Dear Mr./Mrs. President,

Walking through a drugstore or places such as Costco, people don’t think about where the products in their shopping carts came from, and what had to take place in order for it to get on the shelf. Behind the scenes, scientists are using animals to test products to make sure that they are safe for our use. However, the animals are being crippled and killed throughout this process.

One negative aspect of animal testing is that a percentage of the medications and drugs tested on animals are still harmful to humans. Testing on animals is an unreliable source for safety measures and should be stopped. “The FDA reports that 92 percent of drugs approved for testing in humans fail to receive approval for human use. For example, the arthritis drug Vioxx appeared to be safe in animal studies, but was withdrawn from the market in 2004 after causing over 60,000 deaths in the U.S. alone” (neaves.org). This proves that the differences in the structure of our bodies and those of the animals is extremely significant and due to this, any testing used on them can’t necessarily be trusted for us. Though a low percentage of drugs are unsafe, it is still a large risk people are knowingly or unknowingly taking. Also, the Food and Drug Administration reports that “92 out of every 100 drugs that pass animal tests fail in humans.” Only 92% of these drugs actually work and are safe for our use. The other 8%, though it seems like a small amount, could mean either life or death for someone. Though a larger percentage of the drugs are actually safe for us, there is not a guarantee of human safety through the consumption or use of the product.

In addition, by using animals for scientific experiments, humans are torturing beings that have the capacity to feel pain. Most of the products tested are unnecessary to our society, but meanwhile, innocent lives are paying a price for someone to wear a new kind of mascara. At times, scientists use lethal doses of chemicals to create these unnecessary products, “The traditional LD50 (lethal dose 50 percent) test forced animals, often rats and mice, to ingest chemicals to determine the dose that resulted in the death of 50 percent of the animals. The animals were, for example, force-fed by a tube inserted down the esophagus into the stomach, causing severe discomfort and extreme and unrelenting pain. A standard test would use 60-200 animals, generally without anesthesia or pain relief for concern that they would alter test results.” (neaves.org) 200 hundred animals are being forced to suffer through pain per one test, only for humans to have their hair products and other cosmetics that are not necessities. It is illegal for us to torture, harm or murder others in our population yet it is somehow justified if we do those things to smaller life forms. But what makes humans better than cats or dogs? Animals have the ability to fear, feel pain, and other emotions. But we take them for granted, wasting their lives on a cosmetic that may not ever be in stores for public use. This abuse is not a humane process to be committing with the lives of feeling creatures in our hands. Our society, relying so much on the products that are tested, don't care how many thinking creatures are harmed and what the experiments do to them. “Over 100 million animals are burned, crippled, poisoned, and abused in US labs every year.” (DoSomething.org) If 100 million are abused in the US alone, it is hard to imagine the total amount of animals mistreated in the world. With that said, the labs are using up an over extensive amount of valuable lives and the lives of future generations that could possibly have come from that individual. While taking products that prevent rashes or cure eye infections and many others, we don't think about how it got to be in our homes, who it had to be tested on and what happened to the subjects when it failed.

Furthermore, animal experimentation is a moral dilemma because testing on animals is overly expensive and a waste of money and resources.With people and the government in our economy so concerned with the amount of money being used up, we need to get rid of funding for animal testing because it is so expensive. Health organizations are putting their own funds to these tests while there are other places the money could go. It is shocking that “The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) spends $14 billion of its $31 billion annual budget on animal research.” (animaltesting.procon.org) Almost half of the NIH's budget is burned on animal testing, something that doesn't benefit anyone but the scientists paid for working the experiments. Others could say that it is going to a good cause, but really, what do we get out of it? We get data that could have been more accurate if we flipped a coin. In reality, spending almost half of a company's budget on this is unwise.

Overall, it is unreasonable to experiment on animals due to it being morally wrong to put thinking and feeling creatures through torture. Though many people say it is for our own good, is it truly? Looking at the bigger picture, it is astounding how much of a waste animal testing actually is. As president of the United States, I believe it is necessary for you to put an end to animal testing in the US and to use the money for better purposes.