Amber Sipe Source 2

What are the points for and against animal testing for medical purposes?

PYCROFT, LAURIE, and HELEN MARSTON. "Is Animal Testing Necessary To Advance Medical Research?." New Internationalist 444 (2011): 34. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 3 Mar. 2015.

This article goes back and forth between Laurie and Helen discussing their points for and against animal testing, respectively. They rebuke each other’s points and discuss what has been done as far as advancements and looking for alternatives. Laurie makes points saying that as of right now, testing on animals is the best way to develop medicine. A chip or a mimicked test subject will not accurately represent how a drug would react on a human being. Helen, on the other hand, brings up how the DNA and internal set up of animals are not close enough to humans to produce accurate results and can still harm humans, even if the drug has been tested multiple times. She says animals react very differently than humans to drugs and uses the example of thalidomide causing birth defects in humans but working perfectly fine on animals. She also says that real people need real science, not false hope. Both scientists admit that there are flaws in their point of view; for example, that it would be hard to develop another method for testing drugs without using animals, and that dugs have failed on people even though they have worked on humans, giving a reverse result.

This source changes my thinking because it gave me more of an insight into both sides of the argument. Both sides have very good points but I am still unsure to which side I would agree with. It brings about many new ideas like alternatives to testing and how it has failed in the past. I agree with both sides, which makes this paper more difficult. Both sides have a really good argument and make it hard to decide who is “right”. As of right now, I am leaning more towards being FOR animals testing, due to the fact that there is little to no alternatives and we need medical advancements. However, the fact that the drugs have failed and been disastrous is frightening. The source answered my question for this part of my research. I failed to consider many of the arguments that each side made and it opened my eyes to the real argument at hand.

Both articles I have read give me insight into both arguments. This one, however, was more modern than my previous argument and gave more facts and real concrete examples. The first source mentioned the treatment of animals in the testing process and this one mentioned more scientific aspects about the testing itself.

This source led me to ask more specific questions: What are more examples where animal testing failed? Are there more fails or successes? Realistically, what alternatives are there to these tests and would they produce the same results? Now I have answers as far as more detailed arguments on each side and also how this argument began and flourished.