Topic > The Ethics of Animal Experimentation

Enormous progress has been made in biomedical research since the 19th century. Many of these are due to the millions of animals that are used in what can often be very painful and stressful scientific procedures. The ethics of animal testing is undoubtedly one of the most important scientific issues seen in the world today. There are several reasons why we choose to use animals when conducting research. First of all, testing on humans is incredibly dangerous and unethical. We also know a lot about the physiology, genotype and behavior of animals (e.g. rodents). Even animals such as rodents are easily raised, handled and can be kept together in large groups. Model animals (e.g. mice, rats, etc.) are therefore preferred to humans for testing the effects of drugs. There are three fundamental principles to consider before conducting an animal test for research purposes. These are known as the “Three Rs”: Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Substitution: Try using a completely different method without the use of animals. Reduction: Use as few animals as possible. The most commonly used method for calculating the optimal sample size is called power analysis. Refinement: reduce as much as possible the pain/stress that the animals will be forced to experience. Interestingly, however, the number of animals used in testing has increased even more in recent years, even as our attention has been brought to these new principles with the idea of ​​reducing the number of animals used in testing. This has raised important ethical and scientific questions. Furthermore, although the “Three Rs” provide us with powerful concepts, they do not take into account the significant advances we have made in our knowledge of the emotional and cognitive capacity of animals used in tests. We now have a renewed appreciation for the harm we cause through animal research. We also have an evolving cultural perspective regarding the place of animals in the modern world. This better understanding we have gained is encouraging people to take a deeper look at the use of animals in testing in modern society. There are a worrying amount of potential causes of harm to animals through testing. These include invasive procedures, illnesses, and withdrawal of physiological needs. Other causes include social isolation and not being able to perform your usual behaviors. Numerous studies have revealed that, even with careful handling, animals showed clear changes in stress markers (physiological/hormonal). Recently, there have been growing concerns about whether these animal experiments are actually relevant to genuine human health results. Animal data have been compared to human data in numerous articles, and these articles have shown that in areas of study, such as neuronal and vascular diseases, animal results have not been replicated in human clinical trials. Please note: this is just a sample. Get a custom article from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay People against animal testing question the scientific community on the need to sacrifice millions of animals to achieve their results. They say that much of the research isn't even beneficial, with experiments conducted for the sole purpose of writing an academic paper to acquire a PhD, with no practical end in mind. It is also argued that suffering.