Each year more than 100 million animals die from animal testing. This is a problem because there is no need for animals to die for the supposed “betterment” of society. Animals like mice, rats, dogs, cats, frogs, hamsters, guinea pigs, monkeys, rabbits, fish, and birds are being tested. They are used for cosmetic, chemical, drug, and food testing, medical training, biology lessons, and more. These animals are being treated so poorly and there needs to be big changes.

Alternative testing needs to be used in research. Instead of using animals, there are other ways to test the products like genetic and stem cell methods, in vitro, and computer models and simulations. There should not be any animals involved in new drug, cosmetic, and food testing, including many more.

92% of drugs that are shown to be safe and effective on animals were later tested on humans and were proven ineffective and dangerous. Since this is the case, there really is no reason to be testing this harmful products on animals. Because the researchers and scientists are testing the products on humans anyways, there do not need to be animals in the mix of things. There are other research ways to test and see if it is safe for human use, that are just as effective, if not more effective because they are using actual human DNA.

It is also more effective to test using genetic and stem cell methods, in vitro, and computer models, because animals don’t contract the same illness and diseases. Since they don’t contract the same diseases, it doesn’t make sense to measure how they would react to a drug, when it’s not even in their normal life cycle to contract certain illnesses and diseases. Testing on animals that are genetically altered to have a disease is useless and a waste of time for the fact that their bodies don’t react the same way to different medicines.

The United States government gives $50 per year to fund animal testing, and with 92% of drugs being safe on animals and unsafe on humans, there should not be that much funding going towards something that works 8% of the time. There are many more things that are better for society that don’t cause harm to animals or people.

Some say that the experiments performed do no harm to the animals, but this is simply untrue. Under the law already in place, the researchers are allowed to be shocked, poisoned, burned, addicted to drugs, and brain-damaged. This law does not include rats, mice, cold blooded animals, and birds, so the researchers are free to do as many unethical experiments on them as they would like, without administering any pain relief.

Do you really want the pain and suffering of innocent animals to continue? The government is funding $50 billion per year, the drugs aren’t shown to be safe in humans that were found safe in animals, and animals don’t contract the same diseases and illnesses as humans do, so running tests on animals for human benefit doesn’t make sense.