Introduction
In scientific research, scientists often use animals as a specimen or experimental medium. Even though research ethic codes stands strongly against the use of human as an experimental medium, the use of animals remains unreasonable as well as unacceptable based on animal rights. There are various opinions regarding the use of animals for scientific purposes with others holding the view that it should be stopped while others feel that it is quite acceptable and necessary to do so (Hubrecht, 2014). This paper seeks to resolve the extent to which the use of animals as experiment medium is acceptable.
In pharmaceutics industry, it has been common to use animals as an experimental medium. This is because scientists believe that animals are an appropriate experiment target since they have a similar response to human beings (Hubrecht, 2014). Another outstanding reason is that the research ethics code prohibits the use of human beings for experiments. The point of contention arises when the animals are used for purposes of profit rather than for research (Philips, 2010). This is mostly practiced by cosmetic industries. For this reason, use of animals for experiments should be prohibited.
Although there are sufficient grounds for using animals as research target, there are some reasons that cause a disagreement. First, the animals used such as mice and rabbits have dissimilar familial structures compared to human and hence will lead to a biased outcome (Philips, 2010). Secondly, the animals undergo major physical pain and in some cases die in large numbers for the discovery of just one drug.
Conclusion
Use of animals as an experimental medium is unavoidable. However, the scientists should reduce the number of animals used for such experiments. The organization responsible for this issue should state clear rules governing the use of animals as an experimental medium that will shield the animals from infringement of their animals’ rights.