Animal Cruelty - Is Using Animals in Medical Research Necessary?

Is using animals in medical research necessary? Some say yes, others say no but who is right? At first this question seems like its answer lies within ones opinion and only that, but if you look closer there is a lot more to it than opinion. Feeling sorry for the animals is definitely where it starts for people who don't agree with animal testing; but that's not where it ends. Scientists and medical researchers say that animal testing is the future to finding cures. They also believe it is cruel to use animals to test our products on but there are no other options. Using animals for testing helps them discover what will work and not work on humans. Using animals can help find cures faster and help prevent more human deaths. Some people believe that is true, however, While reading articles from different doctors, I discovered that using animals in the medical area hasn't helped humans near what people think it has. Just because animals are living breathing creatures like us, doesn't mean their systems are anything like ours. In fact, they're not anything like ours. There has been testing after testing done on animals to help find cures and medicine that will work on humans. After all that what do we have to show for it?

The audience that I am clearly referring to is people who have animals as pets as well as animal extremists who see animals much more than something that they should wear or something they should test on to see if it is beneficial to human beings. Some of the places I would like to see my ad be placed is magazines such as Animal Fair magazine or Animal Wellness Magazine and lastly the PETA website.

Dr. Amos, a board -certified doctor, explains why the use of animals actually slows down medical research. "The simplest explanation is that animal experiments provide misleading data. At best, they tell us a good deal about how animals experience disease, but they rarely tell us something of value that can be applied to humans. Animal tests provide additional data, but not a higher level of accuracy." What good is it going to do us to use animals to test medicines on if it's not even helping? Another statement Mr. Amos made was that "The General Accounting Office several years ago concluded that animal tests do not accurately predict how dangerous a drug will be in humans. In other words, drug tests on animals do not protect humans from harmful medications." It is hard for me to believe that after the horrible instances which have occurred, that they would continue to use this procedure. Especially where it does no good, and harms defenseless animals as well. Dr. Amos also focused on the study of AIDS. "One area where human data has contributed far more than animal studies is in the area of infectious disease research, specifically the study of AIDS. Dr. Amos states "An animal virus can be 99.9% similar to its analog in humans and still be completely different". A virus is a long chain, like a long series of letters, and if you take out one letter you have an entirely different word. That is why animal viruses are useless as a research tool. Using animals for the study of medicines & specifically the use of AIDS research useless. Using animals has helped research a little, but was it because they really worked or was it merely a coincidence. If one also considers the pain of the animals involved is it really worth it? Here are a few stories told by Neal Barnard, M.D., The introductory course in psychology at my college used rats that were deprived of water for three days and then put into a 'Skinner Box' (a box which delivers a few drops of water when a bar is pressed by the thirsty animal inside). At the end of the course, the rats are put together in a trash can, chloroform is pored over them and the lid is closed." What was gained by this experiment? Probably useful information for the students performing the experiment, and that's fine; but why did they have to kill them? There are other alternatives & other choices that those students could have made. Neal shares another story about students who could also sign up to implant electrodes into a rat's skull to show that electrical stimulation of the brain can affect behavior. "During the implantation