Whether or not we should continue animal testing is a very controversial topic that we must consider.  The public says that animal testing is inhumane or against the animal’s rights. Others say that we need to continue animal testing to keep developing new medicine and vaccines to help develop our species. Overall, animal testing advances our development as a whole for both humans and animals; therefor we should continue our practice of animal testing.

Years of scientific animal testing has contributed too many cures, vaccines, and treatments. An example of such is the Polio vaccine. This vaccine was first tested on animals and the testing resulted in a reduced global occurrence of the disease from 350,000 cases in 1988 to 233 cases in 2012(Pro-Con).  Connectusfund stated, “The Anderson Cancer Center animal research also associated the vaccine for hepatitis B with experimentation on chimpanzees.” Without this testing millions of hepatitis B victims would have and could still possibly be losing their lives that this testing cured. If scientists weren’t able to experiment on animals we would be forced to rely on live human trials which isn’t as efficient for our population.

Side effects from drugs are a real problem that we have to think about when we take medicine and distribute medicine. We reduce the risks of drugs when we test them on animals first since their biological systems are closely related to ours. Animal testing helps ensure the safety of drugs for both human and animal use. Drugs can and most likely will have dangerous or small side effects depending on the drug. Testing trials help, we reduce those dangers that we try to avoid. Drugs benefit everyone when they are used right, but without animal trials more lives may be lost than saved when you consider the unknown side effects. Aboutanimaltesting states, “Drugs in particular can carry significant dangers with their use but animal testing allows researchers to initially gauge the safety of drugs prior to commencing trials on humans.”

When we are testing new drugs and vaccines on animals, we want to have the test subjects as closely related to humans as possible. Animals are appropriate research subjects because they are similar to humans in many ways. “Chimpanzees share 99% of their DNA with humans, and mice are 98% genetically similar to humans” (Pro-Con). All mammals descended from the same common ancestors, and all have the same set of organs being the heart, kidneys, lungs, etc. Having such closely related test subjects allows for accurate data and can predict what will happen when the treatment or drug impacts the human body.

Ultimately animal testing provides a viable way to develop and progress as a whole. Both animals and humans benefit from this testing and the lost lives from this testing have saved millions. If we don’t continue having animal testing be legal, advancement of drugs and treatments will slow down and everyone will see the negative effects.