by: Vibha Gopalakrishnan

Tripping over a rock on the sidewalk, and getting a bloody scab on your knee when you were a toddler is one thing, but animal testing takes that pain to a whole other level. Animal testing is the process of performing an experiment on an animal to see how its behavioral or biological system react to the experiment. This process isn’t only done to make sure that the products humans use are safe, but it’s also done to advance scientific learning, develop and test forms of treatment, and to study diseases. Every year, over a 100 million animals are crippled, poisoned, and burned during, and after testing. To all those animal lovers out there, you can understand why animal testing is incredibly absurd and unneeded.

        It’s funny that the animals that are experimented on don’t get many of the diseases that humans get. These diseases include heart disease, many types of cancer, HIV, and Parkinson’s. As a matter of fact, all of these diseases are artificially induced in animals just to try to mimic the diseases in humans. Because of this, animal testing proves to be totally ineffective. Sadly, animals after this experiment aren’t returned to their natural habitat, they are killed. 

         Even though animals don’t get many of the diseases we get, they are more similar to humans than most of us know. Animals have feeling, desires, goals, needs, and organs that work just like ours. They have rights, but sadly, 95% of the animal that are experimented on don’t have laws to protect them, and their rights. The Universal declaration of Animal rights states that “ there is ample evidence that many animal species are capable of feeling, we condemn totally the infliction of suffering upon our fellow creatures and the curtailment of their behavioral and other needs save where this is necessary for their own individual benefit. We do not accept that a difference in species alone (any more than a difference in race) can justify cruel exploitation or oppression in the name of science or sport, or for use as food, for commercial profit or for other human gain.” Animal testing doesn’t provide those right to animals. Instead, animals are still being “exploited in oppression of science… or for other human gain” in the name of testing and research. 

      The Animal Welfare Act(AWA) is a federal law that states the basic need of care of animals in laboratories. It only provides protection for 5% of the animals that are tested on, and very minimal protection for the rest. This law isn’t enough at all. Everyday rabbits, dogs, cats, monkeys, fish, rats, Guinea pigs, hamsters, birds, and chimpanzees are legally tested by being burned, poisoned, starved, forced to smoke, mutilated, blinded, electrocuted, drowned, and dissected without painkillers. Also many animals are harmed, neglected, and abused in ways that violate the law. Isn’t that enough poor treatment to animals? There are laws that protect animals (even if they aren’t good enough or don’t protect the animals fully), but animals all around the world are still abused because of testing. And that’s why aside from the pain caused to the animal, animal testing is inhumane. It ignores all the laws set for it.

      There are many companies around the world that still do animal testing. Dove, Revlon, Avon, Tide, Windex, Mary Kay, Listerine, Glade, and Febreze are only a few fish picked out of the big ocean of animal testing companies. Most companies still engaging in animal testing normally perform the skin and eye corrosion(irritancy) test. This test is a great detailed example of painful, unneeded, and ineffective testing. Brace yourselves!

       The skin and eye corrosion (irritancy) test is performed to see of a substance is corrosive or not. This test would obviously largely benefit companies that sell make-up. In this test, the chemical test substance is applied to a rabbit’s shaved back, or dripped into it’s eyes. This area is covered with a gauge patch that is left for 4 hours. The rest of the substance around the area is wiped away. A wound is allowed to develop for 14 days in that area; the skin damage is evaluated. The chemical substance is considered corrosive if the wound has ulcers, bleeding, bloody scabs, scars, and signs of dead skin. This test can cause extreme distress and pain to the animal going through it. The distress and pain caused is presented in the form of blindness, swollen eyes, sore bleeding skin, internal bleeding and organ damage, birth defects, convulsions and death. Pain relief is not provided and at the end of a test the animals are killed, normally by asphyxiation, neck-breaking or decapitation. Actually, any animal that goes through testing is not required to take pain killers. 

    In my opinion, animal testing shouldn’t be done anymore. It’s wrong, causes harm and violates the rights of animals. Therefore, it is inhumane. We can’t call ourselves human if we abuse other creatures around us. We can call ourselves monsters.