Are we saving the lives of humans or destroying the lives of defenseless animals?

In this country, we prohibit the acts of raping, murdering or maiming a living creature. But by testing products on animals to see if the effect is harmful, we are potentially doing just that. The companies who experiment on animals say, "They have no feelings, they don't know what is going on." I have just one I thing to say to that. Have you ever been an animal? Do you know what it feels like to suffer slowly in an experiment? Exactly.

Experimentation on humans is a different story because humans are aware of the side-effects, and must give their consent to be tested on. However, non-human creatures do not have this luxury. They are bred or captured, sold, forced to endure harmful procedures and later slaughtered.

You are probably thinking "Oh my God! How could people use these products after they torture such poor innocent creatures?" Check your shampoo bottles…if there is no logo saying that this product is not tested on animals, you too are helping labs murder defenseless creatures.

An increasing amount of scientists are challenging experimentation on scientific grounds. Considerable evidence shows that animal vivisection is unreliable. Meanwhile, newly developed methodologies are more valid than animal studies. So if animal testing has such questionable values...why does it keep happening?

Scientists say that it is easily published. It needs little originality to take a well-defined animal, change a chemical in them, and obtain new and interesting information in a short amount of time. Clinical research, which is more useful, is not used as often because it's proven to be more difficult and time consuming.

I have always been strongly against animal testing. Not just because it's barbaric, but also because it's inaccurate and misleading. Factories say that they are saving the lives of humans by preventing the sale of drugs that have a positive reaction on animals, which they automatically assume would be the same on humans, leading to many deaths of men and women.

Every year, the world uses millions of animals in these experiments. Most animals are livestock that are specially bred on certain farms with a sophisticated technique to ensure that researchers get exactly what they are looking for.

In conclusion, the value of animal experimentation has been extremely exaggerated by people interested in its preservation. If the drugs that were tested on animals aren't working on humans, then we are killing innocent creatures for no reason.

-Return to May 2002 Issue-