Introduction

Experimentation with animals is a very controversial dilemma to date, and its performance is
prohibited in many countries of the world, because generally these experiments involve animal
abuse, with the purpose of advancing science, medicine and market products. Given this fact,
many people in the world consider these experiments as an inhuman act and outside the moral,
but on the other hand there are also those who defend these processes, to achieve more quality
and effectiveness of products intended for human consumption.

what does this consist of?

Animal experimentation for the production of cosmetics is one of the fields in which animals are
used. It involves the death of millions of animals in different countries, animals that are harmed
very differently in the process. Rabbits, guinea pigs, mice and rats are examples of animal species
used routinely for animal experimentation. They are burned, mutilated, poisoned and gassed, and
if they manage to survive the process, they are either killed so that their bodies can be studied or
they are subjected to the same torment again.

Why does this happen?

Why is this happening? Animal testing for cosmetic production occurs primarily because
thousands of new cosmetics and household products come onto the market each year. In many
countries, all these new cosmetics are tested on animals. Sometimes the end products are
experienced, and other times the individual ingredients are used in animals; all this in order to
determine its quality, effects and effectiveness.

Why are animals used?

Animals are used in research when there is a need to find out what happens in a whole living
organism, which is much more complex than the sum of its parts. It is difficult, and in most cases
simply impossible, to replace the use of live animals with alternative methods in research.

There are four main reasons why animals are used in research:

- To achieve a progress of scientific knowledge.

- As models for the study of a disease.
- To develop and test potential forms of treatment.
- To protect the security of people, animals and environment.

Argument in favor:
- "Scientists are the first who want animals to not be needed in the laboratory, but it is not
possible to do without them," explains the former researcher. He worked on the
development of the Leishmania vaccine. “The behavior of a vaccine cannot be simulated
with a computer. The immune system is multifactorial and very diverse "
- “It is false that there are alternative methods for everything. Computational models, cell
cultures, and other in vitro procedures, while useful, cannot replace animals. A living
 organism presents an enormous complexity, which we precisely want to analyze, and
there is still no way to replace it entirely "
- “Today it is not true that the same results can be obtained without animals, it is not
possible to reproduce the structural and functional complexity of the retina in a cell
culture. At least for the moment we don't know how to do it. That's why we use mice ".
- “It is not easy to use animals in research and it should not be. It's a privilege. It is only used
in cases where it is strictly necessary "
- (To protect the safety of people, animals and the environment) New drugs need to be
tested, because researchers must measure both the beneficial and harmful effects of a
compound on a whole organism. Initially, a drug is tested in vitro, using isolated tissues
and organs, but from a legal and ethical point of view it must also be tested in an
appropriate animal model before it can perform clinical trials with humans.

Against:
 Animals cannot recreate humans 100%, this means that when doing research with them, it
is not known if people will not have side effects.

 Although they cannot speak, animals can also feel, and all this they do to them is torture
for them, it is so much that millions of animals die each year from this.

 Animals cannot contract diseases from humans, for research in them, scientists artificially
induce diseases, this leads to not being real diseases and by the time they conclude the
experimentation they will not have a true result, causing more damage to the humans or
delaying the investigation. 

 Throughout history humans have suffered consequences from experimentation with

animals, for example The dose of isoproterenol, to treat asthma, was effective in animals.
Unfortunately, it was too toxic for humans. three thousand five hundred asthmatics died
in Britain from overdose.

 Experimentation can be done in patients who are about to die, this happened with
penicillin, this drug that kills animals, was tested in a patient who had no other options,
and the research was a success, achieving the creation of more antibiotics, if animal
testing had been the first option, this might not have come true.

A real case about experiments with animals

What happened?
An animation called "Save Ralph" was developed, where the image of Ralph, a rabbit who
cannot see with his left eye and has burns all over his body, began to spread on social
networks. This animated character is part of a campaign, launched on April 6, 2021, to
show the mistreatment suffered by animals in laboratories.
Why did it happen?
The video, created and disseminated by the Humane Society International organization,
has the purpose of sensitizing people in the world, with the aim of leaving the message of
not continuing with the experimentation of animals for the development of industrial
products, due to the suffering and an immoral act that animals used in laboratories for
commercial and scientific progress go through.
Which was the solution applied?
Thanks to this video, many countries and masses of people began to question this way of
developing products for human benefit, and several industries began to be investigated,
among the immediate actions we can take, is to question the classic practices of doing
science. Tradition must be updated and reevaluated in a world that does not accept
continuing the blind use of animals.

https://www.elcomercio.com/tendencias/redes-sociales/ralph-conejo-victima-maltrato-
laboratorios.html
https://www.javeriana.edu.co/pesquisa/tag/experimentacion-en-animales/