Every year, about 26 million animals are used to test human medication in the U.S. alone. That’s 26 million animals that are forced to endure terrible, unforgiving experiments each year. We have been testing human medications on animals for safety and toxicity since 500 BC; treating animals as if they are useless creatures that don’t feel emotions like we do. It is for this reason, and many more, that animal testing should be illigal.

One reason animal testing should be illigal is because it is dangerous due to false results. Paul Furlong, a professor of Clinical Neuroimaging at Aston University says, “It’s very hard to create an animal model that even equates to what we are trying to achieve as a human.” For example, Vioxx, an anti-inflammatory drug, was shown to have no effect on mice through testing. This turned out to be a fatal mistake in that it caused over 27,000 heart attacks before having to be discontinued. According to the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics website, 96% of animal tested products fail to proceed to the market as of 2015. This was because of safety and efficiency problems that were not accounted for in the tests including animals. Therefore allowing animal testing to continue is dangerous.

Another reason is that animal testing is unessesary is because, simply, there are alternate options. Animals are being tested against their will while there are plenty of human volunteers that can be tested instead. In addition, humans can give feedback on experiments. There are also animal-free testing alternatives that have been proven to reach the same results as animal testing. Humane Research Australia states that many discoveries proven with animal free alternatives were later verified to have used animals in the testing process, therefore giving credit to animal testing expiriments. If animal testing was so good, they wouldn’t have to claim false results for publicity. So why are we still using animals for human medication testing when there are better alternatives?

My final reason is that animal testing is simply cruel and unforgiving. These poor animals are put through unimaginable suffering just so we can create a medicine that is often ineffective. Scientists will experiment on lab rats and mice for their entire lifespan, which is about two to three years, just to test long term effects! They will steal their entire life from them. Two brothers, Joseph and Charles Vacanti, grew a human ear on the back of a living mouse, just for the future of plastic and reconstructive surgery! Imagine if somebody grew a giant mouse ear on your back! In 2020, the U.S. Department of Agriculture revealed that research centers experimented on more than 300,000 animals in painful activities in only one year. Many experiments even waste animal lives. A 2017 study showed that there were “incorrect data interpretations” causing unnecessary death. Need I say more?

As you have seen above, animal testing is just clearly wrong! Why are we allowing this injustice to be legal when there are false results, other options and it’s utterly inhumane?