Animal testing should banned for all medical, cosmetic, and other experimental purposes in the United States because it is immoral, unnecessary, and inaccurate.

Jeremy Bentham, the author of The Principles of Morals and Legislation, once said, “The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but "Can they suffer?” Every day, animals are tortured against their will. In the United States each year, more than 100 million animals including mice, rats, frogs, dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, monkeys, fish, and birds are burned, crippled, poisoned, and abused, according to PETA.org.
 

A federal law called the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) regulates only a few aspects of life for an animal who is used in research. It was passed in 1966, and it is still the only federal law in the United States that regulates the treatment of animals. The law states that there are limitations on the environmental conditions the animals are kept in, that those who transport the listed animals must comply with published regulations governing the well-being of the animals, that any partaking in animal fighting is illegal, and so on, but no where in the law does it state that the mistreatment of a living animal is inhumane. This law also excludes roughly 95% of the animals tested upon. Labs are not required to report non-AWA protected animals, and even animals covered under the Animal Welfare Act can still be abused and tortured. The Animal Welfare Act does not provide any real safety to millions of animals in labs in the United States.

Animal test results often provide inaccurate conclusions. For example, an AIDS vaccine that was shown to be very effective in monkeys, failed in human clinical trials because it did not prevent people from developing AIDS. Some believe that it even made humans more susceptible to the disease. The National Institute of Health, which is funded by our tax dollars, has spent over $10 million on chimpanzee AIDS research. According to a report in a British newspaper titled The Independent, one conclusion from the failed study was that “testing HIV vaccines on monkeys before they are used on humans, does not in fact work.” This was not the first time animal testing had been proven incorrect and unbeneficial to humans. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration stated, “Currently, nine out of ten experimental drugs fail in clinical studies because [Humans] cannot accurately predict how they will behave in people based on laboratory and animal studies.” If, in so many instances, animal testing has simply not worked, why are we still putting animals through pain and suffering? For results that only end up in failure?

Ninety-two percent of experimental drugs that are safe and effective on animals, fail in human clinical trials because they are too dangerous or do not work. The former National Cancer Institute Director Dr. Richard Klausner stated, “We have cured mice of cancer for decades, and it simply didn’t work in humans.” Meaning, the human species has learned how to eradicate cancer in other species using animal testing, which is great. But we still haven’t found a cure for our own cancers despite the decades of animal testing. Perhaps the cure could be found if we started using a more accurate form of testing, a kind of testing that wouldn’t involve abuse of the innocent.

Testing on animals for cosmetic purposes is completely unnecessary. Europe, the world’s largest cosmetic market, Israel, and India have all banned animal testing for cosmetics and the sale or import of newly animal-tested beauty products. The people of these progressive countries no longer contribute to the suffering of innocent animals. These progressive countries are still making their profits, however. The ban of cosmetic animal testing has no direct effect with the market and selling of these products. The European cosmetic industry continues to have booming sales, despite the law restricting any form of cosmetic animal testing. If these countries have changed their laws and have little to no negative economic consequences, the United States can as well.

No animal model is perfect and there are still many differences between model organisms and humans. Instead of wasting 12 billion dollars yearly funded mostly by us, taxpayers, it would be more proactive to use the money to research new ways to test medicines for human safety. Although animal testing has resulted in treatments and cures in the past, there is no longer a need to test on animals. Today, there are sophisticated computer systems, mathematical models, human tissue, and cell cultures can show us what happens to our bodies during diseases for more ways to accurately predict how a drug will affect a human. If these methods are humane, inexpensive, and result with more accuracy, then why is the United States still testing on animals?
It’s no longer a legal requirement to test cosmetics and their ingredients on animals. Science has come a long way, and there are now roughly 20,000 established cosmetic ingredients that have already been deemed as safe. There are also a growing number of test methods that do not include animals and they are proven to be scientifically superior, faster, and cheaper. For instance, 3-dimensional human skin models can fully replace rabbits for skin irritation testing, and cell culture tests for sunlight-induced “photo”-toxicity, genetic mutations, and other harmful effects.

Ghandi once said, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” Every second an animal is slaughtered in United States laboratories. Animal testing is not only inhumane, it produces inaccurate results, and is completely unnecessary for the future of cosmetic, medical, and other experiments. Animal testing should be made illegal in the United States.

We live in the land of the free, the home of the brave. Our freedoms and natural rights are taken for granted every day. As a species we thrive, coexisting with thousands of other kinds of creatures. Although these creatures live a different way we do, they still experience pain in the same way we do. Animals live on this free land of ours, but does that mean they have the same freedoms? We have the freedom of speech. They do not, for they cannot speak English. With no way to speak up for themselves, they undergo torture that they can do nothing about. They are helpless and nothing but innocent. What is more cruel than hurting something that can’t even stand up for itself?

We have had some success using animal testing to discover new life-saving medicines, but more often than not the animal tests prove to be inaccurate and not useful. The way animals and humans react to things is very different. As a species we have done incredible research into more efficient ways of testing medicine and cosmetics. If we were to refrain from spending considerable amounts of money on animal testing, we would be able to fund more research that could discover a better way to test more effectively. Perhaps it would end cruel animal testing once and for all. Every animal would be free to live a happy life and be spared from the torture of human hand and needle.