7. Animal Testing

Animal Testing

Horrific Animal Tests

For this class session we had a visit from Alka Chadna from PETA. She came in to talk to us about animal testing. While I knew much of the information presented about animal testing it was very interesting to hear about the legal aspect of animals testing. The big question that was presented to the class was, if we are different than animals, why do we test products for our use on them?

I worked in a pharmacy for 4 years, where I was exposed to drugs that helped people stay healthy. While I can say that there are drugs that people were on that could have been prevented, there were patients with chronic diseases like cancer or lupus. All of these patients where on many prescription drugs that, I am sure were 99.9% tested on animals. These patients would have never had access to these medications if they were not at one point tried out on animals to see the side effect and validity. 

This is where I come at a crossing point with animal testing. While I am completely against animal testing on household products and beauty products (really, making dogs inhale cigarette fumes to see what would happen to us?...you'll die, thats what!), what if I had cancer...would I refuse a medication?

(The Petition Site)

To put it simply, no. I have meet many vegans who say that they would refuse medications tested on animals for ethical reason and I respect there stance. I just do now know if I could completely refuse a drug if my life depended on it. 

This does not mean that I do not think that we need alternatives to animal testing. I am sure that there are ways (Alka discussed some in class) to genetically modify, for example a cancerous cell and test it in a vile. Yet, with all our technology why do we not do this yet. Is it because of money? Many would say that this is the reason why. That is is is just simply cheaper to test a drug on an animal than start over research of many years on new "test" subjects (not animals). That is would derail the work of years and years of research.

My closing statement is...Well is it not worth it?  Are we that selfish that we would rather save a buck than stop the pain of millions of animals?