In a Swedish lab experiment, six black labradors had more than a third of their teeth removed, which caused serious bleeding. The dogs were killed in February 2019, and their dead bodies were used to do more experiments and observations. Imagine that your cute pet was treated like this; it is clearly unacceptable.

Animal testing means doing experiments on live animals for testing and observation purposes. Scientists and cosmetic companies, including well-known brands such as Estée Lauder, Aveeno, and Bobbi Brown use animal testing. However, the process of animal testing is brutal. Many animals experience serious pain and illness, and some even die.

Here are some reasons why animal testing should be banned.

Animal testing is immoral

Tested animals not only suffer physical pain but also stress and fear. They are locked in cages, not knowing what will happen to them.

Many animals die because of the cruelty of animal testing. An undercover investigator at Inotiv, a contract research organization (CRO) laboratory in India, recorded what animals experienced in their lab from August 2021 to March 2022. During this period, over 6000 animals were tested in more than seventy studies. Among them were beagles, including some two week old beagle puppies, who were repeatedly poisoned. Long tubes were inserted in their throats, and they were force-fed poisonous chemicals. Many of them vomited, convulsed, and died. These dogs never got to experience the love, attention, and safe environment that a normal dog would.

In 2019, Taiwan officially banned animal testing for cosmetics, but they still used a total of 373,426 animals for testing for other research purposes. Sadly, in some countries, including the United States, it is legal to starve, poison, or even burn testing animals. These cruel processes include crushing their spines, beheading animals while they are still alive, and more.

Therefore, we should ban animal testing to prevent animals from dying in cruel experiments.

Animal testing isn’t accurate

Around the world, there are more than 115 million animals used for animal testing each year. However, animal testing is unreliable.

Since animal bodies and human bodies are built differently, animal testing isn’t reliable and can’t accurately predict human outcomes in many experiments, including those aimed to cure human diseases.

Take mice as an example: even though they are biologically and genetically similar to humans, they still fail to show disease symptoms that are obvious in humans, such as “dyskinesia” (involuntary movements).

Furthermore, research shows that 95 percent of drugs that are tested safe for animal testing either don’t work in human trials or are dangerous to humans. On the contrary, some drugs that failed in animal testing could be effective for humans. However, since scientists don’t test drugs on humans that failed in animal testing, these drugs will never be developed.

This shows that despite millions of animals dying because of animal testing, many of them die without purpose, as animal testing isn’t always accurate.

Alternatives to animal testing

Some alternatives to animal testing include using technology or human tissue. Data shows that using these alternative methods is more accurate and faster than animal testing.

As technology improves, we can use in vitro and silico models, which are testing methods that rely on computer programs and lab experiments to simulate and predict the effects of chemical mixtures without doing animal testing.

Some might argue that if scientists don’t test the new drug on the animals, then humans are the ones getting experimented on.

Yet, the truth is that no matter how much animal testing is done in the experimental and observation process, ultimately, products still need to be tested on humans. Since animal testing is often inaccurate, the humans subjected to testing may suffer from side effects that weren’t apparent during animal testing.

By using human tissue and technology, we can reduce the inaccuracies of animal testing, as alternative testing methods are cheaper, faster, and more accurate.

Stop buying brands that do animal testing

One of the most effective ways to stop animal testing is by refusing to buy brands such as Benefit, Giorgio Armani, and more, that test on animals. As more and more people realize the cruelty of animal testing and stop buying brands that do it, more brands will find more ethical alternatives to testing their products.

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Animal testing is torture. Animals don’t deserve to undergo this brutal treatment. Moreover, there are other more ethical and effective ways to test products. Therefore, we should ban animal testing to prevent the torture and killing of animals.