The Importance of Animal Research
The Importance of Animal ResearchResearch on animals is important in understanding diseases and
developing ways to prevent them. The polio vaccine, kidney transplants,
and heart surgery techniques have all been developed with the help of
animal research. Through increased efforts by the scientific community,
effective treatments for diabetes, diphtheria, and other diseases have been
developed with animal testing.
Animal research has brought a dramatic progress into medicine.
With the help of animal research, smallpox has been wiped out worldwide.
Micro-surgery to reattach hearts, lungs, and other transplants are all
possible because of animal research. Since the turn of the century,
animal research has helped increase our life-span by nearly 28 years.
And now, animal research is leading to dramatic progress against AIDS and
Alzheimer’s disease.
Working with animals in research is necessary. Scientists need to
test medical treatments for effectiveness and test new drugs for safety
before beginning human testing. Small animals, usually rats, are used to
determine the possible side effects of new drugs. After animal tests have
proven the safety of new drugs, patients asked to participate in further
studies can be assured that they may fare better, and will not do worse
than if they were given standard treatment or no treatment.
New surgical techniques first must be carefully developed and
tested in living, breathing, whole organ systems with pulmonary and
circulatory systems much like ours. The doctors who perform today’s
delicate cardiac, ear, eye, pulmonary and brain surgeries, as well as
doctors in training, must develop the necessary skills before patients’
lives are entrusted to their care. Neither computer models, cell cultures,
nor artificial substances can simulate flesh, muscle, blood, and organs like
the ones in live animals.
There is no alternative to animal research. Living systems are
complex. The nervous system, blood and brain chemistry, and gland
secretions are all interrelated. It is impossible to explore, explain or
predict the course of many diseases or the effects of many treatments
without observing and testing the entire living system.
Cell and tissue cultures, often suggested as “alternatives” to using
animals, have been used in medical research for many years. But these are
only isolated tests. And isolated tests will yield only isolated results,
which may bear little relation to a whole living system. Scientists do not
yet know enough about living systems or diseases, nor does the technology
exist, to replicate one on a computer. The information required...
To view the complete essay, you be registered.