Dear President,

Could you name three of the cutest pets? How about rabbits, cats, and dogs? These three animals are the cutest things alive and are often kept as pets. Everyone wants to cuddle with them and give them all of the love in the world. Now what if I told you Millions of rabbits, cats, dogs, and many more animals are locked up and used for scientific testing all over the country. Isolated from other animals to anguish in pain waiting for the next test. All they want is the pain to stop and to eventually be free. Free from the cages, free from the pain, free from the laboratories.

Now I understand animal testing has given us many medical advances. Through animal testing we’ve discovered insulin, a viable polio vaccine, advances in treating breast cancer, brain injury, and childhood leukemia. All these great advances from animal testing can not be denied, but there are plenty of negatives that could have been avoided in the search. Common animal procedures that they are put under can be food and water deprivation, forced feeding, forced inhalation, prolonged periods of physical restraint and plenty more. People today tend to think negatively of animal testing but don’t understand the full weight of the situation. That there are millions of testing animals being killed yearly. “Killling by carbon dioxide asphyxiation, neck-breaking, decapitation, or other means,” (About Animal Testing) are the most used forms of killing them and seem unnecessarily cruel and can easily be avoided by alternative tests. Turning to alternative methods of testing provide more accurate results and don’t harm any animals or even anything at all. It is also more cost-effective and efficient than animal testing.

Alternative experiments from animal testing would seem to be the obvious choice. It allows you to get accurate results in a matter of hours to days. One example could be InVitro International’s Corrositex (synthetic skin) which allows scientist to test chemical corrosivity to the human skin and get results within 3 minutes to four hours. Rather than waiting for animal testing result which often take weeks to months to get a final result. Alternate tests are also much cheaper than animal testing. DakDak, an alternative test to measure the effectiveness of sunscreen, takes only days what animal testing takes months to do and can test five to six products for less than half the price it takes to study one product on animals. Another plus of alternate testing is the accuracy of it. Scientist can conduct these experiments on human cells and donated human tissue that will give the most accurate results and side effects that might not show in animal tests. Dr Phil Stephens says, “There are a number of different animal models out there, but they are not really good models for these wounds. So, we began developing an in vitro system,” (Do “Alternatives Exist?) further shows how this alternate can replace an animal from animal testing.

A number of scientist will say alternative tests are more complementary to animal testing than actual replacements. The alternative tests provide a lot of good data but the data from animal tests still provide more and can be compared to the alternative test data. Also saying supercomputers are helpful just not powerful enough to simulate more complex organs such as a brain. Although they may not be good enough to replace all animal testing they can significantly cut back on the amount of animal testing. “In fact three states (California, New York, and New Jersey) have already passed legislation mandating that federally approved non-animal alternatives, when available, be used for product testing instead of testing it on animals,” (Alternatives to Testing) shows how there are test that can easily fully replace animal testing and that we are moving in the right direction towards the solution. Where we can set these laws nationally and put in place more animal protection laws that still allow scientists to test humanely.

One thing I don’t understand is how severe it can be. There are many cases of animals going crazy from being in confined cages and only experiencing the day-to-day life of the lab. An undercover lab investigation in 2009 showed monkeys frantically spinning around in their cages, biting open wounds, mutilating themselves, and ripping out their own hair all from the stress. It drives them all crazy to their breaking point and can't handle it anymore. The horrific sound of their screams and screeches when they saw a needle. It all reminds me of abandoned breeding dogs that I see on the side of the road all too often. The condition they are in from food deprivation, cysts on their body from laying on their side and breast feeding all day. I can only imagine how worse the tested animals look and the amount that are killed after testing.

I hope you understand where I'm coming from and can see the concerns me and many others have about this situation. The stress that the animals are put under and how easily it can be avoided. If you could nationally set laws to cut back on these animal tests. How will you help these animals that are continually introduced to agonizing pains and grow more insane by the day or will you just sit back and allow this to happen day by day?

Sincerely,

Xavier K.-k.

Works Cited

"About Animal Testing : Humane Society International." RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Nov. 2016.

"Do “Alternatives” Exist?" Speaking of Research. N.p., 12 Mar. 2014. Web. 01 Nov. 2016

"Harm and Suffering." Harm and Suffering | Animal Use in Research. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Nov. 2016.

"In Testing." In Testing | Alternatives to Animal Testing and Research. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Nov. 2016.

"Should Animals Be Used For Scientific or Commercial Testing." ProConorg Headlines. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Nov. 2016.