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Diazia Torres
Professor Grefski
English 101
17 November 2015
Animal Testing
Animal Testing is an extremely debatable topic in society. Many people are against it and
it has tried to be shut down for many years. Animal Testing is the use of animals for
experimentation. There are many different types of ways people use animals to experiment on.
Some things that animals are used for is to test household products, drugs, supplements,
pesticides,industrial chemicals, and medicine. Many people are unaware on the testing for new
cosmetics and the effects it has on the animals that are used to test them. Cosmetics are skin
treatments as well as makeup. The different types of animals used in these experiments are mice,
fish, rats, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, farm animals, birds, cats, dogs, mini-pigs, and nonhuman primates such as monkeys. Animal testing is extremely harmful for any animals used
during these experiments. The companies chose to use animals to test their products which is
unethical.The science behind doing the experiments are not reliable. There are also many
alternatives to exterminate animal testing all together. Animal testing can be banned if more
people were educated on all of the reasons why it is bad and how the alternatives have the same
benefits.
The animals that are used are harmed physically and emotionally every single day they
are held in the laboratories. Every day the animals are forced to live in cages unable to make
choices and no ability to express their natural behaviors. Only some facilities allow the animals
to get a few moments of fresh air from the outdoors. Most laboratory conditions consist of loud

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noises, unnatural lighting, and lack of enrichment which create stress for the animals. Most
animals basically go crazy from living in these types of environments for a majority of their lives
(neavs.org) For all of the animals trapped in labs, their day-to-day existence is traumatic in itself
even without their forced participation in one dreaded protocol after another. They experience
ongoing mental and physical suffering from the endless boredom, confinement, fear, and
emotional stress of daily laboratory life. Add to this the fear and agony of a procedure, and only
then can we start to understand the desperation and pain in which they live, every dayand for
most, for their entire lives(neavs.org). I asked a couple people what they thought a laboratory
for animals consisted of. Two out of the three people I talked to had been blinded to what
actually goes on. One of my friends actually thought the animals were played with daily and
were only pricked with needles but had no long term harm done. Most people are unaware on
how dangerous and dramatizing experimenting on these animals actually are. The animals do not
have a voice to say they do not want to participate in the experiments so they need us the people
to stand up for them. There are many different types of testings done on products we use for our
daily lives without even realizing it. With the testings done the animals are put in even more
danger. For lotions there are 32 guinea pigs used or 16 mice and the tests includes the substance
is applied or injected into the guinea pig or put on the ears of the mice which can cause
ulcers,scaling, and inflammation. Another example is acute inhalation toxicity testing which
includes 20 rats. The rats are forced to inhale the substance which can cause bleeding of the nose,
paralysis, or death. The purpose is to determine how much substance can cause half the animals
used to die within a two week span when the substance is inhaled (humanesociety.org). To test
for eye irritation also known as eye makeup such as mascara or eye shadows. One to three
rabbits are used to test this. The substance is placed on or around the rabbit's eyes. This could

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cause the rabbits to be exposed to ulcers, redness, blindness, and other types of damage to the
eye area. It is without a doubt safe to say that these conditions are unethical.
It is unethical the way that they treat the animals that are used for testing cosmetic use.
The Humane Society International said that the animals are commonly force feed and are
deprived from food and water.The animals are subjected to long periods of restraint and are also
used to be burned in order to do research on the healing process. The experimenters use the
Draize eye test, used by cosmetics companies to evaluate irritation caused by shampoos and
other products, involves rabbits being incapacitated in stocks with their eyelids held open by
clips, sometimes for multiple days, so they cannot blink away the products being tested(animaltesting.procon.org). The extremes that the experimenters go to to get results from the innocent
animals are unnecessary. Along with animal testing being unethical the science behind it is not
reliable.
The science behind animal testing is also misleading. Animals are extremely different
from human beings it is very clear that some of the effects that the cosmetics have on these
animals could possibly have different effects on humans. As I have been researching I have come
across many arguments that animals and humans do not have the same genetics. The anatomic,
metabolic, and cellular differences between animals and people make animals poor models for
human beings. [52] Paul Furlong, Professor of Clinical Neuroimaging at Aston University (UK),
states that "it's very hard to create an animal model that even equates closely to what we're trying
to achieve in the human." [53] Thomas Hartung, Professor of evidence-based toxicology at Johns
Hopkins University, argues for alternatives to animal testing because "we are not 70 kg
rats."(animal-testing.procon.org). John Hopkins argument is one that we should all take into
consideration. Another example on how animal testing is bad science is because scientists have

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come up with a series of different alternatives so we can try and get rid of animal testing all
together.
The alternatives that the researchers have come up with are just as effective as using the
animals. Peta explains that instead of using rabbits corneas to test eye irritation experimenters
can use donated human corneas. Scientists all around are trying to prevent animal testing. At
private companies, universities, and government agencies they are creating new cell and tissue
tests, computer models and many other alternatives. The new ways are humane, ethical and are
also more cost effective, fast, and more reliable than the animal testing that has been going on for
years. For example Using blood from human volunteers to test for the presence of fever-causing
contaminants in intravenous medicines can save hundreds of thousands of rabbits each year from
traditional "pyrogen" tests (humanesociety.org). Another alternative that has been used to
reduce the animal use from humane society is EpiSkin, EpiDerm and SkinEthic all are
made of artificial human skin with the use of these it can save thousands of rabbits each year
from painful skin corrosion and irritation experiments. Even with the over 50 different
alternative methods to testing the cosmetics there is still the use of animals. Recently, a scientist
from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), while acknowledging that there are nonanimal tests that are really valuable, informative, cheaper, and quicker than animal tests,
publicly disagreed with the EU ban on cosmetics testing on animals, claiming that we need to
test these products on live things instead of using the widely accepted, validated non-animal
alternatives to test cosmetics(Peta.org). This quote is taken from peta's website explaining that
even though there are known and effective alternatives to animal testing there are still people out
there that continue to use the animals. The cosmetics that we use on a day to day bases would
work the same way if it was tested on animals or with the alternative methods.

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Although most companies still choose to use the inhumane methods of animal testing
there are many well known companies that chose to fight against animal testing. One of my
favorites is Lush. Lush is a bunch of soaps, makeup, lotions, and hair products. Everything that
Lush sells is handmade. Weve been against animal testing for over 30 years and will continue
to inform, encourage and participate in the fight for animal rights. Were proud to say that the
founders of LUSH have been passionately fighting against animal testing during all of this time,
long before LUSH was even an idea. Since the movement to stop animal testing started, policies
have been created to work with cosmetics companies and raw materials suppliers to end animal
cruelty(lushusa.com). Lush has made it their own policy to boycott any supplier that uses their
ingredients on animals. Other cosmetic companies against animal testing includes Urban Decay,
Wet N Wild, Too Faced, Burts Bees, along with many other well known companies.
It is up to us to stop animal testing on cosmetics. With the more people that are aware on
how unnecessary the use of animals to use on testing the cosmetics are the less likely people are
to use those products and use the alternative ones. The long term harm done to the animals are
not worth the new product. Of course we all want a longer lasting mascara or eyeshadow but we
can do it without harming innocent animals. Knowing how much healthier the alternatives are
can increase more people to use them. The alternatives are beneficial to both humans and the
animals and can eliminate the bad science behind animal testing. With the knowledge behind
animal testing on cosmetics with time it can decrease immensely.

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Works Cited
"Animal Testing - ProCon.org." ProConorg Headlines. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.
<http://animal-testing.procon.org/>.
"Cosmetics and Household-Product Animal Testing." PETA. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.
<http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-experimentation/cosmetic-household-productsanimal-testing/>.
"Cosmetics Tests That Use Animals." RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.
<http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/cosmetic_testing/tips/common_cosmetics_tests_anim
als.html?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F>
"Harm and Suffering | Animal Use in Research." Harm and Suffering | Animal Use in Research. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2015. <http://www.neavs.org/research/harm-suffering>.
"LUSH." Still Fighting Against Animal Testing. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.
<http://www.lushusa.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-Lush-Site/en_US/AboutUs-OurStorySh
ow?cid=about-animal-introduction>.