The Reality of Animal Testing

   In this post, I would like to learn the current basic information about animal testing in relation to the research question I posted before.

    

  First of all, according to Wikipedia, animal testing is the process of testing a potentially dangerous chemical or device on animals before applying it to humans. So why are experiments on animals used as a first step to experiments on humans? This is because animals have life principles similar to those of humans. For example, in medical research, in order to produce any results based on scientific evidence, it is necessary to study how the organs, cells, and other components of the human body work. The results from those studies should also be carefully examined to determine how the new drugs and scientific technologies will affect the human body. Many of those studies require the use of living organisms and research and testing on humans are also conducted. However, research using humans naturally has its limitations, so they have no choice but to sacrifice animals for their experiments. Just as humans eat animals as food, animals are helping to provide a part of human life.

     Then, what kind of animals are often used for experiments? As many people might expect, rats and mice make up about 90% of the animals used, and many other animals such as frogs, dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, monkeys, fish, and birds are also used for experiments. The type of animal used depend on the purpose of the experiment. For example, animals with short life cycles are used to study aging and genetics that require lifelong or multi-generational observation, while medium-sized animals (dogs, pigs, etc.) that are similar in size to humans are used to develop surgical methods and study organ transplantation. In Japan, it is common to purchase animals raised for research purposes from traders and use them for experiments. As for dogs, cats, and monkeys, they sometimes take over some of the animals that would otherwise be killed. Each year, more than 115 million animals are killed all over the world for biology lessons, medical training, curiosity-driven experimentation, and chemical, drug, food, and cosmetics testing. When using animals in research, researchers will make every effort and take care to treat them humanely and avoid causing them pain. Still, some are forced to inhale toxic fumes, others are immobilized in restraint devices for hours, some have holes drilled into their skulls, and others have their skin burned off or their spinal cords crushed. And at the end of the experiment, most of those animals are euthanized.

     I realized that animal experiments have contributed greatly to the development of human life, but I still felt that it was cruel. I will continue to learn more about the reality of animal testing in my next post.

Facts and Statistics About Animal Testing. (2021, May 19). PETA. https://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-experimentation/animals-used-experimentation-factsheets/animal-experiments-overview/

動物実験について | 日本生理学会. (2009, June 20). 日本生理学会. http://physiology.jp/guidance/4804/