Animal Testing Melanie Bizzarro

Thesis•Animal testing should not be conducted

unless it is completely necessary because animal testing is inhumane, not completely accurate, and there are many alternative testing methods.

Inhumane •On average, twenty six million animals

are used in experimentation each year. •Many times when animals are getting

experimented on they receive no anesthetics or pain killers.

Inhumane •Many times animals in labs are screamed

at and hit for misbehaving. •It has also been known that in some cases

slandering names are tattooed on the animals.

•Animals are usually isolated from any type of social interaction, therefore they usually become very depressed and aggressive.

Cosmetic Testing •Skin Sensitivity: “This is a process that

involves shaving the animals and placing chemicals on their bare skin and covering the skin with adhesive plaster. The animals become immobilized in restraining devices to prevent them from struggling”

Skin Sensitivity

Cosmetic Testing •Eye Irritancy: a substance is placed in one

eye, with the other eye serving as a control. The rabbits are restrained, preventing them from responding naturally to the irritation, and their eyes are evaluated after one hour and then at 24-hour intervals for up to 14 days.

Eye Irritancy

Medical Testing •Neurotoxicity: animals are given a single

oral dose of a substance and observed for 21 days or they are given doses of the test substance orally on a daily basis for 28 days. The animals are observed during the test for weight changes, behavioral changes, etc. At the end of the tests, the remainder of the animas are killed and their bodies are evaluated for signs of neurotoxicity.

Neurotoxicity

Medical Testing•Toxicokinetics and Metabolism: Animals,

usually rats or mice, are given single or multiple doses of test substances through force feeding, inhalation, intravenous injection, or through the skin and blood samples are taken to determine the rates of absorption, distribution, excretion, and metabolism. The animals are then killed and examined for the accumulation of the test chemicals in their organs.

Toxicokinetics and Metabolism

Inaccuracy •Many illnesses that are tested using

animals are not found within the animals they are testing. For example, primates are used to testing HIV treatments. Primates cannot get HIV though, so they implant the primates with an artificial form of HIV which they call SIV.

•They realized after testing primates for years using this artificial form of HIV that it reacts differently form the actual HIV virus.

Inaccuracy•Animal testing is only accurate 43% of the

time. •Many times it is believed that a treatment

for a certain illness is found using animal testing, but then after giving the same treatment to humans it caused awful side effects in humans.

Inaccuracy•Eye Irritation cosmetic testing: The

structure of the cornea of the eye of a rabbit differs significantly from that of a human. Rabbits also produce a smaller volume of tears than humans, allowing chemicals and other irritants placed in rabbit eyes to linger longer and cause more irritation. Not only does this make the Draize eye test unreliable, but it also adds to the immense suffering caused by this test.

Alternative Testing •Cell Cultures give very accurate data. •Cell cultures are human cells that are

taken from a human or lab grown. •Using cell cultures allows scientists to

test products on human cells.

Alternative Testing •Computer models can also be used to test

new chemicals or vaccines. •Programs on computers can be used to

determine if a chemical is going to be harmful or hurtful to the human body

Alternative Testing • The Three R’s: Replacement, Reduce, and Refine • The first one replacement, is using any avoidable

technique so you do not have to run test on animals.

• The second one reduction is to minimize the number of animals in each lab.

• The third one refine is to make sure that when animals are getting experiments done on them to make sure they have no pain. This means use anesthetics and pain killers on the animal and to help eliminate their pain.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoYN3O2fdp4&safe=active