8gpy Johnson Research Paper V05

Medical Animal Testing By: Nissa Johnson 8th Grade Project The Walker School Teacher: Mr. Surkan Word Count:1,605 11/10/09

Abstract The experimentation on animals has occurred throughout history and has resulted in an increase in medical discoveries and has helped save countless lives. Animal testing has not always helped, it has had negative effects also. Animal testing has been harmful for animals; killing around 17 million animals yearly just in medical use alone. But because of the differences between animals and humans, some medical flaws have been discovered. Animals are not the same as people, but do the similarities between humans and animals are close enough to have positive effects?

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Animal testing is a topic that can differ from the type of experimentation. There is medical research animal testing. There is also the animal testing of non-medical use, such as cosmetics and common household products. Then there is the matter of animal testing alternatives, such as cell cultures, or computer testing. These are some matters that impact our decisions over on animal testing. However, with animal testing for medical use, most people would choose a loved family member or friend over an animal’s life. If testing on animals could save lives, most would not hesitate over a few lab rats. Humans have used animals in research for over two thousand years. Erasistratus, who was a professor at a medical school in Egypt around 300 B.C.E, tested and studied the hearts and brains of animals in order to understand the human heart. Alcmaeon, a Greek doctor born about 500 B.C.E, tested on living animals. He cut the animals’ optic nerve behind the eye, to study vision. Galen, a Greek doctor, discovered that veins carried blood by dissecting monkeys. He discovered this as he worked with apes and monkeys (Woods 8). Animals have been used as the testers development of treatments and vaccines. Vaccines have saved millions of lives. In the 1950s, if someone had a heart ailment, they would most likely die. Today, four hundred thousand people a year, have had open-heart surgery in the United States. Just a few years ago, around 20 percent of diagnosed cancer patients survive more than five years. Today, around 50 percent live 5 years or longer. (Woods 41) These discoveries are all due to animal testing. The North Carolina Association states, “Laboratory animals provide one of the very best ways known to study the human body and diseases that afflict it.” (Patterson 43) Since 1901, two thirds of the Nobel Prizes for Medicine or Physiology have been made for discoveries that involve animal experimentation. Diseases like diphtheria, tetanus, rabies, and polio that had once killed millions,

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Johnson 3 now they are either wiped out or reduced by new vaccines. Animal testing has improved the medical treatment today and have saved many lives. Humans benefit from the use of animals, “ The truth about just how much animal research has contributed to medical progress is hard to assess because we cannot know what our health would be like if scientist had decided to concentrate on non-animal research.” (Patterson 43) Since animals are not the same as humans, no matter how similar humans and animals are, we cannot rely on animal testing results for accurate human reactions. Substances may be fine for animals, and even help them, but not okay for humans. Some substances may harm or hurt animals and be fine for humans. Humans and animals are different, therefore having different responses to certain substances. In 2004, the arthritis drug Vioxx, appeared to be safe and even help animals, was removed from the market due to 140,000 heart attacks in the U.S alone. (Haugen 158) Also, according to animal studies, cigarette smoke, alcohol and glass fibers are all safe to ingest. Baycol, was a drug that used to treat cholesterol. After being released in the market in 1997 it caused more than 10,000 cases of serious muscle loss, or even death, until it was withdrawn from the market. (Haugen 162) In 1964, Dr. J. Gallagher admitted, “Animal studies are done for legal reasons and not for scientific reasons.” (Haugen 166) Dr. J. Gallagher was the medical director of Lederle Labortories. Animal testing data provides liability protection when drugs fail, causing harm or fatal injuries to people. As a result of some of these flaws in animal testing, scientists have discovered alternatives, otherwise known as vitro tests. In Vitro means, “within the glass” and is not performed on a living organism. Some of these vitro tests include the use of computer modeling programs or mathematical predictions. It may even use plants or cells. In fact, an alternative to the Draize test, a test where they test on rabbits eyes for swelling or irritability, is that they use egg membranes of fertilized chicken eggs. The membrane can be an alternative because it has blood veins and can react to harmful

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Johnson 4 substances. Bhayva Mathur says, “We have already advanced so much in medical technology, we should start also looking for some alternative methods.” In an interview with Nissa Johnson she suggests that we only use animals when we have to, minimize the use, and even to start reusing animals. Animal testing itself is just an alternative to testing on humans. The only reliable and 100% accurate way to get results for human purposes is to actually test it on humans. There have been various cases where people have played a huge role in improving medicine today. If a human has been ill, or sick a scientist can study the illness, and the symptoms of the illness. People can also volunteer to help in an experiment. They can be the final testers of drugs or other treatments that have been proved reasonably safe. The scientist must first explain all the possible risks and gets the person’s consent even before scientists start testing. These vitro tests have been proven to be quite successful in the past and most scientist hope that in the future more alternatives will be found. The debates over animal rights are more of a question of if they should have rights. Animals are living, breathing organisms that have emotion and can feel pain. In fact, we share more than 95% of our genes with monkeys and 90% with rats. Some say, however, that animals do not have rights, and we can use them however we want to. Tomas Aquinas, who was an important Christian Thinker, (A.D 1225-1274) told that animals lacked souls, so they do not have any rights. Rene Descartes, (A.D 1596-1650) who was a French scientist and philosopher, believed that only humans could feel or think. He also said that people have the right to use animals like machines. Although human beings have more developed cerebral cortex than other animals, this part of the brain is concerned with thinking functions rather than with basic impulses, emotions, and feelings. These impulses, emotions and feelings are located in the diencephalon, which is well developed in many other species of animals especially mammals and birds. (Singer 43)

It is a fact that humans are animals, and some say that denying animal rights, would be speciesism. Speciesism is the belief that one species, such as humans, is above all others. Some

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Johnson 5 believe that animals do not have rights; we eat animals and, therefore, also lack morals. This can decide whether or not animals should be used for testing. Since animals cannot argue for their rights, animal activists have protested and rebelled against animal testing. In fact, because of pressure from animal activists, companies now use alternative methods to the Draize test (eye swelling test that uses rabbits), or LD50 tests (test to find out the lethal dose of a certain substance). There have been countless acts and laws regarding animal testing. Today, you must go through a ethics protocol to ensure the animals being tested on are treated ethically and humanely. In a survey of middle school students, conducted by Nissa Johnson in Marietta, GA in October of 2009, suggested that animal is generally frowned upon. There were 27 students that were surveyed. Eight of the 27 respondents, were unsure of whether they disagree or agree with medical testing. 74% believed that animal testing for non-medical use was wrong. A majority of the respondents believed that all animals feel pain and that animals should not suffer for our benefit. But they also thought that testing on rats and mice would be alright. More than twothirds of the respondents believed that all animals have the same equal rights, yet most answered that only rats and mice should be used for animals testing. Not any of the respondents thought that animal experimentation should be done if there was another way. Bhavya Mathur, a professor who once worked with animals, hopes that in the future we will use fewer animals. (Johnson) In a personal interview with Ms. Bhavya Mathur, she elaborated more on the morals of animal testing. In her experience with animal testing she believed that there was a way to reduce the number of animals used in animal testing such as by only using animal testing on more relevant cases. She also believed that an animal testing was of a high importance in medical advancement. “I would say 95% of them(scientists today) would validate that we cannot do

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Johnson 6 without animals.” This shows just how important animals are, but people should only use animals when they have to. (Mathur) The middle school personal survey (Johnson) and this interview (Mathur) data runs the risk of being unreliable, and inaccurate. The survey’s anonymous nature make it hard to conclude the honesty of the participants. Those who had taken the survey might have had a special interest in the topic of animal testing. Animal testing is necessary for the benefit of humans. Humans depend on animals. Without animals the progress of medical technology would be set back. People would be vulnerable to emerging diseases. Cures or vaccines for any new illness would be impeded. Even though animal testing alternatives have been used in the past, they could not completely replace animal testing. In the process of animal testing, animals should be used sparingly, and even reused to reduce the number of animals. Animal activates are against animal testing but people need to continue to test on animals for our benefit.

Appendices Interview with Bhavya Mathur In an interview conducted on October 2,2009 with Bhavya Mathur are as follows: Nissa Johnson: Could you please introduce yourself, your title of educational background? Bhavya Mathur: My Name is Bhavya Mathur, and I am a instructor in a technical college, and I’m right now teaching anatomy and philology to students who are going to be in programs like radiography and physical therapy assistants or reinsured nursing programs. My educational background is masters in biology, I had applied in microbiology as my major, as well as my undergraduate was also in biology and chemistry, where I did some anatomy work, and after I graduated, I worked for a short period of time worked as a research assistant with a researcher in

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Johnson 7 a school of medicine who was primarily focusing on biomedical research, so I worked with a doctor, who had a research question, an helped her out in her experiments. Nissa Johnson: what’s you pas experience with animal testing? Bhavya Mathur: My past experience has been the research analyst and assistant, with involved animal testing in a renal lab, where they were studying a specific protein in the kidney, so that’s why we had mice for testing. Nissa Johnson: How long did that last? Bhavya Mathur: That peculiar experiment lasted less than a year. Nissa Johnson: What various procedures did you perform with the mice? Bhavya Mathur: So, the research question that doctor had was, about the protein expressed in certain parts of the mammal, usually in the inner ear, and the thyroid gland, and in the kidney, it is a protein that acts like an iron transporter, so it would transport chronine iron, and if that protein is not present in that mammal, which can happen because of genetic abnormalities, a lot of humans are born without that protein, because of genetic abnormalities, so because of that the effect of that is either loss of hearing or chronic blood pressure. So the basic question of the lab was, a science question, about how physiology works. So that’s what the focus was on, they had a experiments design with a control and the variables, you must always have a control and variables. So there was a regular mice type, and then we created a genetic abnormal type of mice. We had knocked out that particular gene, that had that special protein, and see how they behave. My job in that experiment was to take care of those mice, feeding them a specific diet which was usually a salt restrictive diet, and analyze their urine for seven days, and analyze their urine each day. And after the seven days, we would perform surgery on the mice, and draw blood. Analyze

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Johnson 8 the blood, and also take their kidneys out from them, for tissue analysis. Then they would euthanize the mice afterward. Nissa Johnson: where there any guidelines you had to follow while experimenting? Bhavya Mathur: Defiantly, before we were even recruited and hired we had to go through ethics protocol of how to treat animals, and if we agreed on that, only then were we supposed to be on that job. There are defiantly very rigorous guidelines and protocols wherever animal testing is involved. You cannot just randomly pick and chose an animal that you want then start working on it, it has to be approved by USDA, department of agriculture plus there are humane societies plus the schools committee to approve your experiment only then, can you proceed. When I was working there, I saw how humanely all the animals were treated, plus there were inspections, so they would make sure the cages were mended properly, plus there were active veterinarian doctors on duty, plus animal care technicians, to make sure there was no pain, suffering, or any kind of distress involved with the animals we tested on. Nissa Johnson: So you believe in animal testing for medical purposes? Bhavya Mathur: For biomedical research yes, so far because we have benefited a whole lot from these research, right now, FDA, does not approve of any medication which has not been testing on animals. That is another policy people have to abide by. It kind of intergrades the animal testing to any kind of research. Otherwise your medication would not be in the market. At some level there has to be some kind of animal testing involved. Otherwise FDA would not approve of it. But I’m hoping since its 2009, and we have already advanced so much in medical technology, we should start also looking for some alternative methods, where we can minimize animal testing, if you would talk to most of the scientists, I would say 95% of them would validate that we cannot do without animal testing. But what we can do is, first of all, do the most relevant

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Johnson 9 testing on them, minimize the use, also start re-using, and not just, you done with one experiment, then you discard, we should think of different ways to minimize, I’m hoping that in the future more alternative method will be found. Because there are certain experiments where you have to look at how the whole living organism would respond in general. Just not the tissue level, how the whole living organism would respond to it so that’s why we have to look at those aspects. Nissa Johnson: So do you believe in animal testing for non-medical reasons, such as cosmetics or common household products? Bhavya Mathur: Again FDA does not approve of any product that has not been testing on animals. And another thing, my own opinion is, again, its 2009, we have advanced so much, so the basic research has already been done, so what is done was history we cannot undo it so they had defiantly tested a whole lot on different animals for their cosmetic products, like mascara or any different type of shampoo, they have already done the basic research, so how more would you be refining you product? The refinement would be, if you’re talking about a shampoo, making your hair more smooth, some finer details, but not on the basic ingredients that have already been tested on. So my opinion, non-biomedical would be to have more alternative methods rather than animal, or human volunteers, which in this case, would not be lifethreatening, if the basic research has already been done. If it’s a completely new product then it’s a different issue. But right now, in this scenario, I think we can do without animal testing. Nissa Johnson: Would alternatives to animal testing work just as well as animal testing? Bhavya Mathur: It depends upon the research question .The synthetic skin would work for experiments if you want to see how a substance reacts to your skin, it would work perfectly fine, computer simulators would again work for certain experiments where there just one observation

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Johnson 10 to be made which would give you just some obvious results. At some level it would be required to test on an organism to see how it effects the whole body. Nissa Johnson: Do you think it matters which animals are being used to test on? Bhavya Mathur: It matters, and depends on what you are trying to find out. If your are tying to find out about basic science, exploring how a particular cell functions, then you might not need a higher animal to work upon, such as a dog or a cat. You could even do that experiment with yeast. But it depends upon research questions. Nissa Johnson: Now with your experience, do you think that testing on animals for human purposes can get accurate and reliable results? Bhavya Mathur: Again, it depends on your research. In terms of genetics, we share 98% of our genes with monkeys, and chimps. Also rats would work to because we share 90% with them. You would want to use higher animals that have the most similarities with animals for more necessary research. But I would like to point out that it is not just animals that they test on, it is humans as well, as the final step in testing a product, or substance. But it has been proved that animals have shown accurate results in the past. Nissa Johnson: thank you so much it was a pleasure interviewing you. Bhayva Mathur: You’re welcome.

Animal Testing Survey The survey of middle school students was completed by 27 students. The target population was the general public because animal testing has affected most of us, even though many may not realize it, for maybe a sick family member or friend. It was hoped to give some insight to the

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Johnson 11 feelings toward the animal testing dilemma, and possibly some solutions some had in mind for animal testing. The questions on the quiz where the following: What is you gender? Are you a vegetarian? Please rate the following as strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, or strongly disagree. I agree with animal testing I agree with non-medical testing. I believe animal feel pain and suffer. Do you buy, or use any animal testing products? Do you think it matters what animals are being used? If yes, which ones? For what reasons? If no, why not? Is it okay for a unlimited number of animals be used to save a person with a life treating disease? If yes, do you think that one person’s life is more important than many animals? If no, how many would be okay? Does it matter which animal? Do you believe animal have rights?

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Works Cited [MLA 6] Haugen, David M., ed. Animal Experimentation (Opposing Viewpoints). New York: Greenhaven P, 2006. Johnson, Nissa. “Animal testing Survey.” Survey. 1 Oct. 2009 Patterson, Charles. Animal rights. Hillside, N.J: Enslow, 1993. Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation. New York: The New York Review of Books, 1990. Mathur, Bhavya. Video Interview. 2 Oct. 2009 Woods, Geraldine. Animal Experimentation and Testing A Pro/Con Issue (Hot Pro/Con Issues). New York: Enslow, 1999.

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