Argument Against Animal Experimentation

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Many people consider animal experimentation to be cruel and inhumane. However, how can one say that when animal testing has been essential to human progression? Animal testing is an acceptable way to test medicines and procedures, as it contributes to many life-saving techniques and cures, it brings advancements to science and technology, and it would be ethically incorrect to expose humans to possibly deadly substances and procedures.

Animal testing has been used since 500 BC. Many respected institutions, such as the British Royal Society and The Institute for Laboratory Animal Research of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, support the use of animal experimentation. Animal testing has contributed to many life-saving techniques and cures, and the California Biomedical Research Association states that nearly every medical breakthrough in the last 100 years has resulted directly from research using animals. Experiments in which dogs had their pancreases removed led directly to the discovery of insulin, which is critical to saving the lives of diabetics. Animal research has also contributed to major advances in understanding and treating conditions such as breast cancer, brain injury, malaria, multiple sclerosis, tuberculosis, and many others, and was instrumental in the development of pacemakers, cardiac valve
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In 1997, Joseph and Charles Vacanti grew a human "ear" seeded from implanted cow cartilage cells on the back of a living mouse in order to explore the possibility of fabricating body parts for plastic and reconstructive surgery. Without contributions such as this from animals, even if it's just a couple of cells, scientific developments would not be possible. In fact it is partially due to animals, and tests that have occurred in tangent with them, that we are so advanced