It is a difficult ethical question whether to do drug tests on animals or not. However, regulatory organizations all around the world including USFDA require all new drugs undergo safety studies in animals before starting clinical studies in people. This regulation is put as a prerequisite considering the safety of humans.
People think it would be dangerous and unethical to test drugs on humans before making sure that they are safe. However, the real unethical thing is do tests on animals without their consent. People are asked for their approval for any kind of operation in hospitals. When animals are in question, it is not possible to get approval and people think that they are free and they have rights to do all kind of tests on animals.
Experimenting on animals is unacceptable because it causes suffering to animals. On the other hand, the benefits to human beings are not proven. Very often the symptoms and responses to potential treatments observed in animals are not similar to the responses of human patients. Therefore, the results and efficacy data obtained are not reliable. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) admitted that %95 of all drugs that are shown to be safe and effective in tests on animals fail in human beings and they do not work. Likewise, British Medical Journal declared “The claim that animal experimentation is essential to medical development is not supported by proper and scientific evidence but by opinion.” Many disease areas showed very little progress or no progress. Although, animal researches were made for many decades. For instance, over 1000 drugs for stroke treatment were tested in animals but only one of those was found to be effective in patients.
The data and reference given above show that animal testing is unreliable. Therefore, scientists must switch to alternative testing methods. For example, the National Research Council in the US had expressed its vision that all routine toxicity testing would be done in human cells and cell lines in the new future. Additionally, “3R” principle of replacement, reduction and refinement of animal testing has become a legal requirement in European Union. This means that non-animal techniques will gradually take place the experiments on animals.
In conclusion, experiments on animals must be discontinued. Considering that there is no proven clinical data showing that animal testing results are reliable, scientists must focus on finding new methods which will save the animals from this violence.