In 1937, a medicine known as Diethylene Glycol (DEG) killed over a hundred people.  After the Federal Drug Administration investigated the drug and found the culprit to the deaths, Congress passed the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, which requires all products to be tested on animals before being allowed to be sold on the market.  Testing on animals, however, are not an exact science.  

In the 1950s and 1960s, a drug known as thalidomide, which is a painkiller and tranquilizer.  Its job is to relieve insomnia, coughs, colds, and headaches. It was the so called “wonder drug,” but there was an unintended side effect.  Pregnant women tended to use the drug because it could also act as a reliever for nausea, however, the drug affected the development babies in the womb.  Between the late 1950s and the early 1960s, over 10,000 children in 46 different countries were all born with missing limbs or malfunctions, according to The National Library of Medicine.  From there, researchers started testing every drug they had on animals, and some had horrible side effects, giving the animal extreme distress and depression.

“I don’t use products that are tested on animals. If you want to see how a product works on a person, then you should test it on a person,” Abby Z. 21’ said.

The Animal Welfare Act (AWA) was passed to help keep the laboratory animals in good health and from experiencing high stress levels, but the law is flawed.  Roughly 95% of the animals used in animal testing are not protected by the AWA, a law that is supposed to protect animals from being mistreated.  

“There needs to be stricter regulations in place for animal testing, they shouldn’t be testing higher level animals such as dogs,” Advanced Placement Biology teacher Nancy Fairbanks said. 

However, not all animal testing is painful.  Different animal testing procedures involve little pain or stress and often the most major experiment on an animal will be an injection of medication or a slight change in diet.  Veterinary practices are advanced to help the animals live longer and be happier in the testing environment. If anything goes wrong, anesthetics and painkillers are applied to suppress the pain and reduce stress.  The animals put through extreme pain, and poorly treated, are owned by researchers who do not care for the condition of the animals, according to www.understandinganimalresearch.org.uk. 

“Animal testing is not a bad thing to do, as long as the animals aren’t being harmed.  Ih honestly depends on what they’re doing,” said Sophia P. 22’.

Those that try to stop animal testing are not all helpful.  In 2006, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). threatened researchers to stop until they quit their jobs, and in 2007, a bomb was placed underneath the car of an animal researcher.  There was a faulty fuse however, and nobody was harmed as a result of the incident.  

PETA has also spent more money on funding arsonists and violent attacks on animal researchers than actually protecting animals, according to the Washington Post.  Pets have suffered and been euthanized under PETA because they are “being saved from a tragic life of not being loved.” PETA has committed far more atrocities than animal researchers.  Animal atrocities do not begin with animal researchers, they begin with PETA.