Animal Testing in Pharmacy - Essay Sample

Introduction

Pharmaceutical companies are probably the most lucrative and powerful organizations after banks. They give scholarships and huge amounts of money to experimenters with animals and forcing or agreeing with governments so that by law it is mandatory to carry out such experiments before releasing a medicine to the market. With those sales, they recover more than what was spent, and that is to have them locked in laboratories thousands of animals to inoculate all types of substances in many existing cases is certainly cheap. Because of this craving for money from pharmaceutical companies, thousands and thousands of animal deaths have been caused over the years (Joffe, Bara, Anton, & Nobis, 2016). It is a debate that many prefer to avoid because it easily becomes violent and in which everyone invokes ethics. Animalists say that it is morally unacceptable to keep animals in captivity and make them suffer in the name of science. The researchers, that if they stop doing it, people would be giving up important medical advances in the future (McNamee, Hibatallah, Costabel-Farkas, Goebel, Araki, Dufour, & Macfarlane, 2009). It is important to find ways through which animal testing should be abolished or use ways which do not hurt animals. While animal testing actions in the cosmetic industry are being regulated, there is need to take a step further to completely ban these unethical procedures.

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Animal experimentation is the use of non-human animals in experimental procedures with a scientific and pedagogical objective, as a rule, of an invasive nature. This is the designation that most people use when talking about animal experimentation and when discussing the problem. However, in general terms, it is much more than that. Animal experimentation may refer to any activity that uses animals to get some knowledge. There are those who consider that mere observation, with or without the use of additional tools, can also be included (Weisskircher, 2019). However, from an ethical point of view, studying animals in nature do not generate major moral problems, and most activists are not interested in discussing this issue except in cases where there is aggressive interference on the part of the observer. In the European Union, 27 countries reported in a year the use of more than 12 million animals in experiments which meant that every 10 minutes, 137 animals going through some of these processes. In the United Kingdom, there were 4 million animals used in 2013, equivalent to 11,000 experiments per day. Among the animals most used by this country are fish with 501, 841, followed by 138,287 birds, 11,895 rabbits, 3,554 dogs, 2,202 nonhuman primates and 109 cats.

Most of the laboratory tests are toxicological tests, since it is in this field that there are still no non-animal alternatives available (Weisskircher, 2019). The toxicological tests consist of irritation of legs and eyes, tests of fever in rabbits and of reactions by botox in rodents. Painful experiments with live animals, routinely repeated as mere student practices, are prohibited in some countries, while in others they are tolerated or even mandatory. Rabbits or rats are forced to ingest or inhale cosmetic ingredients, or the ingredient is applied directly to their shaved skin, every day for 28 or 90 days. The test also includes sensitization of the skin (guinea pigs with their shaved skin are exposed to the substance, or through the ears of rats to see the allergic reactions); or carcinogenicity tests (rats fed for two years with substances to see if it causes cancer). Once these animals have presented reactions, they are all dead, but the pain caused while they were submitted no limit. Nevertheless, it must be recognized that some experiments on live animals are necessary to obtain important knowledge, which in turn can help to avoid many pains, both humans and other animals.

In a "ranking" of themes that generate extreme discussions between animal rights activists and the scientific community, animal experimentation ranks first (with a great margin of advantage over a second place). The former defends the end of acts of cruelty over animals whose life passes as a guinea pig for scientific research, arguing that alternatives already exist. The scientific community rejects the accusation of cruelty and fights the idea that the role of animals in biomedical research can be fully replaced (Rollen, 2017). The use of animals in scientific experimentation was widespread during the eighteenth century, and only from the end of the last century, this practice became heavily questioned. Such inquiries have achieved important milestones, such as the ban in Europe of testing for finished cosmetics and part of their constituents on guinea pigs, as well as the banning of invasive experiments on chimpanzees in 2010 by 27 members of the European Union.

Each year, 100 million animals are killed in laboratory tests. To cause suffering in animals for purely playful reasons is absurd. There should be something that would prohibit the cosmetics industry around the world, especially from testing animals, because that is an unnecessary abuse. There is a National Council for Control of Animal Experimentation (NCCAE), but it lacks rigor in the enforcement of the law. In universities, there is a great deal of pressure on researchers for the scientific production and many studies of little relevance or that are unfolding and even repetitions of other works that end up making the use of animals without necessity and, nevertheless, the NCCAE approves. When there is a real need and no alternative to using animals in trials and tests, such use should be regulated and overseen by an ethics and welfare committee (Nordgren, 2012). In addition to anesthesia and trained staff, the tests should spare animals from all forms the physical and psychological injuries, including chronic fear and stress, pain, hunger, and other preventable sufferings.

Various manufacturers of products such as lipsticks or detergents subject their products to painful tests and experiments, of which innocent victims are millions of rabbits, guinea pigs, and other sensitive mammals, subjected to routine torture and mutilation. One of the most frequent experiments is the Draize test (Fentem, Chamberlain, & Sangster, 2014). It consists in applying exaggerated doses of the product (for example, shampoo) to one of the eyes of a rabbit immobilized by the neck until producing ulcers, sores, hemorrhages, and blindness, while the other eye serves as a comparative control. The rabbit, crazed with pain, sometimes breaks his spine trying to break free and escape. In other tests (those of lethal dose) the animals are forced to ingest detergents and other harmful products, and their reactions are observed (convulsions, rashes, diarrhea, etc.). It seems obvious that painful experimentation with animals for purely cosmetic or cleaning purposes is unnecessary and should be prohibited (instead of required by law, as in some countries).

Laboratory tests cause suffering, injury, and psychological distress. Animals do not deserve such suffering to satisfy the playful human mind; it is important to respect every form of life, without dictating it as superior or inferior. It is more than proven that the use of animals in laboratory tests is merely an abuse of the human condition (Fentem, Chamberlain, & Sangster, 2014). In 1933, the mascara called Lash Lure blinded more than a dozen women and even killed one of them due to a bacterial infection. From that moment, strict regulations began to be applied to test the safety of the products before putting them on sale, and until the 1980s the only way to do it was with animals until alternative methods such as cell cultures were introduced or of tissue (Pauwels & Rogiers, 2014). Today, although there are still products such as blockers, shampoos, toothpaste and creams that are tested on living beings, the practice is increasingly unpopular and is already prohibited in the European Union and New Zealand.

In countries such as the USA, Germany, and England, where there has been a special emphasis on reducing this type of experimentation, bioethics bodies and committees conduct visits (concerted or surprise) to laboratories to monitor their methods. Many norms and protocols have been established for the early evaluation of pain or harm in animals caused by the experiments or drugs to be tested, and the concept of "humanitarian endpoint" and euthanasia has been introduced to avoid prolonged suffering. Compliance with these regulations depends on whether or not a laboratory receives approval and funding for its investigations. As a result, in the United Kingdom, the number of animals used in research has decreased by almost half in the last 30 years.

Among the possibilities of substitution to the use of animals in experiments, they include research through the use of cell and tissue cultures, computational simulations and bioinformatics, recombinant DNA technology and nanotechnology; and the adoption of didactics that made use of computer programs, virtual reality, interactive or demonstrative videos, specific mannequins and in vitro research (Nohynek, Antignac, Re, & Toutain, 2010). It is necessary for the institutions to seek and offer their professionals access to alternative methods available, as well as to encourage the creation of new didactic-pedagogical resources, such as an institutional bank of alternative methods.

There are already companies that are serious about avoiding experimentation on animals such as Protect & Gamble that manufacture products that are common in many homes such as diapers Pampers, Oral-B, Gillette or Ariel detergents. In P & G they believe that it is possible to end animal experimentation in the industry, their goal is to eliminate animal testing. More than 330 million dollars have been invested in the research and development of alternative solutions to animal experimentation. The results of their research have been published so that the entire community can benefit from them. The research works carried out by P & G have been published in more than 1000 scientific publications. P & G have developed more than 50 test methods without animals, achieving in 2015 that more than 99% of safety assessments are made if need to make tests on animals. Among the alternative methods are the predictive approaches using human cell lines, and computerized design. At P & G they collaborate with scientists, universities, other companies, governments and also with animal advocacy groups. If we look for companies that commit themselves against animal experimentation, P & G is an example in the promotion and acceptance of alternative methods to change the regulations that animal testing still requires. To achieve this goal, they are developing innovative and ethical alternatives that are also cheaper than they are used for example to evaluate the safety of the ingredients of any product of P & G.

Today there is a wide variety of alternatives for animal experimentation. Some of the best known being experimentation with in vitro organs or experimentation on artificial tissues, which, far from being an alternative, are a great improvement for the scientific field. The results are more accurate when experimenting on human organs and tissues instead of using those of other species. Most of the state laws that refer to animal welfare and sanction abuse indicate that research with animals should have only scientific purposes, which means rigorous processes with specialized personnel and certified quality issues. Not only that, but it must also be guaranteed that the facilities where the animals are found comply with all the specifications established by law such as cage sizes, temperature conditions, ventilation, an...