Cosmetic Testing On Animals Due To Experimenters example essay topic

Animal Rights The rights of animals are watched out for by organizations dating back to the early 1800's. Ever since The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in England in 1824 was formed there has been long running debates on the topic of animal rights. The first societies were formed to protect and maintain human treatment of work animals, such as cattle, horses and house hold pets. Towards the end of the 19th century more organizations were formed, this time to protest the use of animals in scientific experimentation.

In today's society, groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have continued these traditional fights as well as adding new agendas. These new agendas include hunting and fishing, and dissection of animals in science classes. This paper will discuss the pros and cons of animal experimentation and research, animals in the classroom, animal organizations and hunting. Along with these topics my personal opinion will be stated, before and after researching the topic. The rights of animals have always been important to me during my life. This is due to the fact that I have had many dogs as pets for as long as I can remember.

On this topic I feel as though having domesticated animals in the home is fine as long as proper care is taken of them. As for more controversial issue like animal research and experimentation my views vary. A few years ago I felt that any research or experimentation on animals was inhumane and unjust. This view is by no means one sided. I also feel that there are some things being done to animals that just should not happen, such as the testing of cosmetics. In other areas of animal rights like dissection in the classroom I think that as long as the animals died naturally it is fine to use them to further a students education along with human cadavers.

This, I feel is an important step in protecting animals as long as they protest within there legal rights. In order to sum my opinion up animals do have certain rights but if experiments, research, hunting and dissection provide positive increases in knowledge that furthers the existence of the world it is a necessary thing that must be done. Perhaps the biggest and most debated subject dealing with the rights of animals is the use of them in research and experimentation. "Very few people would object to the use of animals if human lives were saved as a consequence' (Mink off, 26). This population can be identified as the animal utilitarian, or vivisectionists. Vivisectionists are those who say that it is quite all right for us to do whatever we like to animals.

They say that God gave us such a right, since it is written in the bible (Genesis 1: 26) that man has dominion over all creatures. However, the extremists who do object would do so on a few key points. Firstly, animals that are used are subjected to inhumane treatment. This consists of tests such as the LD 50, which entails giving an animal a lethal dose of a chemical or drug until 50% of them die. If what is done to the animal may produce something of educational value, adds to scientific knowledge, or can help improve human health, they argue that it is worth killing animals or subjecting them to painful experiments. Also, experimenters are subjecting them to wound experiments, radiation experiments and studies on the effects of chemical warfare.

(PETA, 2) Organizations such as PETA are also opposed to cosmetic testing on animals due to experimenters spraying, injecting, and feeding cosmetics to animals which cause labored breathing, blindness and death in some cases. These organizations argue that cosmetics have already been tested on animals in the past why continue doing the same tests. Due to the protests of The Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing in 1981, Avon and Revlon have stopped using animals in their research (Compton's, CD). Experiments and research on animals such as the LD 50 test and cosmetic tests are, according to animal rights organizations cruel and inhumane towards animals. They believe that animals have rights and they are just as important to society as humans are, therefore if humans are not used for these experiments then animals should not be used either. Despite these objections for experimenting on animals there are positive results that come from it.

Research on animals is important in understanding diseases and developing ways to prevent them. The polio vaccine, kidney transplants, and heart surgery techniques have all been developed with the help of animal research. Through increased efforts by the scientific community, effective treatments for diabetes, diphtheria, and other diseases have been developed with animal testing (Bioethics, 148). There are many reasons given for it to be necessary to work with animals in research. First scientists must be able to test medical treatments for effectiveness and drugs for their toxicity before being tested on humans. Also new surgical techniques before being used on humans must be tested on living things with circulatory and pulmonary systems like ours.

No "computer models, cell cultures, or artificial substances can simulate flesh, muscle blood, bones and organs. ' (Am pef, 2) If considered carefully there is no alternative to animal research. It is impossible to explain or predict the course of many diseases without observing the effects of it on the entire living system. In the classroom, it is argued, dissections must go on in order to further our knowledge. But, what about computer programs like the virtual frog? The answer to this is simply that even with today's technologies, these kinds of computer programs are not sophisticated enough to reproduce a living organism.

In researching the topic of animal rights my eyes have been opened to various different reasons to support and not to support animal rights. After serious consideration of both sides of the argument, my opinion is that animals should be used in research and experiments, excluding cosmetic experiments. In my opinion this type of animal use is fine as long as it results in positively advancing the human race. Despite this point of view I also believe this research must produce these results in a humane manner. Animals do have rights and should not be used for unnecessary things such as hunting, which is purely taking advantage of animals because they cannot defend themselves and no good comes from this sport. The only exception to this was stated earlier, in which hunting was used as a last resort to curb a possible health threat.

Finally my hope for the use of animals in the classroom is that someday there will be enough technological advances for computer programs that will enable them to simulate a real animal. This actually goes for all animal testing, if we could simulate an animal or human, on a computer we would not have to subject anyone to testing. Animals do have the right of not being treated inhumanely whether it is in the home, laboratory, classroom or field, yet as long as animals are being used to help benefit the world; animals in my opinion can be used in some respects. I firmly believe in animal rights. God created the world with both animals and humans in which both coexist peacefully. Each bringing benefit to the other, but not at the expense of pain and suffering.

Animals do have feelings. They may not experience life as we do but they have their likes and dislikes, they are aware of their own needs and their environment. God gave man the ability to think and reason. We should put our abilities to better use when it comes to animals and the world that we share. Animal Rights Essay written by: jr reid One of the most touchy aspects of our relationship with animals is the use of animals in laboratory sciences. Some manufactures of cosmetics and household products still conduct painful and useless tests on live animals, even though no law requires them to do so.

I believe that the unnecessary testing of animals is inhumane and unethical when alternative methods are available. The anti-vivisectionists say we should allow no experiments on animals and the animal utilitarians, or vivisectionists, claim that we can do anything to animals if it is for the ultimate good of humanity. Perhaps they are both wrong. Much can be learned from treating animals that are already sick or injured in testing new life-saving drugs and surgical techniques. Animals, as well as people benefit from new discoveries.

But is it right to take perfectly healthy animals and harm them to find cures for human illnesses, many of which we bring on ourselves by poisoning the environment, eating the wrong kinds of foods, and by not adopting a healthy active life-style? Do people have the right to do what ever they like to perfectly healthy animals? Do we have the right to continue doing experiments over and over again in a needless repetition and a waste of animals if no new information is going to be gained. Animals suffer unnecessarily and their lives are pointlessly wasted. If the issue were simple, animal experimentation might never have become so controversial. Each year in the United States an estimated 20-70 million animals-from cats, dogs and primates, to rabbits, rats and mice-suffer and die in the name of research.

Animal tests for the safety of cosmetics, household products and chemicals are the least justifiable. Animals have doses of shampoo, hair spray, and deodorant dripped into their eyes or applied to bare skin in attempts to measure eye and skin irritancy levels. Other are force-fed massive quantities of toxic materials such as bleach or soap, in a hit-and-miss attempt to measure levels of toxicity. Since 1938, The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has required that each ingredient in a cosmetic be "adequately substantiated for safety' prior to being made available to the consumer.

However, neither the FDA nor the Consumer Product Safety Commission (a regulatory agency that oversees product safety, consumer complaints, etc.) requires firms to conduct animal testing of any cosmetic product. Cosmetic companies use animal tests to insure themselves against possible consumer lawsuits. If sued for liability, they can protect themselves by arguing that the cosmetic was "adequately tested for safety' with tests standard in the cosmetic industry. How placing a piece of lipstick in the eye of a rabbit to determine it safety to the consumer boggles my mind. If someone placed a piece of lipstick in my eye, I do believe it would irritate my eye also. How in the name of God does this test prove it is safe for the consumer?

I don't believe lipstick is gong to be used in the eye area, unless you are a mindless idiot. The Draize Eye-Irritancy Test was designed to assess a substance's potential harmfulness to human eyes based on its effects on rabbits' eyes. This test was developed in the early 1940's by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. This test is typically performed on six rabbits per substance tested. Technicians restrain each rabbit and place a measured amount of the test substance in the lower lid of one eye. Usually no anesthetics are given. the rabbits eyes are than examined at different intervals.

If severe injury has resulted, the rabbits may be observed for signs of recovery for as long as twenty-one days. Technicians record signs of damage, such as redness and swelling of the conjunctiva (the sac covering the eyeball), inflammation of the iris, and clouding of the cornea. Using a standardized scoring scheme, the degrees of damage to the conjunctiva, iris, and cornea are compared to graded levels of irritations. Scores for each of these parameters are than totaled.

Based on the total Draize score and the symptoms' duration, the test chemical is classified by the degree of irritation it causes: none, mild, moderate, or severe. At best, the Draize test yields a crude measure of a substance's irritancy; it is not designed to yield information about possible treatments or antidotes. the Draize is inhumane. Substances such as oven cleaners and paint removers cause obvious pain and suffering. Because animal and humans differ in medically important ways, results from the Draize test do not necessarily apply to humans.

Rabbit eyes differ significantly from human eyes: rabbits possess a nictitating membrane (a third eyelid) and have a slower blink reflex, a less effective tearing mechanism and a thinner cornea than humans. These differences make rabbit eyes more sensitive than human eyes to some chemicals and less sensitive to others. The test is unreliable. Several laboratories may perform the test on the same chemicals and report different results.

Manufactures argue that they conduct the Draize test to protect the public from unsafe products. Since 1986 legislation has been introduced in several states to limit or ban the Draize test for particular products (especially cosmetics), but no bill has yet passed. Another test I like to address is the Lethal Dose 50 Percent (L 50) test. this test is a procedure that exposed animals to a particular chemical in order to yield an estimate of how poisonous that chemical would be to human beings. Substances tested can include drugs, cosmetics, household products, industrial chemicals, pesticides and the individual ingredients of any of these products. The test procedure requires between 60 to 100 animals to determine what constitutes a lethal dose of a particular substance.

The test spans a time period from two weeks to sever years, depending on the amount of toxic chemicals in the product being tested. The animals are observed daily. Since chemicals are bitter-tasting and have an unpleasant smell, animals refuse to swallow them. The animals are then forced to swallow the substances in the form of capsules or pellets. they are also force-fed liquid chemicals by stomach tube, or through a hole cut in the animal's throat.

Some animals die from the sheer bulk of the dosage administered or from the severe burns they receive in the throat and stomach from the chemicals used in products such as laundry bleach and detergents and cologne. There are variations to this test which include forcing the animal to breathe the substance or applying the substance to the shaved skin of the animal or injecting the substance into the body, usually the abdomen. The animals are not provided with painkillers because they may affect the test outcome. Millions of rats, rabbits, mice and guinea pigs have been used in these tests, which purportedly assure the safety of cosmetics and household products. Many animals are still suffering in these useless tests right now. These tests are crude, cruel, and unreliable.

Animals injured in acute toxicity and eye irritancy tests are never treated. If the animals do not die from the effects of the experiments itself, they are either killed or used for an autopsy, or, if they are not badly injured, recycled and used for additional tests. Since the animals are not treated, these tests provide little useful knowledge for the treatment of humans who are exposed to the harmful substances. Dr. Gil Langley, a scientific neuro-chemist, states that: "Results (of animal tests) vary dramatically from laboratory to laboratory, between strains, sex, age, and species of animals, and extrapolation to humans in questionable. ' 1 Animal tests have failed to provide the clear definition between harmful and harmless products that they were originally intended to provide. Therefore, regardless of animal testing, the consumer always becomes the so-called "guinea pig' for any new product.

It would benefit the consumer to have up-to-date scientific methods, rather than the outdated, unreliable processes using laboratory animals. I have conducted my own tests on animal tested products and non-animal tested products for a period of a month, I have use shampoo, soap, deodorant and my mother has used face make-up and mascara. My finding did not surprise me because I found no differences in these products. A detailed analogy is attached to this report, a daily documentation of the results. I concluded that since there was no documented differences in these products that the use of animals is totally outdated. Alternatives to animal tests are available on todays market.

Many companies are working in fierce competition and dozens of alternative are being developed. Newer and more sophisticated tests are gradually replacing the Draize test. These alternatives most often use test-tube, or "in-vitro, ' methods based on the idea that what happens in the body's individual cells reflects what happens in intact organs such as the eye. Human cells can be used in such studies. In addition to in-vitro methods, other potential alternatives to the Draize test include tests that use computer programs, microorganisms and other organisms that can't experience pain, and chemical methods to analyze untested substances. Some of the new tools for assessing eye irritancy are: Neutral Red Assay- Irritants impair healthy cells' ability to take up neutral red dye.

This test measures the degree of impairment, yielding an index of irritancy. Agarose Diffusion-Tiny paper discs are coated with a test chemical and placed on a layer of gelatin. The chemical diffuses through the gelatin and reaches an under layer of healthy cells. A ring of dead cells around the discs indicates irritation. Eytex- In this test kit, a specially formulated chemical mixture turns cloudy when exposed to irritants, mimicking the response of the cornea. Microtox- This test kit contains a bacterium that can emit light.

Substances that inhibit this process are irritants. Topkat-A computer program estimates eye irritancy by comparing untested chemicals to similar chemicals of know irritancy. Most of these alternatives are being developed or improved at high-technology companies. Eytex at In Vitro International, Neutral Red Uptake Assay at Clone tics, Microtox at Microbes, and Topkat at Health Designs. Technical advances to eliminate LD 50 testing are also available. More Sophisticated methods, such as in vitro techniques, are the beginning of the move in the right direction.

In contrast to in vitro methods which use the whole animal, in vitro methods use only the cells or tissue of animals or humans. Animal cells can often be made to grow and divide indefinitely, thus sparing animals lives. When human cells are used (they are commonly obtained from tissue routinely discarded after surgery), in vitro techniques are completely humane. Tests using human cells are more scientifically relevant than those procedures using whole animals or animal cells or tissue. Other approaches are also being developed, there are computer programs that estimate the LD 50 score of an untested substance by comparing its chemical and structural properties to those of similar substances of know toxicity.

Companies can also employ the simple method of selective formulation to avoid D 50 testing while more sophisticated alternatives are being developed. Companies employing selective formulation use ingredients with safety profiles that have already been established and thereby avoid the need for any new testing. Clearly, animal testing is almost a thing of the past. But, until every animal is free from commercial testing, we have no time to rest on our laurels. Many companies still say that animal tests are the most likely to hold up in court if a human is injured by a cosmetic or household product and, for that reason, they will struggle to hold on to animal-based research. We need to continue to find new and improved alternatives so that we may preserve the lives and dignity of animals, but can also ensure the consumer of product safety.

Many manufactures such as Avon, Revlon, and Estee Lauder have ceased animal tests. the fact that companies are supporting alternatives and reduce animal usage is a good sign but the fight is clearly not over. This project has educated my family and I to be more caring consumers and we will use are buying power to pressure companies into banning animal testing within the commercial market. I have learned to write to companies that still test products on animals and let them know that I would not be buying their products and urge them to choose alternative instead. We must remember unseen they suffer, unheard they cry, in agony they linger, in loneliness they die.

You can make a difference, you can be their voice. Animal Rights Many people feel that animals have no rights and are here solely for our use. Humans are animals too, we shouldn't take advantage of other animals just because they can't reason like us. Animals are used in medical research labs as experiments. These experiments are meant only to benefit humans. I'm not totally against testing, some good can come of it.

But when are tortured and abused in the process then there is something wrong with it. For example in the early 1980's baboons were involved in experiments to find out more about comas. There was no care given to whether or not the animal would be hurt by this procedure. They just strapped the baboon to a metal device, which would force it's head upward at a sixty degree angle and then crush it with violent force.

The baboon would then writhe and moan before falling silent. This experiment meant to simulate what happens to human beings in a car crash or a violent head injury. It isn't right to cause pain, suffering, and certain death to animals just for our benefit. Many scientists also agree that this experimental procedure was wrong but only because primates have higher intelligence. I don't think it is right for any animal of high or low intelligence, to suffer that way. In other laboratories animals are confined to small cages or locked up so that thay can't move.

They are then used to test cosmetics and household chemicals. They have chemicals poured on to their eyes and skin to see if they cause irritation. These experiments would hurt the animals by causing burns and evn blinding them sometimes. I don't think it is right to hold these animals, caged against their wills and hurting them repeatedly. Nothing is done to ease or prevent their pain and suffering. There must be a better way to test substances without in inflicting suffering on innocent, bewildered animals.

Some scientists feel that animals are just that, animals. They lack the feelings that humans have. But if you have ever owned a pet dog, cat, etc., you know they have feelings and are sensitive to their surroundings just as we humans are. We are also abusing animals rights by destroying their habitats.

We lose thousands of animal and plant species each year. we are only hurting ourselves by doing this. There is so much to be learned from these habitats, even the possibility of cures for diseases. As a result from destroying animal's natural habitats we are having to depend on zoos to keep species of animals from becoming extinct. Zoos have done such good job of breeding the animals that they have produced a surplus. When zoos have a surplus of animals they are sometimes sold to circuses and hunting farms. Animals don't belong in circuses where they are paraded around and forced to perform unnatural tricks.

The animals at the circuses are sometimes forced to live in squalid conditions and are mistreated. When the animals get mad and try to get away they are often killed because they are said to be dangerous. They are just trying to get away from they mistreatment and abuse. it didn't want to jump through a hoop of fire or walk on it's hind legs. Merely providing food and shelter is not adequate treatment for an animal that has been taken from it's natural environment. The hunting farms that buy older and surplus animals from zoos let people hunt them. People pay money to kill an animal for fun.

Some farms allow the hunters to torture the animals before killing them. They have dogs to chase the animals and attack it, and other weapons such as spears. These animals are trapped. They have no hope of escape. People pay to take home a trophy, in one way or another they get their so-called trophy. These animals meet a merciless death.

How can people consider this a sport? God created the world with both animals and humans. To both coexist peacefully.