Amber Sipe Source 3

What are some achievements and uses of animal testing? Why are animals beneficial to use?

Erkeç, Özlem Ergül, and Okan Arýhan. "Animal Models In Medical Studies. (English)." International Journal Of Human Sciences 11.2 (2014): 50-63. Academic Search Complete. Web. 5 Mar. 2015.

This article describes why animals are beneficial to scientific tests: they can be controlled, reproduced, fed, and caged exactly how the scientists need them for conducting select experiments. Such treatment would be unethical to humans and that was established in World War II. Rodents are also available for laboratory use at a low cost. A use for these animals testing degenerative diseases or cancer; the short life span of these animals allows the scientist to track the cancer over the entire life of the rodent, something that would be nearly impossible and take too long if humans were used.  Animals are also used for and were the test subjects of anti-nociceptive and anti-inflammatory products. Animals are given certain chemicals and products to induce such problems that need to be fixed; for example, diarrhea, ulcers, and liver injury. The downside, however, is that animals do not fully resemble humans, unless those animals are primates, and primates are high in price to test on. Animals like rodents have differences like the production of vitamin C and heart rate that would be obstacles for some experimentation.

This source changes my thinking because it puts it more into perspective as to why animals are used in research and how scientists are able to do this research. It also reveals some downsides of the animal tests and why they are not always accurate. This source makes me realize that animal testing, while ethical for humans, is extremely unethical for animals, considering scientists induce their pain and illnesses. This article answers my questions specific to this source, but also other questions like specifically why animal testing is not fully accurate.  This source gave very good examples both for and against animal testing.

Opposed to the other articles, this article sheds more light onto the technicalities of the experiments. The other articles were about backgrounds and varying opinions, but this article gave examples. The others were more explanatory and detailed about each argument. This article was somewhat vague but gave a good insight to the medical side of things.


Next I ask: what alternatives are there to animal testing? Right now the answers I have give me great explanation into this great debate, but the best thing for my research would be to find alternatives and how they are or aren’t suitable for these tests.