Users' questions 

Is it bad to use animals for testing?

Leia Doyle

Is it bad to use animals for testing?

Although humans often benefit from successful animal research, the pain, the suffering, and the deaths of animals are not worth the possible human benefits. Therefore, animals should not be used in research or to test the safety of products. First, animals’ rights are violated when they are used in research.

Why animals should not be used to test products?

The harmful use of animals in experiments is not only cruel but also often ineffective. Animals do not get many of the human diseases that people do, such as major types of heart disease, many types of cancer, HIV, Parkinson’s disease, or schizophrenia.

What animals are products tested on?

Many different species are used around the world, but the most common include mice, fish, rats, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, farm animals, birds, cats, dogs, mini-pigs, and non-human primates (monkeys, and in some countries, chimpanzees).

How are ethical principles in research applied in animal subjects?

Ethical Guidelines for the Use of Animals in Research

  • Respect for animals’ dignity.
  • Responsibility for considering options (Replace)
  • The principle of proportionality: responsibility for considering and balancing suffering and benefit.
  • Responsibility for considering reducing the number of animals (Reduce)

How does animal testing save lives?

Antibiotics, anaesthetics, organ transplants and insulin for diabetes are just some of the breakthroughs that have depended on animal research. The polio vaccine alone has saved millions of lives. And Herceptin was not only developed and tested in mice, it actually comes from mice.

Why is it important to use animal testing?

It remains the responsibility of the manufacturer to substantiate the safety of both ingredients and finished cosmetic products prior to marketing. Animal testing by manufacturers seeking to market new products may be used to establish product safety.

Is it safe to use animal testing on cosmetics?

Unfortunately, animal testing on cosmetics does not always lead to the release of new cosmetics. In fact, there are tests done, without products actually put into use. Animals are just suffering and dying in vain by being subjects in dangerous tests that do not even have direct human benefits.

Are there any products which do not need to be tested on animals?

There are other products which are not medicines but not cosmetics which do need to be tested on animals to ensure that they do not cause harm to humans. Both Europe and the US require potentially toxic substances such as anti-mosquito spray to be to toxicologically tested (on animals)before it can be sold.

Are there any countries that do not require animal testing?

The EU is not the only part of the world to have done this – India and Israel also have bans in place. The US and China do not, at the present time, have such bans. The FDA does not require animal tests before a product is sold in the US but does advise manufacturers to use appropriate testing and ‘substantiate the safety ’ of their products.