Scientist’s way of testing their products is animals. According to Marc Bekoff, Ph.D, this can be a very controversial topic, saying, “Some people say without hesitation that they love nonhuman animals (animals) and then intentionally harm them in education, research, entertainment, for food and clothing, and for sport.” They test the creations on rats, guinea pigs, mice, birds, rabbits, fish and even monkeys. According to the Human Society, registration of a single pesticide requires more than fifty experiments and as many as 12,000 animals. Animals used in scientific or commercial testing could be completely ineffective because sometimes the things that work on animals don't work on humans.

According to vivisection.com there is one vertebrate animal used for scientific and commercial testing every three seconds. Testing on animals is costly and time consuming. In the New Iberia Research center in Louisiana, they test their products on chimps and they are treated very poorly and very inhumane.

People may argue that if we didn’t test on animals, the products that we gave humans may not be safe, but animals are not completely accurate, as they are not the same as humans. On animals, they also have to use lots of the drug, and it may not be the same amount of the drug as the human would get. According to Paul Furlong, a Professor of Clinical Neuroimaging at Aston University in the UK, “it’s very hard to create an animal model that even equates closely to what we are trying to achieve in the human.” If it is not accurate in a animal, but works in a human, we would never know if we found a cure to something because the animal test was inaccurate.

There are other alternatives to animal testing. The Wyss Institute has created a new option, called “organs on a chip.” The way it would work is there would be a chip with a piece of a human organ on it, engineered to work exactly like the organ. If the organ was a piece of lung, there would be air going in and out of it, and the lung tissue would be contracting and retracting like a lung. This is a cheaper, more efficient than animals, and we can use a lot less of the drug. The human also willingly donates their organs to science, while the animals used are taken and tested on by force.

Another alternative is human cells in petri dishes. They would put the drug in with the cells and observe how the cells reacted and if it was positive or negative.

Animal testing is very expensive, and drugs may not have the same influence on animals than on the humans. There are better alternatives to animals that are more efficient. If you could chose for a medication or cosmetic to be tested on an animal, which is not accurate, expensive, and could harm the animal, or a “organ on a chip” which the piece of an organ was willingly donated by a human, inexpensive, and more accurate, which would you chose? Animals used in scientific or commercial testing could be completely ineffective because sometimes the things that work on animals don't work on humans.

Works Cited

"11 Facts about Animal Testing." Do Something. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2013.

"Animals Used in Research." Animals Used in Research (AAVS). N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Dec.
2013.

"Animal Testing - ProCon.org." ProConorg Headlines. N.p., n.d. Web. 05, 16 Dec. 2013.


Bekoff, Marc. "Animal Emotions." Psychology Today. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Dec. 2013.


“Vivisection Information Network." UPDATED: How Many Animals Are Used? ». N.p.,
n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2013.