       Imagine for a second with me what it is like to be living in the dark for days. The dark stretches into eternity and the absence of color drives you mad. They have already taken your children, and your dignity, but they have not taken away your hope. The cage is small, and it is hard to stretch your legs, but you make due. The stench of your own bowel movements and rotting food makes your stomach turn. You cannot help but wonder to yourself, “what did I do to deserve this?” The wait is excruciating, and so you run 100 laps around your cage with scrunched knees, and then 1,000, and before you know it, you’re reaching 86,400 when a door slams open, and in comes humans with official looking lab coats. “Bring them out,” one says, and the others follow orders seamlessly as they drag your cage out into a blinding white light that burns your eyes. “This is it,” you think, “They are finally letting me go.” But the sharp tools are what get your attention first and it makes your heart plummet. With one hand, a scientist whips your body out of your disgusting cage and smacks you onto a bright countertop. You know they are coming for you, and you are screeching STOP, but you have no voice and they cannot understand what you are trying to say anyway. All you can do is whimper as the needle goes into your brain.

Every day an animal of some sort is subjected to that kind of horror by a human being. The reverse of that situation would be considered a science fiction horror movie, yet professionals in cosmetic and medical labs continue to use medieval-like ways to test on animals for the sake of “research.” But the thing is, animal testing is proving further to be outdated, inefficient and incorrect as our technological society expands and diffuses. This upcoming generation of young adults, though often bashed for their infatuation with technology, is becoming more aware of the good it can do to outweigh the bad, including animal testing. In the 1970s, approximately 1% of the American population was vegetarian, according to the Vegetarian Resource Group, which started with the rise of hippies in mainstream society. Today, more and more “regular” people have joined the cause to put that number to almost 5% of our American population to be vegetarians. This just shows to me that people genuinely care about the treatment of animals, not only in factories, but across all boards, including testing on them. Another factor of this is our emergence of technology so that we can reach people easily, and spread the word. The emergence of cruelty free brands in cosmetics, for sure, is a trend today with millennials including myself. It is important today to start advocating for the rights of animal lives because of this. Industries are blossoming and quickly putting out the newest photo ready foundations, and developing which reuptake inhibitors translate the fastest for our kids with ADHD and depression. There has definitely been a recent boom of interest in the makeup industry, and if they’re putting out more and more products, that’s thousands more animals that are being tested on. We’ve concluded that millennials care about the cause, so it is important to me to educate them about what is happening behind closed doors to the makeup we use, and the drugs we put in our systems. I am a consumer of both medicine and cosmetics as we all are, washing our hair and taking ibuprofen. More and more consumers, especially millennials are becoming more aware of the horrors that happen in the lab and are beginning to boycott its use. In fact, all of the brands of makeup I buy from are cruelty free, and so I have a good idea of who tests on animals and who doesn’t. I’m also a vegetarian and have been since September and aspire to switch to a vegan lifestyle in the future. I care about animal rights and I care about makeup. As young people and millennials, we are the future of the economy and the future of science. Science is progressing so fast that we have now created artificial lung implants that can breathe on their own, and a syringe that shoots into traumatic wound victims to stop bleeding immediately. If a group of people like me can put their brains together, it would be easy to think of a valuable and workable alternative to animal testing and use our platforms to band together to stop this because it only worsens with time for many researchers and supporters of animal testing are trying to normalize it. 

Animal testing has been going on for centuries, starting at the earliest of 200 AD with Greek doctor Galen who experimented on animals to come up with nonsense theories on how humans get sick. Seventeenth century’s Rene Descartes, a French philosopher, concluded that animals were just that and could feel no pain. A hundred years later, that theory was disproven by a series of tests run by Jeremy Bentham who found that animals were in fact capable of suffering. Each year, over 100 million animals are killed each year for a number of reasons: biology lessons, cosmetic testing, medical training, chemical testing, etc. The types of animals killed range all across the board, from frogs and fish, to monkeys, mice, and hamsters, even to cats, dogs and rabbits. Although there are regulations on animal testing, the laws are often ignored or vague. The only federal law in place that could “protect” our animals is the Animal Welfare Act; passed in 1966 (it’s 2017). While it has the power to inspect labs that might be breaking policy, it mainly requires self-reporting. The act regulates the treatment, care, and research of animals in labs but only provides minimal protection for certain species as nonhuman primates, cats and dogs, and completely excludes cold blooded animals, farm animals, and birds. The US Department of Agriculture is responsible for enforcing the act, and as they find labs not in compliance with the act, they are charged with penalties that are nonconsequential, like small fines. Animal rights are being completely mistreated and large companies are side stepping the laws in order to benefit. For example Navs, a nonprofit organization charged for the advocacy of animal rights in laboratories, brings to my attention a young monkey, Dover, who died in custody of scientists due to improper ventilation in his cage, a “stainless steel box with solid flooring, roof, rear and sides.”  The company was only fined over a thousand dollars, and though that is a lot of money to some, it is merely a microscopic cost to a company that makes millions, for “it is only the cost of doing business.”

       It’s very simple: animal testing has been around for too long to be considered effective anymore. I have already mentioned our exponentially growing technology. We can now drive our cars without using the steering wheel or gas petals, and a simple poof into our eyes during an orthopedic appointment can generate how well we can see. We have lipsticks on the market that look green, but show up on your lips pink, and full coverage concealers that can cover tattoos. Not only is animal testing outdated, it is also completely ineffective. There have been several deaths around the world that were caused by things overlooked during animal experimentation. The advances we have made in medicine and cosmetics are slim compared to the millions of deaths of animals. The ethics of animal testing are outrageous, completely illogical, and arguably nonexistent in today’s world and always have been throughout history. On the other side, professionals argue that animal testing is only a small portion of what happens in biomedical and cosmetic research testing, and that it has helped develop a number of products we use in our everyday lives.

Like I’ve said over and over, animal testing, every day, is being proven more inefficient than you may think. As research scientists do their best to prevent the spread of diseases by the use of drugs and test toxicity of cosmetics, they look to testing on animals rather than testing on their human counterparts because it is fast, easy, and inexpensive. For the longest time, these scientists looked to animals for testing but it has been discovered that testing on animals is becoming outdated, nonetheless immoral and cruel. Navs’s main argument is just that: as our society expands and our technological abilities grow, subjecting animals to torture is unnecessary. Navs states that “alternative scientific tests are often more reliable than animal tests.” In fact, they claim, for example that “skin corrosivity and irritation can be easily measured using three-dimensional human skin equivalent systems such as EpiDerm and SkinEthic.” This means that scientists are burning the skin off innocent monkeys and pigs for no apparent reason. If there is an alternative to human skin that we can simulate efficiently, why would we test on monkeys, who have a different body chemistry and hair ratio than actual human beings? They also go on to include other examples of the failure of animal testing in the labs, the bottom line being that this practice is becoming increasingly incorrect and obsolete in real life situations, and we must call upon each other to stop the use of animal testing. This includes a high praise for “three states (CA, NJ,NY,) have already passed legislation mandating that federally approved non-animal alternatives, when available, be used for product testing in place of animals.” We need to use these states as an example that cosmetics can still be mass produced and we can still find the cure to cancer without torturing beings without a voice by using technology. Another issue that happened in response to the failure of the animal model in comparison to humans is what is known as the Thalidomide Tragedy. A mild sleeping drug, thalidomide, was tested on animals and eventually concluded harmless even for pregnant women until it got to consumer’s hands. It was also advertised to these women to ease morning sickness up until pregnant women began to have babies with malformed limbs. Another article explained to me that it wasn’t the fault of animal testing, for they didn’t even test on pregnant animals. This raises concerns to me for why wouldn’t you test a drug made for pregnant ladies by simulating pregnancy? We use animals because of their similarity to us as far as hormones and organ systems go, however, like not one human matches another exactly, animal genetics do not completely match a human’s, which further proves that animal testing is bullshit. Even primates, who are the most similar to humans, have failed to predict what could happen to humans in real life situations outside of the lab. For example, monkeys treated with a specific antibody did not predict a fatal immune response that would later happen in humans. There is no specific model animal that researchers can agree upon that can accurately predict a human’s response, mostly because they just use one that is convenient and cost effective. A severe stress needs to be put upon the advances our technology has made throughout the years, and no animal should suffer for it.

In 1975, a man by the name of Peter Singer wrote a book about animal suffering and concluded that many animals were on the same cognitive level as very young children or severely impaired adults. This realization within the scientific community was quickly shut down and disregarded as bogus and “unjustified,” but I think not. Everyone knows that the intelligence of a dog is beyond anything we could have imagined. He gets sad when you leave the house, can sit and roll over on command and whines when you give him a little push for knocking over the trash. A young child throws a fit when her mom leaves, can be told to stop crying that she can’t eat cupcakes for dinner on command, and cries when you punish her for drawing on the walls. It’s true that you cannot teach a dog to read and write (YET) but are able to differentiate wrong and right, including what they don’t like and what they do. We would never imagine in our lives to subject useless human children to the kind of torture our very own pets are going through on a day to day basis, unless you’re Jonathan Swift, so why should we put animals on that level? Because they have no voice to tell us stop? There is no doubt in my mind that the human race is the apex predator, being able to develop a whole world with a few different advantages: heavily developed brains, communication skills, and opposable thumbs. In order to obtain your MD you have to swear by a code of ethics, more specifically the code of consent. Consent is a simple thing, and humans are able to sign off their consent with a piece of paper and a pen; however we object animals to torture without blinking an eye.

It is no secret that the use of animal testing has helped our medical and cosmetic world drastically. It has helped develop insulin and antibiotics for those suffering with diabetes, and viruses. Without these advances, the human population could possibly have been decimated over time, but the start of animal testing was in an old age and I believe that the time to look for more alternative solutions is now. However, companies are legally responsible for ensuring the safety and efficacy of their product before they are introduced into a consumer’s hands. Although finding alternative methods to ensure the safety of their product is challenging, it can be done and has proven to be done. Understandinganimalresearch.org argues that if we stopped animal testing altogether, “then it is difficult to see where the solutions to today's medical problems are going to come from. Is it right to deny these treatments to the patients who are suffering now and in the future? That would be the result if animal research were to be abolished immediately as called for by the animal rights groups.” But I disagree. It is unfair and hypocritical for millions of animals to be suffering their whole lives, without a chance to be set free and loved. Even the ugliest of thieves can be eligible for parole, yet an innocent, easily domesticated rat must be probed and breed other rats for the same reason. If animal testing really was efficient as they say, we would have found the cure for everything by now and it would already be eliminated; however, we are still testing on animals for the same reasons they were testing on animals hundreds of years ago and little progress has been made. You can still get the flu again days after taking antibiotics, and there is no cure for diabetes. Every human will react differently to a shampoo due to allergies or the condition your hair is in. The bottom line, again (I will repeat this forever), is that animal testing is unnecessary. 

It is crazy to say that animals should have the same rights and freedoms as a regular human being. Do I propose that they go out and vote in the next election? Or propose that they have the right for concealed carry of a firearm? No, because that is ridiculous. The stigma that research labs put on animal rights activists is uncalled for as we do not advocate for animals to be homeowners with families and lives to live. All we advocate for is that there should be no suffering within their species by any means, and that includes humans. So what? I just feel like if there is synthetic skin that we can test on, there is no need to burn the skin off of a monkey. To conclude, I want to go off with a quote from Jeremy Bentham: “The question is not, can they reason, nor, can they talk. But, can they suffer.”
