Essays / Why animal experimentation is not a acceptable practice (essay ideas) [6]

Before you start this essay please don't be duped into using the philosophical arguments posed by peter singer etc. his philosophy is based on a false premise. ie 'humans benefit from animal experiments. we must weigh up the benefit to humans against the harm to animals' this is not true, basing human medicine on animals is a major cause of human illness and is primarily a legal device. google 'singer rockefeller ruesch vivisection' for more on singer and his payment from the vivisectors (animal experimenters)

Please see these sites for good info on this issue, there are fake sites and groups. an enormous amount of money and statue is involved in animal experiments and a great deal of trouble and expense has been gone to to convince the public that they are being saved by it. see curedisease.net navs.org (also shows fallacious forms of argument used to defend vivisection (animal experimentation) mrmcmed.org pnc.com.au/~cafmr curedisease.com (good debates here) nzavs.org.nz pcrm.org dlrm.org speakcampaigns.org.uk caare.org.uk bava.org buav.org for a start

Here is a concise summary of an answer to your essay q...because it is not predictive for humans therefore drugs/chemicals/pollutants etc tested in this way are not necessarily safe for human use. It is also not predictive in medical research as animals and humans only get the same diseases 1.16% of the time. there is too much for me to say here. please look at the sites and if you have more questions by all means ask

Please provide original ref's for your quotes and stats, the sites above have them. This is important particularly if your teacher knows little about the subject, and very few do

Essays / Why animal experimentation is not a acceptable practice (essay ideas) [6]

Sorry to Kevin and meisJon for using the word 'duped'. i realise that most people see this as a moral/philosophical argument and accept the claim that humans benefit from animal experimentation and are therefore not seeking to mislead when expressing this view. Thankyou Megha, you have very concisely identified the fundamental flaw of animal experimentation. Also called species difference, ie all animals differ sexually, socially, physiologically, biochemically, psychologically, histologically etc and in diet, lifestyle, longevity, etc. Therefore it is not posssible to reliably transfer results between species. defenders of a. e. are usually retrospective adn selective in egs they refer to and do not show a causal but only a casual rel between a.e. and human health improvement.

With reference to original sources from the above sites i would present an essay this way...

a.e. (vivisection) is not an acceptable practice for a spectrum of reasons which encompass moral, scientific, economic, environmental and human factors. a.e. is widely believed to be a practice which is beneficial and many believe essential for human health; curing human disease and protecting us and the environment from potentially harmful substances. These two claimed motives encompass the majority of animal experiments. It is also used in so called 'basic' or 'fundamental' research which does not claim to be specifically targeted to a particular objective but only to find fundamental truths, as a heuristic device (to test theories), for veterinary medicine, teaching, spare parts for humans (such as heart valves), for animal derived medicines such as monoclonal antibodies from mice or insulin from cows and pigs and also for testing substances not intended for human consumption (toxicology).

The utilitarian argument put forward by philosophers such as Peter Singer could be summarised as saying 'humans benefit from animal experiments therefore we must weigh up the benefit to humans against the suffering of animals used in experiments.' Once the premise that humans benefit is taken as a given, as it popularly is, then further philosophical questions such as a comparison of the intelligence of apes and retarded humans, sentience, etc are considered. However to accept such a claim without question would not be appropriate and to give this question the consideration it deserves I must firstly ask if it is true that humans benefit from animal experiments. I will consider the claim that animal testing of substances safeguard humans, that animals can be used effectively in human medical research, historical calims made in support of animal experiments, what science is. History would teach us that just because something is widely believed it is not necessarily true. In doing so I will refer to the opinions of doctors and scientists, statistics and independent literature and consider a variety of motives people may have for conducting animal experiments.

then have the following paragraphs...
p3-7 human health, refer to species difference and predictability being a fundamental requirement if a. e. is to be of use

3-product testing. 92% of drugs which pass the animal testing phase fail clinical (human) trial
-4 medical research. cures..what cures? and how many animals killed and how much money spent?
5-basic research. how often do results transfer to humans?
6- vet. medicine. do we need to kill, infect animals to treat other animals? ofcourse not, epidemiology, clinical observation are needed, same as for humans

7 other types of animal exp. alternatives to dissection, human derived insulin is superior/safer than cow and pig etc problems of using animal parts in humans, rejection, virus transfer etc

8 environmental factors. env. polutants pass animal tests give egs

9 economic factors, cost of human illness as diseases remain uncured and increase , cost of animal exp,

10 motives for a.e. legal protection, publish or perish, titles, curiosity, availability of animals and convenience of using them, availability of funds for a e. some may also have genuine altruistic motives such as curing a disease but sadly they do not achieve this (we now have 30,000 diseases)

11 historical claims made in support of vivisection (animal exp.). did a.e. achieve the advances claimed? what evidence is provided? compare to the above sites

12who benefits from a.e.? legal protection to drug/chem co's also benefits shareholders and employees, regulatory authorities, titles and income for individuals, animal breeders, makers of cages, restraining devices etc

Forgot to say...
suffering of animals, is anaesthetic being used, what is being done to them , how many animals, can they feel pain, do laws actually protect them, who sees what is going on? etc

summary present a utilitarian argument based on reality as desc. above. the answer to your essay q. should be very evident by then.

again; do refer to above sites and provide refs from original sources wherever possible. your teacher will probably not be aware of this so you must prove it to him/her

some pro a.e. sites are curedisease.org 'pro test' and 'research defense society' when considering thier claims see if they provide evidence in support and compare to anti a e sites