Animal Testing Persuasive Essay

Words: 1389
Pages: 6

Currently, animals like mice, rats, rabbits, and dogs, are in barren cages throughout laboratories across the country. These animals wait for the next experimentation to happen and incur the stress from the after-effects. Former U.S. National Institutes of Health director, Dr. Elias Zerhouni, admitted that experimenting on animals to help humans has been a major failure (Alternatives to Animal Testing 1). In the article, Alternatives to Animal testing, he says, it is time that we move on from these past failures to new methods for understanding the human body. Therefore, alternatives for animal testing such as, the 3R principle, upcoming technologies, and new models in cosmetics, lead to the discontinuance of animal-based testing. These techniques …show more content…
Replacement consists of completely eliminating the use of animals for research and turning to alternative means of experimentation. Similarly in the other principles, replacement draw upon technologies to further decrease the use of animals in testing. In the same study from Törnqvist, the development of computer programs and in vitro methods has led to a 67-100% reduction in the use of animals (Törnqvist 4). This illustrates how the transition from animals to machines contributes to the discontinuance of animal-based testing, and so, the development of computer programs, and new developments in blood sampling techniques have taken to the spotlight. These newer advances are leading toward the extinction of wildlife in animal testing. With this transition to newer routines, there was an observation that presented a dramatic drop in the usage of rats for animal experimentation. “[T]he estimated use of rats dropped by approximately 3500 rats annually” (Törnqvist 4). This minor replacement of older methods to newer methods shows how older techniques are outdated when it comes to using the least amount of animals as possible. This conservational thinking will lead to more lives of animals being rescued. Continuing developments of the methods do indicate a movement forward with future possibilities for both reduction and replacement of animal use (Beauchamp 25). Switching to these methods lead to a significant percent reduction of animal testing, thus making reduction a viable method for reducing the number of animals being