3/18/15
Mrs. Rogers
Argument essay
Merciless Torture
Every year over 500 million animals are used as test subjects in scientific labs. These
animals are being poked, prodded and burned. People have been testing on animals this way
since 400 B.C. Scientists have been testing on animals for medical and cosmetic research.
They are even doing surgeries on the animals just because they can’t use humans, and they
want to know more about the human anatomy. Some people think scientist shouldn’t stop
because animal research has been working so far. Scientists should stop using animals for test
subjects because there are more appropriate alternatives, the animals don’t always give
accurate results, and it is inhumane and cruel.
Scientists now have better alternatives, so scientists should stop using animals to test
on. There are these non-animal testing devices that are called Vitro testing. Vitro testing is
where scientists create mini version of any human organ. Vitro testing is considerably cheaper
than animal testing. To do the Non-genotoxic cancer risk test on animals, it costs over 700,000
dollars. For the exact same test, but with Vitro testing, it cost 22,000 (Humane Society 1). The
government mostly funds the U.S. animal testing. So the government, from just one of these
tests, could save 678,000 dollars. Think about if scientists switched over to Vitro completely.
The government could be saving millions upon millions of dollars per year. Besides Vitro testing,
some other alternatives include computer modeling, donated cadavers, and countless other
solutions (PETA 2). Thomas Hartung wrote “Frozen in time, and accepting the same old animal
models again and again, often without stringent examination on their validity” (2). Scientists
need to realize that they can change, and it’s not too late.
Scientists don’t always get definite results and should therefore stop animal testing.