The topic of animal testing within the field of medical research has been deeply controversial throughout history. Critics of animal testing claim that the subjected testing is a violation of animal rights; yet scientists such as Andrew Rowan embody the sense that animals distinctly do not have the same rights as humans, and if their pain is what leads to technological advancements, then so be it. The two opposing sides of the argument manifested into physical violence, as Lorna Colliers cites within her proposition to the American Psychological Association.  She states that events occurred where scientists and researchers were physically assaulted by protesters. The American Psychological Association's official stance on animal testing within the medical community leans in favor of the laboratories and scientists performing the tests. The Association emphasizes a controlled, as well as safe, environment for animals who have to undergo the testing. The APA cannot turn a blind eye to the innovative research which has been utilized to save or better an insurmountable number of Americans' lives over spans of decades.  Thousands of lives have been saved due to the intense time and effort American workers have put into finding cures and ailments for medical diseases, most notably Parkinson's disease. The benefits of animal testing heavily outweigh the negative publicity and potentially dangerous conditions in which testing must be endured by scientists who are breaking through medical barriers. 

        Animal experimentation has played a central role in biomedical research throughout history. For centuries, however, it has also been an issue of heated public and philosophical discussion. While there are numerous historical overviews of animal research in certain fields or time periods, and some on its ethical controversy, there is presently no comprehensive review article on animal research, the social controversy surrounding it, and the emergence of different moral perspectives on animals within a historical context. This perspective of animal use in the life sciences and its moral and social implications from a historical viewpoint is important to gauge the key issues at stake and to evaluate present principles and practices in animal research. While animal research may not be the most ethically sound way of gathering medical data and learning new procedures, there is no parallel to how many life-saving procedures have been created and discovered due to testing on live animal subjects. In "The Benefits and Ethics of Animal Research",  Andrew Rowan points out many examples as to why animal research is vital to humans as well as animals in developing procedures and medical treatments, for example the treatments being discovered that will benefit animals through veterinary medicine. Rowan also uses examples of some of the major life-saving medical achievements that have come about due to testing on animals, such as Herceptin for breast cancer patients and HAART, which has helped to combat AIDS over the last 30 years. He explains that while not researching on the animals would save the lives of many animals, the medical advancements they have enabled would all be lost, and those who rely on these medical practices and vaccines to survive would most likely not survive. So Rowan goes on to explain that the final question is truly whether the life of an animal is worth more than the life of a human being. While Rowan stands on the side of animal testing, he openly acknowledges a plethora of counter-arguments, such as why animals are valued as less than humans and why the animals must endure such testing in the laboratories to advance medical science. However, the majority of animal rights activists are not as accepting to Rowan's field of thought as he is to theirs. 

Critics of animal testing will claim that there is not enough being done to try to replace the testing done on animals by other methods. There are currently few known operations and methods of data-gathering that can provide as much information as accurately as that which is gathered from animal testing. Within Laura Blue's article, 'How Much Does Animal Testing Tell Us" there is no question that, despite the excellent results that come out of lots of preclinical trials, the human is the ultimate animal model. Medical drugs and ointments would have never been deemed as safe until tested on animals. Yet, animals are not always the most accurate model of the human anatomy, and testing certain drugs on specific animals can lead to a negative reaction and skew the results from the lab. Dogs can not be given chocolate, and cats can flare up when exposed to aspirin. Yet, despite the minor limitations animals have, they continue to be a surrogate for laboratories in lieu of human cruelty.  Scientists are able to discover animals' medical issues due to around the clock monitoring, ensuring all data taken in is as accurate as possible. There are numerous hours spent doing preliminary testing and procedure planning that occur before any animal is present in the laboratory. Scientists must have a deep-rooted understanding of medications for humans and how the medicine will collide with human anatomy in a safe, ethical manner. The testing on animals or humans is complex, as well as deeply in-depth, and animals offer the most viable option for sustained long-term research. While animal anatomy is not perfectly aligned with human anatomy, the benefits of a similar replica have led to massive breakthroughs within the medical community.  

The lack of progress for animal safety frustrates champions for the cause. Many biologists argue that there is not enough being done to try to find alternatives to animal testing, while other medical professionals claim that there are few possibilities to replace the animals used in laboratories because the animals replicate humans very closely, and there are few computer or physical models that can accurately recreate that authenticity. The article "The Ethics of Animal Research" by EMBO Reports talks about the fact that although animal testing may seem inhumane to some, it is one of the most vital and accurate methods of gathering knowledge and data in the medical field. EMBO also clearly states that while animal testing may not be the most ideal way to gather medical information, the testing done is by far the most accurate, useful, and direct way to advance medical science. "Animal Testing and its Gifts To Humans" in the Wall Street Journal is a non-biased article that simply states the facts behind the positives of animal research. This article points out that while animal testing is not always the most ethically sound way to collect medical data, it is by far the most effective, rendering it irreplaceable in the field of medical research and technology. There are many scientists and doctors working tirelessly to search for and come up with alternatives to testing on live animals, but there are few, if any, other options that exist with the current technology available. At the end of this article, there is a section that talks about some of the legal restrictions that have been implemented over the past several decades to hinder and regulate animal testing. In "Ethical and Scientific Considerations Regarding Animal Testing and Research", Hope Ferdowsian talks about the reasons animal testing is a necessary evil in the field of medical research. Ferdowsian uses what she calls the three r's, which stand for the reduction, refinement, and replacement of testing on animals. Reduction is the reduction of the use of live animals in laboratories for testing, as well as the reduction of the uncomfortable conditions for the animals. Refinement refers to the focus of scientists on bettering the methods which these scientists use to test on animals. Refinement pertains not only to the methods themselves, but the health and comfort of the animals on which the experiments are being conducted.  Replacement quite blatantly refers to the replacement of animals by computer modeling software or algorithms in the near future. While the three r's can seamlessly be integrated within a professional laboratory with technological advances that only time can bring, Ferdowsian mentions that the reader should take care to pay attention to the fact that there are now a select few alternatives to live animal testing at this period in time [the 21st century].

There are many people who oppose animal testing in the field of cosmetic, as well as medical, research. Doctor Rachel Hajar claims that there are many alternative methods to testing on live animals, such as computer modeling software and physical representations rather than live subjects. Hajar also goes on to state that there has been a lot of misinformation provided about animal testing, and that most of it is done and paid for by the companies, such as In Vitro technologies, who carry out animal testing. Friends thought Paul Silber had bet the farm when he ditched a secure job as a toxicologist with Dallas-based Mary Kay Cosmetics. He packed everything into a U-Haul van and headed for Maryland to start a company based on an obscure, yet promising, field of biotechnology. Five years later Mr. Silber relishes the memory, as his Baltimore-based company, In Vitro Technologies, announced that in 1995 it turned a profit for the first time on revenues of almost $1 million. Along with that, he's expecting big growth in the next several years. Mr. Silber, through his company, is the number one investor in animal testing in the United States, and Silber now openly flows his money into companies who are known to release information, true or not, to help defend animal testing. Those against, contend that the benefit to humans does not justify the harm to animals. Many people also believe that animals are inferior to humans and very different from them, hence results from animals cannot be applied to humans. Those in favor of animal testing argue that experiments on animals are necessary to advance medical and biological knowledge. Claude Bernard, known as the father of physiology, stated that "experiments on animals are entirely conclusive for the toxicology and hygiene of man. The effects of these substances are the same on man as on animals, save for differences in degree". Bernard established animal experimentation as part of the standard scientific method.

Although there are educated peaceful opposers, such as Doctor Hajar, who use information and facts to back up their argument, there are also brutish violent protesters who commit random acts of violence toward scientists who are known for animal testing. In Lorna Collier's "Defending Animal Research", Collier begins by stating that over two-hundred and twenty  illegal incidents, where extremists targeted scientists who are known for their success due to animal research, occurred between 1990 and 2012. Collier goes on to describe the severity of some of these attacks, stating that acts of arson and bombings were included in these incidents. These occurrences do not include the inconsiderate protests and aggravation that impeded on these scientists' daily lives. Throughout the rest of the journal, Collier lists and describes many examples of why this violence is so unnecessary, such as the fact that many of the researchers go to extreme measures to ensure the comfort and well-being of these animals throughout the research process. The scientists are constantly looking to use alternatives to live animals in every case that they possibly can. Unfortunately, there are few opportunities to use substitutions. At the end of the article, Collier presents the American Psychological Association's personal stance on animal research, which is essentially based on the conviction that research with nonhuman animals has been and continues to be integral to scientific progress and improving the health of people and other animals. The APA strongly supports humanely conducted, ethically and scientifically sound research with nonhuman animals. For nearly 100 years, through its Committee on Animal Research and Ethics, the APA has promoted educated, serious and civil dialogue about the role of nonhuman animal research in science. The historical controversy surrounding animal research is far from being settled. Although the key arguments in this debate have not differed significantly since the rise of anti-vivisectionists in nineteenth-century England -- and even before -- we have since then moved a long way forward in regards to the protection of animals used in research and in transparency regarding such use. The basis of the anti-vivisectionists movement was centered around testing for cosmetic purposes. There was no ethical justification for cosmetic research because it did not increase human health. The anti-vivisectionists have been lobbying for stricter regulations surrounding the procedures carried out in animal testing. They wish to limit the frequency and severity of experiments conducted on animals through education, advocacy, and the development of alternatives methods. While animal experiments have played a vital role in scientific and biomedical progress and are likely to continue to do so in the foreseeable future, it is nonetheless important to keep focusing on the continuous improvement of the well being of laboratory animals, as well as further development of replacement alternatives for animal experiments. 

As has been illustrated by the many articles and their scientific data, animal testing is a necessary evil if humans are to survive and evolve to the changing world in which they live. Animal testing has posed many ethical and moral dilemmas throughout history and into the present day, but is ultimately justified by the plethora of medical procedures and medicines that have been discovered as a product of live animal testing. Animal testing is a necessary evil, but an evil nonetheless as pointed out by scientists such as Doctor Hajar in her research article. Hajar claims that her views can be summarized using the following quote by Mahatma Gandhi: "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." In essence, Hajar is stating that a nation has a low moral standard if they are willing to subject animals to cruel and uncomfortable procedures such as some of the experiments carried out in the twenty-first century. In the end all it comes down to is analyzing the facts and realizing that humans rely heavily on animal testing.  It is a necessity in order to acquire medical data that humans could not get by any other means.  Although some of the procedures that they endure may be viewed as cruel, almost one hundred percent of the medicines and procedures used in veterinary science have been discovered through animal testing.

Unfortunately the American populace hears more from the protestors than they do from the researchers via outlets such as television and social media. If more people realized the extent in which the doctors are attempting to refine, reduce, and replace the nature of animal testing, there would be much more support for the use of animals in medical research. To stop animal testing completely would be so detrimental to modern medicine, that the advancement of medical science would be greatly hindered.  However, there could be a valid argument against testing for cosmetics. Cosmetic research is primarily done in the spirit of making a profit, whereas medical testing is done strictly to benefit the health and welfare of humanity.

