Introduction
Most researchers have used animals in their study or experiments. The researchers have used different types of animals like vertebrate animals like zebra fish and non human primates. More than ten millions animals are used in animal experiments in a year. In addition, the researchers use different types of invertebrates like rats and mice. The number of invertebrates used in United States in 2001 was almost 80 million; Most of the researchers euthanize the animals after using them in an experiment. Animal experimentation has become a major issue in many countries. People have different views about animal experimentation. Some support animal experimentation while others do not support animal experimentation. This is because of the advantages and disadvantages associated with animal experimentation. This paper analyzes animal experimentation both advantages and disadvantages. The paper will also determine if animal experimentation is important or not. In addition, the paper will develop a methodology for the research.
Discussion
Animal experimentation
Researchers have experimented on animals for the last ten decades. There are various reasons why researchers experiment on animals. First, researchers experiment on animals to know more about animals. In addition, researchers experiment on animals to test substances and procedures and determine if they are harmful or not. This makes it easy to determine which substances are harmful to human beings and which substances are not harmful to human beings. Researchers use animals to test cosmetic product before using them on human beings. Moreover, the researchers use animals to test surgical procedures to determine if they are fit for human beings. Also, the animals are used to test different kinds of drugs that are administered to human beings. Though animal experimentation has proved effective in some cases, it has become a debate. There is a debate about whether researchers should use animals for scientific experiments and medical experiments. The debate centers on the advantages of animal experimentation and the disadvantages of animal experimentation (Lankford, 2009).
Advocates of animal experimentation have outlined various advantages of animal experimentation. First, the researchers argue that use of animals in experiments helps reduce human suffering. The advocates claim that people should try to prevent human suffering first before preventing animal suffering. The supporters of animal experiments argue that reducing animal suffering is important, but they should not be given first priority. In addition, the supporters argue that if animal experimentation helps in identifying various medicines that are aimed at reducing human suffering, and then it is right to allow animal suffering. This is because researchers are able to get the right medicine and save human life (Day, 2000).
Researchers should try to reduce animal suffering to a minimum level. This is to ensure animals do not suffer during experimentation. The researchers should ensure animal welfare in their laboratories. They should anesthetic when experimentation on animals to prevent animal suffering. Apart from using anesthetic when experimenting on animals, they should ensure the animals are kept clean. They should also ensure the animals live in a healthy condition. This will prevent the animals from excessive suffering. This will enable the researchers to experiment on animals without being cruel to the animals Nancy (Day, 2000).
Moreover, the researchers argue that animal experimentation is effective in testing medicines and products that are being used by human beings. Researchers have proved that animals are the most reliable subjects to test medicines for toxicity instead of human beings. Most countries like United States and United Kingdom encourage researchers to test all prescription drugs on animals before bringing them to the market. The leaders argue that this is the only way to determine if the medicines will have harmful impact on human beings .The advocates of animal experimentation argue that banning animal experimentation will affect modern medicine negatively. This is because researchers will not be able to test drugs for toxicity before bringing them to the market.
Additionally, researchers will not be able to carry out further research to discover new medicines. This will also affect human beings as there will not be new medicines to treat existing diseases and new diseases. Thus, animal experimentation is important to the field of medicine as it helps in medicine breakthrough. It also prevents researchers or scientists from using human beings as subjects in experiments. Thus reducing human death and suffering. In addition, the advocates of animal experimentation argue that banning animal experimentation will affect human beings negatively as it will lead to human suffering and death by allowing products that are not tested for toxicity in the market (Wilson, 2009).
On the other hand, some scientists and people do not support animal experimentation. They argue that animal experimentation is not effective for determining medicines used to treat various diseases like cancer, heart diseases etc. This has made it hard for researchers to get the right results. Some people argue that crucial medical advances have been delayed due to misleading results gotten from animal experiments. This is evidenced in many studies like the study carried out by David Wieber and his friends in Mayo clinic. The researchers described a study that showed 25 compounds that eliminated damage caused by Ischemic stroke in various animals like cats. Though the compounds proved effective in animals, the compounds did not work in human beings. The researchers argued that the results were not effective because stroke in human beings occurred naturally, but in animals it was triggered.
Thus, the results in animal experimentation might not be effective and this affects the treatment of diseases in human beings. Further, animal experimentation affected the treatment of poliomyelitis in 1920s and 1930s.In this case, the researchers used monkeys to test various drugs that were to be used to treat the disease. The results from the experiment showed that the poliovirus infected the nervous system. The scientists later learned that the viral strain they had administered had developed an affinity for tissues in the brain. This made it dificuty for scientists to determine the right treatment for the disease. The results from the study contradicted with the previous studies on human beings. The previous studies have shown that the gastrointestinal system was the main route of infections in human beings. As a result researchers have identified various methods that can be used to study drugs and cosmetic materials instead of animal experimentation (Paul &Paul, 2001).
Researchers can use epidemiological studies to study drugs and cosmetic materials. Epidemiological studies have proved effective in determining the toxicity of materials. Thus, the researchers can use the studies to test drugs to determine if they are effective in the market. In addition, researchers can use clinical intervention trials to test drugs and determine if they are going to be effective in carrying human diseases or not. There are other methods that scientists can use to test the effectiveness of drugs on human beings like astute clinical observations that are aided by laboratory tests. Moreover, the scientists can test tissues gotten from human beings and cell culture so as to be able to examine if the drug can have a harmful effect on human beings. Using human tissues and cell cultures can help ensure the results gotten from the study are reliable and valid. This is because the scientists use human tissues instead of animal tissues. Other methods include endoascopic examination and biopsy (Gilland &Institute of ideas, 2002).
Though animal experimentation has been used to determine the cause of defects, the results gotten from the studies have not been effective. This has made it hard to determine defects. The scientists can use epidemiological studies to determine genetic factors and environmental factors that lead to birth defects. In this case, the researcher will use a population to determine the cause of birth defects. Same applies to cancer and other diseases. The researcher can use clinical interventions to determine how certain diets cause cancer and reduce chances of getting cancer. Most researchers have relied on observation to determine how specific foods cause cancer, but the results have been unreliable (Monamy, 2000).
Other people do not support animal experimentation because it affects the eight of animals. Animal experimentation causes suffering to animals and this infringes their rights. The opponents argue that animals are important like human beings and they should be treated well. Thus, experimenting on animals is not healthy even if the experiments are beneficial. This is because animals are exposed to various toxic chemicals and radiations during animal experiments. This in turn causes defects and death of the animals (Keen, 2009).
Hypothesis
The study will involve two types of hypothesis. That is null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis.
Null hypothesis: There is no relationship between animal experimentation and the effectiveness of drugs and experiments in human beings.
Alternative hypothesis: There is a relationship between animal experimentation and the effectiveness of drugs and experiments in human beings.
The researcher will determine how animal experimentations affect the effectives of drugs and experiments in human beings. Most studies have proved that animal experiments do not give reliable results and affect the effectives of treating diseases on human beings (Haugen, 2006)
Methodology
Research question
The research questions are based on the literature review about animal experimentations. The literature review about animal experimentation has identified the benefits of using animal experimentation in testing drugs and the disadvantages of using animals in testing drugs. For instance, animal experiments are not effective as they do not give accurate results. This in turn affects human beings negatively as they do not get the right treatment. On the other hand, animal experiments help eliminate human suffering and also prevent human beings being used as subjects. Thus, this prevents them from being exposed to harmful chemicals. The research questions are:
Are animal experiments linked with infectiveness of drugs in human beings?
Do animal experiments affect medicine breakthrough?
Research method
The research will employ quantitative research design. Quantitative and qualitative research design has various advantages. First, the research design allows the researcher to use a large sample size. This in turn makes the results of the study accurate and valid. In addition, the study design makes it easy for the researcher to compare the relationship between different variables enabling him to make the right decision. Also, quantitative research design gives the researcher an opportunity to use statistical methods to analyze results. However, the research design is time consuming and expensive. The researcher will use the quantitative research design to compare the animal experimentation and effectiveness of drugs on human beings. Then analyze the results using statistical methods.
The qualitative design allows the researcher collect non numeric data. The researcher uses the method to answer questions like how. The researcher will use the method to determine how animal experiments affect human beings by causing drugs to fail. The design will ensure the researcher does not interfere with the results of the research. Hence, this will ensure the results are free from subjectivity. Using the two methods helps eliminate the weakness of each method and this gives valid and reliable results (Creswell, 2003).
Participants
The researcher will use 100 participants from various research centers that are used to test human drugs and cosmetics. The centers should employ animal experimentation when testing drugs. The participants will be selected using random technique to ensure equal representation of the population (Creswell, 2003).
Data collection methods
There are various methods that will be used to collect data. For example, the researcher will use questionnaires and interviews to collect data. The questionnaires will have a set of questions that the participants will be required to answer. The researcher will be able to clarify responses from the participants when carrying out interview. The researcher will also review previous studies on animal experimentation to determine the impact of animal experiments on human drugs and treatment of diseases (Creswell, 2003).
Analysis and findings
After collecting data, the researcher will analyze it using statistical methods like graphs, charts and SPSS. Then make the necessary conclusions. The conclusions will be based on the findings of the research (Creswell, 2003).
Conclusion
The review of literature on animal experimentation has exposed the advantages and disadvantages of animal experimentation. Animal experimentation has become a concern as different have different views. Some people think that animal experimentation is not applicable in studying human beings as it does not give correct results. A series of studies have proved that animal experimentation affects the treatment of various diseases like cancer and stroke. This is because the drugs administred to human beings are not effective. The drugs are considered effective in animals, but they fail when it comes to human beings. On the other hand, other people think that animals and human beings have similar tissues and function the same. Thus, using animals to test drugs and procedures is ethical and effective. This is because it minimizes the use of human beings as subjects.
Appendix A
References
Haugen,D.M.(2006).Animal experimentation. Greenhaven Press
Monamy,V.(2000).Animal experimentation: a guide to the issues.Cambridge University Press
Paul,E.F.,&Paul.J.(2001).Why animal experimentation matters: the use of animals in medical research.Transaction Publishers
Wilson,J.(2009).Animal Experimentation. BiblioLife
Nancy Day.(2000).Animal experimentation: cruelty or science. Enslow Publishers
Lankford,R.D.(2009).Animal Experimentation. Greenhaven Press
Gilland,T.,&Institue of ideas.(2002).Animal experimentation: good or bad?.Hodder & Stoughton
Keen, W.W.(2009).Animal Experimentation and Medical Progress.BiblioBazaar, 2009
Creswell,J.W.(2003).Research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method approaches. SAGE
