Animal Testing Should Not Be Banned - 1508 Words

Poliovirus is a contagious infection that rampaged through the United States about fifty years ago, with the possibility of leading to lifetime paralysis. In the 1950s, Jonas Salk and his team developed a polio vaccine that prevented the outbreak of polio (â€Å"Polio Vaccine†). During his pursuit of the creation of the vaccine, mice, monkeys and rats were used to test the side effects and effectiveness of the new vaccine. Without it, polio would have become a worldwide malady. Animal testing is the procedure of using various animals to research for new drugs, vaccines or cosmetics. However, there are many opponents against animal testing on the basis that it is unethical and that it is harmful to the subjects of the research. Nonetheless,†¦show more content†¦Even in high schools, colleges, and medical schools, animals are used as part of most instruction about dissection to explore the anatomy of different organisms and how the animals’ body would compare to the human body. How many cadaver bodies would a medical student waste if they did not first learn where to cut or the right way to cut? The application of animal research has lead to many discoveries in the medical departments. For example, mainly dogs have been used to develop cardiac techniques such as cardiac bypass, angioplasty and heart transplants, mice and monkeys have been used in the trials to find new remedies for HIV and AIDS, mice were used in the discovery of antibiotic medication such as penicillin and various animals were used in the research for cancer treatments such as chemotherapy drugs and radiation therapy (â€Å"Why do Scientists†). In the absence of animal testing, there would be physicians or scientists, the health care system would be completely eliminated and the world would be permeated with incurable diseases. The use of animal testing is to examine â€Å"how much of a drug or biologic is absorbed into the blood, how a medical product is broken down chemically in the body, the toxicity of the product and its breakdown components, and how quickly the product and its metabolites are excreted from the body† (â€Å"Why are Animals†). During the testing of medicine, animals