Fabre 1

Blake Fabre

Ms. Carter

Expository Composition

20, November 2019

Medical Progress Comes With A Cost

If , you want the medical world to halt all progress, lose possible cures for terminal

illnesses and other extremely helpful advancements in medicine, then I suppose we could work

out the elimination of animal testing. If not, then we’ll have to proceed. The moral dilemma

caused by animal testing has been around for quite a while and our genration is not the first to

question it, will we be the last? Historians have traced animal testing back to the 4th and 3rd

centuries B.C.E in Ancient Greece and Moorish Spain through the writings of numerous Greek

and Arab physicians. Recently in our history, there has been an uproar in activism for the rights

and welfare of animals. One of the biggest movements in the U.S. is in the 1970s when

philosophers Tom Regan and Peter Singer, began making parallels between human and animal

rights. So the case is within the morality of testing and possibly hurting animals or furthering our

own species medically. Lauren Myers, author of the scientific essay, Animal Testing Necessary

in Medical Research, elaborates a hypothesis which offers an extremely valid posistion on the

subject matter. Myers states, “Until then, we have only alternatives: contine animal testing,

perform direct medical experimentation on humans instead or shut down vast swaths of medical

research” (Myers, 261). Myers makes an excellent point by understanding that without this

necessary evil, the human race would either become self destructive by unintentionally killing
 Fabre 2

thousands of other humans in order to test the newly developed medicines or we would become

extremely susceptible to illness and diseases that would eventually wipe us out. Animal testing,

although morally challenging and unfortunate, is necessary for hummanity’s existance at least

until we find a better way to develop new medical devices, vaccines and cures.

Testing on humans is not acceptable. Murder itself a captial crime. Assisted suicide is a

major felony. So where’s the logic in testing possibly deadly treatments, procedures or vaccines

on other humans, even on the most hated of humans, such as the death row occupants or highly

dangerous criminals and terrorists? Humans simply have more to offer than the animals many

love to defend. Yes, intentionally hurting animals is ethically wrong, but how else could the

medical field progress? Humans have a different composition than animals. Juan Carlos

Marvizon Ph.D., an adjunct professor at UCLA’s Brain Research Institute summarizes the

concept of the species hierarchy in favor of humans, “...modern neuroscience has in fact

uncovered many differences between humans and the rest of the animals that makes us unique.

These differences are not limited to a quantitative difference in intelligence but extend to many

other mental and behavioral abilities that make us completely unique, a qualitatively different

type of being.” (Marvizon 3). While many things about our genetics and biological makeup are

similar, humans have two key differences. Humans have a conscious sense of self and the

memory capacity to hold the complex thoughts:

“There are two basic forms of memory: procedural and declarative… Declarative

memory stores information about facts and beliefs about the world, and can be further

divided into semantic and episodic memory. Semantic memory is about facts in the world

that stand by themselves, independently of our self, whereas episodic memory is

remembering things that happened to us… Episodic memory appears to be uniquely

 Fabre 3

human, because it involves subjective experiences, a concept of self and subjective time.

This is important because it allows us to travel mentally in time through subjective

experiences, while animals are locked in the present of their current motivational state”

(Marvizon 5).

This intensive memory state leaves room for self judgement and the development of ethical ideas

and properties within an action, which animals can’t compose nor comprehend. They can set

short term goals such as finding a mate or gathering food. They can also process emotions and

thoughts, but none of the self critical and progressive thoughts that humans experience. The

animals just don’t have the ability to experience social and self driven emotions to develop

ethical judgements:

“Ethics is the ability to appreciate fairness, justice and rights. It is at the very core

of our ability to form stable societies and to cooperate to achieve common goals… It

depends on social emotions like guilt, shame, pride and contempt; on empathy and

compassion, and on cultural heritage. Lacking all those mental abilities, animals have no

sense of ethics.The fact that animals cannot even remotely comprehend the concept of

rights is a strong argument for why they should not have rights. What sense does it make

to give animals something that they do not know that they lack?” (Marvizon 9).

Animals can process basic emotions, thoughts and goals, but the comprehension and

development of complex ideas and feelings that are essential to be classified anywhere near the

same as humans is simply not there making animals less of a priority to save than humans. No

matter how grim it may sound or very well be.

Many of the people who are not against animal testing are not vicious animals haters who

wish to plague the animal kingdom until it has entirely disappeared. Often times it’s just the
 Fabre 4

people who have realized the sad reality of the situation. People who know that without animal

testing there would be no world to progress. Just imagine how the scientists must feel. Humans

have the development of compassion. That feeling goes towards humans and animals alike.

Excluding those with volent and demented minds, no one wants to see an animla suffer, even for

the progress of scienece. Alla Katsnelson a writer for Future, a column on BBC.com elaborates

upon the measures in place to regulate the testing on animals in order to make the process a little

less painful, “In 1959, William Russell and Rex Burch proposed their “3Rs” guidelines for

making the use of animals in scientific research more humane: restrict the use of animals; refine

experiments to minimise distress; and replace tests with alternative techniques. Over the course

of five decades their guidelines have become widely accepted worldwide…” (Katsnelson 2).

Scientists all over the planet try their hardest to find and take advantage of testing alternatives

that will give the same amount of accuracy as animals do. The similar biology between humans

and animals allows for the testing to be as accurate as possible, without testing directly on the

humans the research is intended for. The Wellcome Genome Campus, a scientific research

campus in Hixton, Cambridgeshire, England ornaments the logic behind the testing and the

regulations that are concerned:

“The use of animals in research is never undertaken lightly. Researchers working

with animals carry out their experiments with extreme care to eliminate or minimise

suffering… Where there are reliable alternatives in scientific research, animals are not

used. There must always be a very clear scientific reason for research on animals to be

considered” (Your 13).

 Fabre 5

The medical field is based upon the welfare of the people; meant to save them from suffering.

So, what sense does it make to claim that scientists are purposefully manipulating and killing

millions of animals per year just for the heck of it?

Arguments that attempt to confound animal testing claim that it is extremely unethical

and that animals lives should valued equally to those of humans and that as a society, we should

eliminate animal testing all togther. Although many concede that its is in fact an ethical dilemma,

when asked what they propose as an alternative for animal testing, the opposing commentators

freeze. They scramble to find an answer and often the first alternative proposed is to begin

testing on lesser valued humans. The humans who lack stability or other necessary aspects to be

successful in daily life. Carl Elliott and Trudo Lemmons are both professors at the University of

Minnesota Medical School and Faculties of Law and Medicine of the University of Toronto,

respectively. The two joined together to publish an article entitled, Ethics for Sale, of which

expands on the world of drug testing ad approval. The two put together a strong exposé of

inappropriate and unethical drug trials that took advantage of the lesser valued humans:

“... the 675-bed testing center has been recruiting undocumented Latino

immigrants desperate for money, housing them in a converted Holiday Inn, paying them

to take untested drugs in studies overseen by an unlicensed medical director… the Wall

Street Journal reported that Eli Lilly and Company was recruiting homeless alcoholics to

take part of this drug test...” (Elliott 2).

The testing administrators in this illegal trial, directly targeted the immigrants and the homeless

alcoholics who they knew would be desperate enough to provide consent and participate in the
 Fabre 6

trials just to get a quick buck. D.C. Salter, a contributor to the Unilever Research project by the

Colworth Laboratory defines how the disparity of the people who gave their consent to

participate in the drug trials is inequitable, “This is the basis of the concept of 'informed consent',

required but not generally explained in current professional codes of practice. It is unjustified to

exploit those who may be under duress, such as 'in-house volunteers' and those with low

incomes” (Salter 165). What sense does it make to prey on the less fortunate of our own species,

instead of those of a species of lesser importance to our society? Knowing how helpful the

research perform on these animals, eases the ethical predicament caused by the experiments.

Trish Consunji of the California Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA) explains some of the

benefits that progressed both animal and human medical treatments:

“Without animal research, millions of dogs, cats, birds, and farm animals would

be dead from more than 200 diseases, including anthrax, distemper, rabies, feline

leukemia, and canine parvo virus, according to Americans for Medical Progress (AMP), a

nonprofit group that supports the responsible and humane use of animals in biomedical

research. Today, those diseases are largely preventable, thanks to vaccines and treatments

developed in animal research. In human terms, research with animals has led to

vaccinations against smallpox, measles, mumps, diphtheria, and tetanus; development of

anesthesia, antibiotics, and insulin; use of cardiac pacemakers and heart bypass surgery;

surgical advancements for organ transplants, hip replacements, and cataract surgery; and

treatments for a host of diseases, including diabetes, multiple sclerosis, AIDS, and

children’s leukemia” (Consunji 4). Just try to imagine a world where these treatments

hadn’t been found. There would be a world ridiculed with death for humans and animals

alike. Nobody wants that. But through animal testing, we have discovered better methods
 Fabre 7

and vaccines, better treatments and procedures to keep our world going and our families

alive.

Animal testing causes an ethical dilemma thats sparks controversy, but it is necessary for

the progression of our species, at least until we find an alternative metod to develop new medical

devices, vaccines and cures. The testing on humans is unacceptable and not a viable option for

eliminating animal testing because it would result in human lives being unecessarily lost.

Scientists are not inflicting methods torture on the animals being tested. There are many

regulations set in place to assure that the subjects of any experiments are as painless and as

ethical as possible. Along with the benefits for humans in the medical world, testing on animals

has provided many successful developments in the veterinary field which has helped to save

countless amounts of animals. Through animal testing we have developed life saving treatments,

procedures, vaccines, etc. Without the unfortunate means of this research, we would be able to

progress as a society. So, although deplorable we must continue animal research, that is if we

want humanity to survive.