nope i lied. i did it on animal testing :P so will you guys proofread it for me? cuz my final is the solutions paper, which is integrating the solutions i come up with into the original, and i want to get the original fixed so it doesnt sound so retarded when i turn in the same mistakes twice.


edited!!!! go me!!! <3<3<3

Erica Boyer
C. Bays
English 111-13
11-5-07
Why Animal Testing Should Be Banned
Do you remember seeing that cute little white bunny you got for Easter when you were 6? It was so fluffy and adorable, and you loved it so. Now imagine it being forced into a cage and being forced to inhale high doses of toxic fumes or having its fur ripped off and burning its bare skin with chemicals. Not pretty is it? I believe that testing developing drugs and chemicals on animal is illogical and unethical because the results are unreliable, animals have rights, and it wastes a lot of charity money.
What is cruel? According to a dictionary I used, the definition of cruel is willfully or knowingly causing pain or distress to others (Dictionary.com). Why would somebody wish to knowingly cause pain to a poor innocent animal? Is it to help the humans with their research and developing technologies? Humans are animals, and to misuse another living animal for the human's benefit is wrong.
A lot of pharmaceutical companies use animals to test their products. It is actually regulation by the FDA for all developing medications to get approval to be tested on animals before they are to be tested on humans (1). Sometimes, though, these results are not the same when tested on humans. Everybody knows that if a dog eats chocolate, it will kill the dog, but humans eat chocolate on a day-to-day basis. Animals have different digestions systems from humans and cannot eat the same things as humans. A guinea pig, for example, can eat strychnine safely, but humans will die if they ingest it (2). The results are not reliable; animals just react different to certain chemicals from humans. Would you want to take a new drug knowing that it may be safe on animals but could potentially kill humans? I know I sure wouldn't.
Animals also have rights. They are living creatures like you and I and deserved to be treated with the equal amount of respect. As on PETA's official website, "All animals have the ability to suffer in the same way and to the same degree that humans do. They feel pain, pleasure, fear, frustration, loneliness, and motherly love." (5). They are just like humans in this respect, for we feel all these emotions as well. Would you like to be crammed into a 10 x10 room with 99 other people and forced to live like that, while someone "higher" than you picks you out one by one and conducts experiments on you? The animals sure do not like it, and that isn't healthy for them either. This fits into the definition of cruelty.
In retrospect, however, some good has come out of animal testing. Without the use of dogs, we would not have insulin for all the diabetics. Also, the cancer treatment chemotherapy would not exist (4). An excerpt from Dr. Joseph E. Murray's, a Nobel Laureate, article states:
"In December 1995, AIDS patient Jeff Getty underwent an experimental treatment that involved injecting bone marrow cells from a baboon into his body to bolster his immune system (baboons are immune to the AIDS virus). The loss of the donor baboon was tolerable because scientists and doctors should use all methods at hand when combating deadly human diseases. Like the many other treatments and medicines that have contributed to improved human health, the cure for AIDS will undoubtedly come through animal experimentation. (Editor's note: Getty's body rejected the baboon cells, but he continues to look for other cures.)"
As you can see, it didn't work. Humans are not baboons. The failures are far outnumbering the successes, and more animals' lives are being taken than human lives can be saved.
Another thing, besides animal's lives, that are being wasted, is money. A lot of taxpayer's money is being wasted on this fruitless research. According to physician Peggy Carlson, "U.S. health care expenditures totaled $884 billion in 1993 and are expected to have reached $1 trillion in 1995." This seems to me like an awful lot of money to be wasted on senselessly killing animals. 14% of the United States' economy goes to "health care", and still more is being donated and taken out of our taxes (2). This money could be used to get homeless people off of the streets. Instead, this is where it goes, and yet, we still haven't gotten any closer to the cure for AIDS or cancer.
As you can see, animal testing cannot be truly justified. There are too many risks in using animal results on humans, and the lives of animals are very precious. The results from the research are not reliable, and animals have rights. Also it is a huge waste of money. What the government is saying, in my honest opinion, is that it is illegal for civilians to beat a dog, but it is okay for big companies to kill them and cut them open for a reason that they know will fail. This seems a little cruel.