Lauren Jenio
Intercultural English
I am writing my reflection paper in response to Archana Thapa's paper about animal testing. I chose to use this paper to reflect on because I have been around these kinds of laboratories and have seen protests about this in action. New Jersey house a fair amount of these research institutes as well as New York. There are times when the streets of New York are packed full of protesters complaining abut the conditions in the factories and the abuse done to the animals.

Animal testing can be taken in two completely opposite directions depending on how one is looking at the situation. It is considered inhumane because of the unnecessary abuse that is brought upon the innocent animals that are being used to test a variety of products. But, in the same kind of way it is considered incumbent to go through with the testing if it will eventually save a persons life. Animal testing is a very controversial issue, sure it is against nature to murder innocent organisms but it would be painfully ignorant to not use lower life beings to make sure that certain medicines would not have side effects in the long run.

My personal opinion in this matter is that animal testing is a good thing but only if completely necessary and if there is a low chance of the testee getting hurt in the process. I believe in one life to save a million and though that is not quite the statistics with animal testing it is the meaning of the phrase that counts. If scientists can research a product on a lab rat or a mouse or some other small creature and it perishes...I can honestly say that I am glad that the product was tested on that animal first before making its way into society and potentially killing hundreds before being pulled off the shelves.

Archana made a couple good points throughout her paper that I thought should be touched upon, starting with the meaningless experiments that could be detrimental toward the animals health. Using the example that she hit on, the juice industry subjecting creatures to awful environmental conditions and then forcing them to consume a certain type of juice to see if any effect occurs. This is not only useless but could potentially be deemed as animal cruelty if it was looked into deeper. If these people were to get investigated they would not have a good enough, well thought out reason for putting the animals through that kind of conditioning.

There are pros and cons to every argument though, it just depends on what side you choose to look at it from. On one hand without animal testing there would be less medicines in the world that have saved lives and done good things for people but on the other people must think about what this is doing to the animals. To make these so-called miracle drugs and wonder cures hundreds of innocent living organisms must pay with their health and sometimes even their lives. Like I stated earlier I believe that animals have rights too and should not have to undergo certain treatments that are only beneficial for those who are just curious... not because it could help save future lives.

When I went to research animal testing on the web I found out some interesting facts about how the scientists go through with their tests. Most animal testing is actually done to observe the safety of cosmetics and the safety of cleaning supplies. Only about ten percent of all animal testing is done to research medical issues.

This is completely unacceptable, to kill creatures for beauty reasons is so far out of line. If woman care that much about how they look that they are willing to put an animal though hell and pain for their favorite shade of lipstick than they have some serious issues they need to work out. With the use of cleaning supplies is even worse, the makeup at least isn't made to hurt anything so its effect on animals won't be too bad but cleaning supplies are made to scour and loosen up dirt particles to remove messes. This cannot feel good to anyone, it is pure chemical being used and being tested on animals. This means that scientists are either getting the chemicals on the animal to see the effects against bare skin or putting them in a closed off area so that they can breathe in the chemical to see the effects it has after being inhaled.

Sure, a majority of people wear make-up and use cleaning supplies and are not going to give that up to save a couple rodents but there are alternatives to testing these things on animals. As Archana said in her paper, scientists could use in-vitro methods to test most of the cosmetics and cleaning supplies effects on human tissue and if it would cause a problem.

It would actually be a lot cheaper in the long run, the only reason that we are not using this method and instead testing animals is because some scientists believe that in-vitro is not as effective as animal testing, that people can tell more from a living creature that they could from just living tissue. Sure there are certain things that would probably work a lot better if it was tested on a living organism but if it is not needed than it should not be done.

Even animal testing is not one hundred percent accurate, half the still-born children in the world were born that way because their mothers were given drugs that were what scientists deemed as safe because it did not harm its animal testee. These are some of the more extreme cases of mistakes within the drug world but these kinds of faults happen all the time ranging from a small rash to cases of death all because the drug worked well on the animal. This can be resolved but having scientists test these things on in-vitro human cells, that way they will know whether it will harm a human or not instead of having to take that chance that it might.

Not only would this new way of testing be better in the long run for human use but it would save a countless number of animals from being tortured and put through awful experiments to find these things out.

All that is really needed then is a couple loyal supporters that can peacefully figure out and solve this problem using reasoning and facts instead of threats and violence. We have the tools to make a change and yet we do not use them because that would involve some level of effort and most people believe that if it cannot be solved on the spot then it is a lost cause. A lost cause it is to potentially save the lives and health of millions of animals.