This
promotes psychological well-being through activities such as physical
exercise, manipulative tasks, and cognitive challenges.
Importance and advantages of animal testing:-
- Advancement in the field of medicine: animal testing led to the development of various vaccines, pharmaceutical products and drugs.
- Mechanism of action of different diseases: animal studies have contributed in the knowledge of diseases, their pathology, prognosis and diagnosis. With the help of animals, now it became possible to eradicate diseases.
- Safety testing: animals are used to study the toxic effects of various vaccines or drugs helps by preventing risks and side effects on humans and are used for evaluating the safety for human use. Lethal dose, efficacy of a drug and all the side effects can be evaluated with the help of animal testing.
- Education and training: it facilitates to train the future scientists, doctors, and researchers, helping them understand biological processes and laboratory techniques.
Random Fact
Europe and India have already implemented
bans on animal testing for cosmetics, as well as the sale or import of newly
animal-tested beauty products. This is a big step toward reducing animal
suffering in the cosmetic industry.
Critic's
Perspective:
All animal testing practices, even
those considered "mild," have the potential to harm both the physical
and mental well-being of animals, sometimes leading to life-threatening
consequences. In many cases, animals are euthanized after experiments, while
others are reused for subsequent testing. Each year, over 110 million
animals—including mice, rats, frogs, dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea
pigs, monkeys, fish, and birds—are subjected to injury, disability, paralysis,
burns, poisoning, and death in laboratory experiments.
 |
| Tumour measuring*** |
Adverse
Effects of Animal Testing on Animals:
- Exposure to Harmful physical
and chemical Substances: Animals are introduced to various drugs,
chemicals, radiation, or pathogens, which can cause illness, pain,
distress, or death.
- Toxicity Testing: Feeding chemicals, inhale
toxic gases, or injecting substances into the abdomen, muscles, or veins
in order to assess the toxicity of substances.
- Genetic Manipulation: Some experiments involve
modifying an animal’s genetics to simulate heritable or autoimmune
diseases and transforming a healthy animal into one diseased animal suffering
from chronic pain.
- Physical Restraint and
Deprivation: Physical
restraint, as well as food and water deprivation, to observe behaviour and
its consequences.
- Surgical Procedures: Different surgical
procedures are performed on animals and followed by recovery, and this
cycle continues leading to life-threatening experiments.
- Induced Injuries: Wounds, burns, and other
injuries are induced on animals to study healing procedure and tissue
regeneration.
- Pain Induction: Animals are sometimes
subjected to pain in order to study its physiological effects and possible
treatments.
- Stressful Stimuli: Animals may be exposed to
electric shocks, forced swimming, or excessive doses of chemicals to
determine the limits of their endurance or threshold for stress and their
in general physiological responses to stress.
These
practices highlight the severe and often inhumane conditions animals in the
name of scientific research.
 |
| Eye irritancy test in rabbit** |
Species-specific effects of animal testing:
- Mice: Force-fed with high doses of chemicals for extended period of time to check if it can potentially cause carcinogenic effects in humans.
- Monkeys: Infant monkeys are separated from their mothers to study the effects of extreme stress on human behaviour.
- Dogs: Undergo different procedures in which their hearts, lungs and kidneys are damaged or removed to study organ physiological functioning.
- Cats: spinal cords are impaired and then forced to run on small treadmills to examine response of this injury with respect to nervous system effects.
- Pigs: implanted with various devices such as pacemakers and dental implants to study how the immune system reacts to foreign bodies.
- Rabbits: Pregnant rabbits are force-fed toxic pesticides and chemicals for weeks every day to observe the effects of exposure on mothers and growing foetuses
- Rats: put into small tubes and are imposed to inhale cigarette smoke to study carcinogenic effects.
- Horses: injected with viral pathogens, to produce serum antibodies and the corresponding effects are monitored
 |
| Model for auditory research # |
Random Fact
Laboratories that use mice, rats, birds, reptiles, and amphibians in
experiments are exempt from many of the basic protections outlined in the
Animal Welfare Act (AWA), according to the New England Anti-Vivisection
Society. This exemption leaves these animals more vulnerable to inhumane
treatment in research settings.
Alternatives for animal testing:
With the advancement in the technology, it is not impossible to develop
models, which can be used rather than real animals, in situ cell cultures, 3D
printings of organs, computer and robotics along with the help of AI to
demonstrate the experiments that don't need to rely on animals all the time.
Moreover, adoption of 3R's principle , that is ; replacement, reduction and
refinement of animal testing , which includes replacing of practice that uses
animals with the ones which doesn't require animals, reduction in the number of
animals used in an experiment and refinement of procedures to induce only the
minimum pain possible.
"The
three R's are not just principles for humane science; they are a roadmap to
innovative, ethical, and scientifically superior methods of research.”_
John Parascandola.
Conclusion:
We as humans are failing to maintain animal welfare and are prioritising scientific
progress over it hence objectifying the animals. Well, it's real hard to
completely ban animal testing for the production of vaccines or to take side of
only one of the perspective but imagine killing pregnant animals and testing
their foetuses , isn't it brutal ? Does
it sounds good that "our hearts are beating by beating and abusing the
animals?”
"The
ethics of experimentation demand a balance between the pursuit of progress and
the sanctity of life be it human or animal.”_ Hopkins ,
We should maintain a balance between deriving essential benefits from animals and ethics we should stick to while advancing towards the more moral and non-animal based research models.
The Plague Dogs by Richard Adam
• https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/animals-used-experiments-faq
• https://med.stanford.edu/animalresearch/facts-and-myths.html
• https://dosomething.org/article/11-facts-about-animal-testing
• * https://www.thetech.org/ask-a-geneticist/articles/2014/human-seal-shared-dna/
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