Editorials

No More Needles By Elise

Animal testing is unacceptable. Every time these animals are poked with needles and injected with medicine they undergo physical and even emotional changes! Do you think these defenceless animals get any type of pain medication? They don’t or they get very very little. Just imagine recovering from a surgery without any type of pain killer. Every year at least 100 million of animals die, become deformed, become blind, or poisoned from these tests. These tests consist of being shocked, burned, starved, and these animals are put in isolation chambers. Animals have feelings too! If any of these tests were to be preformed on humans it would be considered heinous and torture. Then why do we do it on animals? Just because these medical tests doesn’t affect animals in a negative way doesn’t mean they won’t affect humans in a negative way. An average of 100,000 people a year are killed because they have different reactions to these medications then the animals had. There are cheaper and more accurate ways of testing. Then why do we continue to hurt these animals? It is unacceptable and needs to stop.

__No More Needles__ Written By: Katie

 Animal testing is not acceptable. Testing on animals Is widely used to test new medicine and other products. Now you may be thinking, “What is wrong with that?” Well, animal testing causes pain to the animals. Sometimes it even reduces their life spans or even kills them.  Animal testing is extremely unethical. If it isn’t right to test on children, disabled people, or anyone for that matter, then what makes it right to test on animals? Nothing, that’s what! What makes animals less important than people? Animals have feelings also, so doesn’t that make killing them murder? Also animal testing tends to be cruel, unreliable, and expensive. So why do we still do it?  Animal Testing is not an exact science. Just because a product may be safe on humans, it might not be safe on animals (or vice versa). Humans and animals may have different reactions to products, thus making animal testing unethical and unreasonable.

Don’t Save Me, Save the Animals! by Maya Every year millions of animals are poisoned, blinded, or killed because of rough tests to evaluate the harmfulness of the medicines and the ingredients that make up medicines. Animals have to suffer and die without any choice. They have to live in little cages and undergo excruciating pain. They don’t have any way to tell anyone! They just sit there and slowly suffer every day. This practice needs to stop!

Cosmetic and household products account for 94% of animal testing, while testing for medical research is only at 6%. By law cosmetics and household products do not need to be tested on animals; however that doesn’t seem to make a difference to those production companies. If animals were really cared for we would rethink this practice. Our actions prove that animals don’t matter (©2011 AboutMyPlanet.com)

According to David Pruce the U.S is still using methods developed in the 1940s to test the safety of our modern drugs. If we continue to use these methods it might have an adverse effect on the animals and us. We need to use more modern methods! For example an old pregnancy tests, which took several days to produce results, caused the death of a rabbit.

Many drugs and environmental poisons that tested safe on animals killed humans. For example asbestos and Rezulin were declared safe on humans after research on animals. Often after people are exposed to asbestos usually get cancer 30 years later and die! Alexander Fleming noticed penicillin’s bacteria-killing properties at work in a glass container. He tested it on a rabbit and concluded that it would not be affective for humans. (Ray Greek, 2003)

Innocent animals should not be used as test agents. There are other ways to prove that medicines are safe like the use of invitro-testing, which uses cells and tissues, computer models, or human trials. Since there are other ways to test medicines it only seems right that we make use of them. Animals should not be subject to the cruelty of experimental testing. The practice of using animals to test new medicines needs to stop.