Animal Research

Nguyen Tran
Heidi Shannahand
English IIA
27 February, 2014
Animal Research
The debate over animal research is getting more complicated as animal protection organization begins to rise. The strength of these organizations has risen to a point where researchers cannot ignore. It forces us to decide whether to continue to improve human knowledge or come to a halt. For centuries, it has been survival of the fittest. Animals have been livestock and back-breaking slave labors for humans. While animals do have a mind of its own, it is not nearly as intelligent or valuable as ours. Animals who do not have a high level of thinking should not be treated the same as the ones who do.
Researchers continue to experiment on animals for the aspersion of curing cancer which kills 7.6 million people worldwide out of which 4 million people die prematurely. Researchers have been able to make the survival rate increase 50-60% since 1975. Aside from surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy, there is a new treatment being developed which directly kills cancer cells thanks to animal-based research. Beside cancer, here are also large improvements on HIV/AIDS, heart diseases/stroke, and diabetes. Though a cure has not been found for HIV/AIDS, researchers have been able to make HIV/AIDS become a chronic disease and an infected person is able to live a normal life for many years. Progress in heart diseases/stroke saves the lives of one million Americans each year. In America diabetes is one of the leading causes of death and disability. Over 25.8 million Americans, about 8.3% of the United States’ population are affected. Several new treatments have been made thanks to animal research.
Even with these miraculous improvements on medical science, animal abuse patrons continue to promote animal rights. In the book Animal Liberation, by Peter Singer he states “the basic principle of equality does not require equal or identical treatments, it requires equal consideration” (Singer)....