Animal Testing for Medical Purposes Essay Example for Free

Animal Testing for Medical Purposes Essay To persuade the audience that animal testing is only ok if it is used for medical purposes only. Outline I. Introduction: A. Attention-getting device: Do you know anyone that has or had cancer? Or some other deadly disease? These diseases could be cured with a little more research and experimenting. How about painkillers? Have any of you had surgery and been under anesthesia? B. Preview: Those painkillers and cures could be or are thanks to researchers and their animal testing. I know what you’re thinking. Animal testing; bad and cruel. But, it is only cruel and unethical if it is used for useless, unimportant things, such as cosmetic testing. By using animals for MEDICAL purposes only, we could be saving millions of lives. II. Body A. Animal testing is something that a lot of Americans fear. However, they don’t know that in order to save people, it must be done. They need to know that it can benefit us and help us so much in the medical field. 1. Every year, thousands die from diseases, which could be prevented. a. Helps many medical issues such as cancer (Breast cancer, childhood leukemia, chronic myeloid leukemia, lung), HIV/AIDS, Heart Disease/Stroke (Statins, â€Å"Clot-busting agents), Diabetes, Parkinson’s Disease, Hepatitis C, Birth Defects, Bioterrorism Medical Countermeasures, Epilepsy, Spinal Cord Injuries, Cystic Fibrosis b. A 2001 report from the National Cancer Institute stressed the dire need for research relying on mouse models of lung cancer and focusing on understanding, preventing, and detecting lung cancer and developing novel targeted therapies for treating the disease. . A total of 1,660,290 new cancer cases and 580,350 cancer deaths are projected to occur in the United States in 2013. This number could be cut drastically. 2. Animal testing can help not only those with diseases, but ordinary people. a. When some drugs aren’t tested, they can be very harmful, and often deadly to us. i. In 1937, a pharmaceutical company in the USA created a preparation of sulfa nilamide, using diethylene glycol (DEG) as a solvent, and called the preparation ‘Elixir Sulfanilamide’. DEG was poisonous to humans, but the companys chief pharmacist and chemist was not aware of this. He simply added raspberry flavoring to the sulfa drug, which he had dissolved in DEG, and the company marketed the product. The preparation led to mass poisoning causing the deaths of more than a hundred people. No animal testing was done. ii. .Another tragic drug fiasco occurred in the late 1950s and early 1960s with thalidomide. It was found to act as an effective tranquilizer and painkiller and was proclaimed a ‘wonder drug’ for insomnia, coughs, colds, and headaches. It was found to have an inhibitory effect on morning sickness, and hence, thousands of pregnant women took the drug to relieve their symptoms. Consequently, more than 10,000 children in 46 countries were born with malformations or missing limbs. The drug was withdrawn in 1961 and 1968 after a long campaign. (Transition: You can now tell that it is a crucial step) B. I’m not saying that animal testing should be used for everything, just for medical purposes. 1. People automatically assume that the animals are hurt a. The NIH funds over half of the medical research conducted in the US and regularly visits research facilities to ensure that staff are following animal care regulations. b. The USDA surveys the total number of animals being used for research and how many of these animals experience pain. According to them, only 6% of animals being tested experience pain. c. The Animal Welfare Act of 1966 is one of the laws that regulates animal care in research and exhibitions. This act is enforced by the USDA and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. . Some animals even benefit from it themselves. a. Animal research has been also able to benefit cats and dogs in certain ailments. Moreover, nutrition of cats and dogs has been improved after repeated animal tests. (Transition: Both humans and animals are helped by this. As you can see†¦) C. Animal testing could be the solution to the deaths of thousands. 1. If animal testing occurred, cancer, HIV, Heart disease, diabetes, Cystic Fibrosis , and many other conditions wouldn’t be a tragedy. a. nimal research is essential to tackling major 21st century health problems such as cancer and heart disease. Without the use of animals it would be impossible, in many cases, to develop drugs or any sort of medical treatment. Professor Sir George Radda (Transition: People like Professor Radda know all the pros and cons of animal testing, and has decided that it is very helpful. ) D. It’s important that you also know your facts about animal testing before you disagree with it 1. Do more in depth research on your own, and decide if we could’ve gotten this far, medically, without it. 2. If you research what kind of drugs and painkillers from the drugstore were tested on animals, you’ll see that you use some of those on the daily. a. Think about it: your allergy medicine, Advil and Tylenol, other painkillers, any asthma treatments†¦ All things that you would use daily are tested on animals b. If animal testing wasn’t done what would you do when you got a migraine, or an asthma attack, or itchy, puffy eyes from allergies? Would you be able to withstand it alone without any medicine? (Transition: You now know that†¦) III. Conclusion A. Summary: Animal testing is something that can help us greatly. People automatically assume that it is bad, but when it is used in the right situation, it can be really helpful. In the medical field, it has helped many issues such as cancer, HIV/AIDS, Heart disease, diabetes, birth defects, cystic fibrosis, and many more. B. Concluding Device: We must do what we need to, even if everyone doesn’t agree, in order to advance in the medical field.