Whether or not we should use animals in medical research.

Discuss - Whether or not we should use animals in medical research

The use of animals for medical research is a debatable issue with some claiming that for the benefit of science , medical research needs animals and testing on animals is a necessity for the progress of science Others argue that it is unethical to use animals and any other form of life as some of this research would involve killing of the animals and this is completely unacceptable even for the sake of progress of science . Other alternative methods to killing and using

animals should be used for research and study and animals should not be directly used abused and killed . In fact people advocating protection of wild life and related policies are against the capture and indiscriminate use of nature 's resources even if it is in the grab of betterment for humanity This essay deals with both sides of the debate showing the advantages and disadvantages of using animals for testing for betterment and advancement of medical research

Part I

Why animal testing is plausible and can be used

In most cases , most pharmaceutical companies try new drugs on animals first and also try new chemicals or use animal anatomy to understand human anatomy . Many people believe that medical research as practised by big pharmaceutical companies use animals unethically for business gains and profits . The medical companies have their own research and development units where new drugs are initially tested on animals especially rats or guineapigs and the effects of these drugs are then generalized on to humans a many clinical symptoms of animals are similar to what is expected in humans . Thus if new drugs are not effective or have adverse impact on animals , the same could be presumed in case of humans for the same drug . This generalization factor is important as companies and scientists claim that they use animals to understand the effects of drug on humans or simply to understand the structure and functions of human by studying animals as it would not be possible to study humans and their body parts directly and it would also be completely wrong to apply new drugs or use new medicines for illnesses on humans directly without knowing what effects these would have on the body

In fact although before releasing a new drug in the market , companies conduct clinical trials on volunteers after testing these on animals and volunteers get paid for this . Yet the ethical aspect of this , or trying new drugs on humans is again debated but then this is the way medical research has to work otherwise new drugs will not be tested . It is again controversial whether new drugs could be tested artificially say with technical or robotic manipulation and whether drugs could be used on humans directly without testing on animals . How ethical would that be and thus there are two points here that touches on ethical issues . In the first case , animal testing would be unethical and yet testing medicines...