What’s the difference between this… and this? (picture credits: dog rabbit)

Animal cruelty takes on many forms and people like to think that they are against the concept entirely; however, this may not be true. For the most and obvious part, people strongly oppose any and all kinds of abuse towards animals. The main idea that comes to most people’s minds is domestic abuse of animals, such as beating pets and animal fighting; it is not often that they think of anything outside of that. While opinion on domestic abuse of animals is more or less unanimous, there are other matters within animal cruelty that are more controversial, one of the major topics the treatment of animal that scientific tests and experiments are being conducted on. It may be cruel to animals, but is, unfortunately, mandatory in finding new cures and discerning whether or not products are safe for public use

Some consider animal testing necessary for determining whether or not a new product poses a risk to the public. In fact, it has contributed to the discovery of many cures and treatments to ailments such as tuberculosis, asthma, and breast cancer. It only makes sense to test on animals as it would show how living things will react to newly developed products without testing on actual people. Besides that, the Animal Welfare Act, passed in 1966, states that “Facilities using regulated animals for regulated purposes must provide their animals with adequate housing, sanitation, nutrition, water and veterinary care, and they must protect their animals from extreme weather and temperatures.” So, really, there is no actual harm being done to the animals that are being tested on. Cyndra Beau, an aspiring research scientist, summarized it well saying, “Animal testing is a small price to pay in terms of medical advancement.”

Others believe that, not only is it unnecessary, animal testing is also cruel and inhumane; “A lot of animals suffer and die from products being tested on them, clearly that means that it’s not something that should be kept up,” animal rights enthusiast Aaron Ornstein says. In addition, there are now alternative forms of testing that can be conducted in place of using animals as subjects, such as in vitro testing, which are methods that utilize test tubes, computer models and simulations, and microdosing, which is a type of testing where the product is testing on humans with a quantity small enough to only affect the body on a cellular level, but not the whole body system. Moreover, products need to be tested on humans if much more accurate results are desired. The reason for this being that the animals being tested on have different physiologies from humans. Any reactions, or lack thereof, that the animals have to developing products can only be assumed to reflect that of humans, but is not for certain. Because of this difference in physiology, not only could reactions between animals and humans differ, this could lead to potential cures and treatments to be blocked from scientists as they form conjectures that reactions are the same in both when that could possibly not be the case. “People and animals are not biologically the same, obviously,” says Naomi Strauss, a volunteer at an animal shelter, “so why would we test on animals to see how people will react?” Unfortunately, the Animal Welfare Act does not extend to cold blooded species, invertebrates, farm animals used for food and/or fiber, rats and mice, among others, which make up most of the animals being used for testing, so the law is nearly useless in the protection of animal welfare. Apart from that, it is also unbelievably expensive. NASA’s FY 2017 budget is $18.5 billion; animal research is currently $14 billion. This implies that NASA and animal research are only $4.5 billion apart in importance, even though one conducts research and exploration of space, while the other tests various products on animals. Animal testing is not as necessary as one would think.

Animal cruelty is not a topic that has evinced a vast amount of discourse. However, animal testing does, even though it falls under that category. Either side has an arguable stance; some pros include the insight that it provides as to how humans might possibly react to new products and has contributed in the discovery of many significant treatments and curse already. On the other hand, some cons are that the animals’ reactions to new products are possibly not accurate enough for it to be assumed safe for human use and that it is much too expensive. Both sides of the debate are understandable, but the fact remains that, while animal testing is ultimately necessary for public safety, it is still cruel and can be conducted in a better manner.