The Real Truth About Animal Testing

Animal Testing is often thought of as animals being mistreated and put through torturous tests, but the truth about animal testing is it is a regulated way to test the safety of products in a scientific way. Because animal testing is a safe way to improve safety of products it should remain a way to ensure product safety in the future. The improved safety of products, experiment regulations, and lack of alternatives are just some of the reasons animal testing should remain a product testing method.

Animal testing is controlled by many laws and regulations. Each animal testing lab must have its own Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee or IACUC made up of at least five members. The IACUC of each lab is to prevent the animals from being treated in an inhumane way. Each IACUC includes a doctor or veterinary medicine, a practicing scientist who is experienced in animal research, a nonscientific member, and one member who is not related to the lab except through being a member of their IACUC. Another way the labs are regulated is by laws such as the Animal Welfare Act. The CAAT website, last updated June 21, 2002 states "The Animal Welfare Act... sets standards for the [care] of laboratory animals." This law maintains that the animals are treated well.

The lack of alternatives to animal testing is another reason it is important. Many of the people who oppose animal testing believe that alternatives should be used in these tests. However most of the animal testing cannot be done on a test subject other than an animal. Many studies require studying the behavior of the animals to see how medications affect their behaviors. Wikipedia.org, last updated May 1, 2006, states there is "no substitute for behavioral studies." All testing that can be done on man-made materials instead of animals is done that way. There has been a large decrease in the use of animals for testing by cosmetics companies since the invention of a fake skin which is used to test if the product is corrosive.