Before you start to use that special perfume, lotion, shampoo, or makeup, take a second and think to yourself, “I wonder how they know if this product is safe for my body?” Well, the way it’s tested is on poor innocent animals. All sorts of animals will be tested every day, from hamsters, to even cute little bunnies. They are kept in inhumane facilities and are just being tortured for our convince. Is this how you want to feel when you are using your favorite products or cuddling with your little best friend? Absolutely not.
The reason why we use animal testing is because the human body is rarely ever fully affected by a simple cosmetic. There might be an irritation in the select region, but it will most likely not spread to the entire body so it is an inaccurate way to test certain products. When you test them on bunnies, hamster, and guinea pigs their bodies are a lot smaller and their regions or the body are a lot closer together. Saying that, if they react badly to a certain product, their entire body will show it which means that something is wrong with the product. Even though an animals chemical makeup is completely different from a human's, they decide to use animals to test on for human products, which makes no sense. They weigh a lot less, have less of a body, and don't always have the same nerves or muscles that we do. Human's also don’t have fur at all. We also don’t have whiskers and paws. Therefore, our skin is completely different and could have the opposite reaction from the animals. Even though it says it's tested and is the best, it's tested with an inaccurate method and is irrelevant to even be considered “tested”.
In the 1950s a sleeping pill, which caused 10,000 babies birth deformities, was tested on animals since that was the most realistic route, obviously. They tested on pregnant mice, rats, guinea pigs, cats, and hamsters did not result in birth defects unless the drug was administered at extremely high doses. Also, animals that were tested on the arthritis drug Vioxx showed that it had a protective effect on the hearts of mice, yet the drug went on to cause more than 27,000 heart attacks and sudden cardiac deaths. After that, Vioxx was pulled from shelves. There is no evidence that animal experiments were essential in making major medical advances, and if enough money and resources are devoted to animal-free alternatives, other solutions would be found.
They way that institutions treat these poor animals is to an extreme that I can not even fathom. The way to calm the animals down is to either shoot them with a dart gun or to grab them by the neck and drag them out of their cage. They sit in these two by two foot cages, if they are lucky, or even smaller, and just scream in terror and cry for help when they watch the humans rip them out of their cage and shove a tube town their throat, strap them down on a table, or give them a shot to knock them out. Once a procedure is done, if the animal isn't responding like the humans want them to, they will break their neck to shock their body. It almost always kills them but its said to be a “method to just teach the nerves so their body becomes paralyzed, but they are still "alive” which is not what happens. If the animal reacts badly to the product or drug, it would cause death, bleeding, irritation of the skin, or hallucinations. Once they react badly to the product, they take notes of what they need to test why it happened to go bad. That usually means killing them and taking their insides.
The terror and torture these animals go through is terrible. Animal's bodies and human's bodies are not alike so I see no reason for this to be necessary. There are plenty of other options to this testing area of science. Just remember the next time you take a sleeping pill, put on makeup, or spray that nice cologne or perfume remember that before it goes on the shelves, and is sold, they are tested. They are tested on innocent animals that have souls, thoughts, and hearts too. All we can do is hope that animal testing will stop for good. For now, just try and donate to the ASPCA or the Humane Society.
