A person’s first opinion on animal testing is always against it but they never really go into why it is necessary or why it is beneficial to them or their loved ones. Animals and humans are very similar and animal testing has played a huge part for finding medical and scientific breakthroughs not for only humans but for veterinary health as well. Without animal research, the world would be full of unknown cures and medicine. Animal testing has helped us find so many treatments, vaccines, antibiotics, and surgeries for injuries, illnesses, and deformities. We have been testing on animals repeating in history to understand the structure of the body. A person’s body is unique and there is no reasonable substitute for testing on a living working system. Animal and humans share similar features in their body so it gives us a chance to experiment on animals instead of humans. There are also laws in place to make sure animals are not being abused or mistreated during their research. Animals are also usually bred in the lab.

People might argue back that there’re different methods of testing that can replace animals and yes I will agree with that but for some cases we need a living working system to develop a cure for that specific illness. Studying cell structures in a Petri dish or in advanced computers are not capable of precisely creating a replica of organs for instance a computer cannot replicate the brain’s structure or its complexity roles. Mice are considered the best model of humans because they are 98% genetically similar to humans and since their genomes are easy to replicate the human form making them even more similar. Tests that are not experimented on animals are less accurate than tests experimented on animals because it helps researchers understand the bigger picture of what they are dealing with.

Registered licensed holders specially bred animals for research and do not perform research on strays or unwanted pets. In the UK the percentage of what animals were used were 84% rats, mice and other rodents, 12% were fish, reptiles, and birds, 1% were small mammals other than rodents, 2.6% were sheep, cows, pigs and other large mammals, 0.3% were dogs and cats which were specially bred, and 0.15% were monkeys which are banned from the U.S. today.  Rodents are usually the most frequently to be tested on because they have a short life span of 2 years therefore allowing researchers to calculate the results in a faster time period unlike a human takes years to evolve their body structures.

The same scientific discoveries made for humans have saved countless lives of animals. Pet and animals in zoos live longer, and healthier lives as a result of animal research. It has also saved many endangered species lives from going extinct in many places around the world for instance the black footed ferret, the California condor and the tamarins of Brazil. It has allowed for endangered animals in captivity to be bred so that they can go back in the wild and living free.

Laws and regulations protect animals in testing by putting restrictions on what they are allowed to do to animals and what they prohibit researchers to do on animals. The animal Welfare act is a federal law that protects animals in research. Supervisors go in and make sure that some of the animals being tested are being taken care of, fed, handled, etc. Every community has committees that inspect the research labs twice every year. The National Research Council Guide to the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, is a book commonly used for following rules and regulations to better the safety and care of the animals. According to the 1988 Animal Welfare enforcement Report by the Department of Agriculture, 94 percent of the animals being tested are not being harmed by painful procedures they are tested on.

 If we don’t allow researchers to do these procedures or tests then how will we find a cure for cancer or how will we discover new medicine. These treatments that have been discovered by animal testing have been used to save or improve the lives of many millions of people worldwide. Would you rather save millions animals (mostly mice) and live life with cures that you don’t know that is healthy for you or would you rather make animals our future heroes of the cures that saved the life of millions of people and animals. A drug was made that was supposed to be a pain reliever and was sold with out it being tested on animals and caused harm to almost 10,000 pregnant woman. Animal testing is something we have to do to in order to benefit the lives of every living thing. Animal testing is necessary for the advancement of science and humanity.