Reading Reflection – Sacred Cows and Golden Geese (Animal Testing: Is It Necessary?)

Animal testing is essential to the advancement of medicine and science, but the unethical and unnecessary nature of animal testing continues to be debated. Proper regulation and alternative methods have led to a reevaluation of the need for animal testing.

 

Animal testing is the use of animals to conduct medical experiments to study biological phenomena and is widely used for research and education in biology, agriculture, animal husbandry, veterinary medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, and medicine. Animal testing is widely used to test the safety of cosmetics, psychological experiments such as Pavlov’s dogs, and biological research, including most of the drugs we use. In particular, animal testing has become increasingly important in the modern world to help us respond quickly whenever new diseases emerge or existing diseases mutate. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, animal testing was an essential step in the vaccine development process, which undoubtedly saved millions of lives.
If we look at the old perceptions of animal testing, St. Augustine said, “It is God’s will that animals be used for man’s benefit, and man is justified in raising and using them,” and Descartes said, “Animals are more like machines that operate without consciousness, so it is not morally wrong to exploit them.” In the past, animal testing was often practiced in this way without much guilt, and famous philosophers even took it for granted. These views reflected the ethical standards of the society at the time, which tended to understand the relationship between humans and animals as merely instrumental.
However, as time went on, people’s perceptions of animals began to change, and the unethical nature of animal testing began to be questioned, opinions against animal testing began to emerge. In modern times, advances in bioethics have led to the recognition that animals are capable of feeling emotions and suffering, which has led to a growing debate about the ethical legitimacy of animal testing. Initially, the unethical nature of animal testing was the main reason for opposing animal testing, but as technology has improved, the need for animal testing has become less and less necessary, and the opposition to animal testing has become stronger. The book Sacred Cows and Golden Geese, which was discussed in the discussion paper, is also a book that contains arguments against animal testing in line with this trend. In particular, as the author says in the introduction, the arguments against animal testing are not limited to pointing out the unethical nature of animal testing and appealing to people’s morality, but also argue for the unnecessity of animal testing with various evidence.
When I first read this book, I was attracted to the author’s arguments and various evidence, and I thought that animal testing was not right, but when I looked up the data, I realized that animal testing is necessary. Therefore, I would like to talk about the necessity of animal testing by refuting the arguments in this book.
First of all, the book’s main argument is that animal testing is pointless. The book’s main argument is that animal testing is unnecessary, and it uses examples from various fields where animal testing is used, including drug discovery, cancer research, cardiovascular disease, AIDS, and xenotransplantation. In Sacred Cows and Golden Geese alone, the authors provide so many examples that they have since written a second book, Animal Testing in Science, to explain everything they couldn’t say in Tam Odong. They provide additional theoretical reasons for why animal testing is unjustified, and suggest alternatives to animal testing in internal and surgical medicine, pediatrics, brain disease, and more. Overall, the authors provide an impressive number of examples of how animal testing has been pointless. But are these the only cases where animal testing is pointless?
Of course, as the book suggests, there are some cases in which animal tests have shown harmful effects that are not harmful to humans, but given that animal tests can often detect harmful effects in advance, it’s not fair to denigrate animal testing as a whole because of a few cases. Animal testing is essential for maximum human safety. An example of this is the sulfanilamide crisis in the United States. Developed in the United States in 1937, sulfanilamide was an antibiotic that was expected to be highly effective in humans, but it was used in humans without being tested on animals, causing 107 deaths. It was later tested in animals and found to be harmful. This incident is often cited as a stark example of the importance of animal testing.
There’s also the humidifier sterilizer scandal in Korea in 2011. In Korea alone, 78 people who used humidifier sterilizers died. Why did these deaths occur? The sterilizing substance used in humidifier sterilizers has been used in many products for a long time without any problems, so it was not specifically tested on animals. However, due to the nature of humidifiers, the sterilant particles are broken down into smaller particles that are absorbed by the lungs and become toxic when sprayed. In this case, the incident could have been prevented if more animal tests had been conducted on the sterilizer.
There are countless other places where animal testing is necessary. For example, genetic research is mostly done on laboratory animals. In Morgan’s experiments, he used fruit flies to learn about inheritance, and his colleague Muller used X-rays on fruit flies to discover what causes mutations. These experiments would not have been possible without the use of animals. Pasteur, who created the first vaccine, also used dogs and rabbits to study and develop vaccines. Prof. Prusiner, who won the Nobel Prize for discovering the prions that cause mad cow disease, also worked with mice and hamsters. Exploration of uncharted spaces such as outer space and the deep sea has also been tested by sending animals before humans to test their safety. Testing with animals makes it safer for humans to explore the unknown.
Unlike in the past, nowadays, rules such as the 3Rs are in place to minimize the senseless suffering of animals in animal testing. The 3Rs stand for Replace, Reduce, and Refine, and they are principles designed to raise the ethical standards of animal testing. Institutions that conduct animal testing are required to have an animal care and use committee, and laboratory animals are governed by strict guidelines and laws. These efforts to consider the welfare of laboratory animals demonstrate a commitment to minimizing the suffering caused to animals in the process, while acknowledging that animal testing remains an important scientific method.
Opponents of animal testing point to a variety of alternatives to animal testing, including computer modeling, human studies, cadaveric autopsies, and test-tube research. Of course, when there are alternatives to animal testing, it is right to replace animal testing. However, when it comes to studying underlying diseases and behaviors in living organisms, there are some things that cannot be replaced by other methods, and in these cases, animal testing may be the way to go to prevent greater harm in humans. In addition, human research can be difficult to fully control, which can affect the results, whereas animal testing can be easily controlled and provide more accurate results.
Animal testing inevitably causes harm to animals, so it’s not right to use animal testing indiscriminately. However, with proper regulation and when there is a proven need, animal testing can protect the health of many people and contribute greatly to scientific progress. Rather than prohibiting animal testing because it is cruelty to animals, it should be done only when it is necessary to prevent harm to humans, and we should be grateful and sorry for the animals that are sacrificed in place of humans. We should also be grateful for the sacrifices of animals, thinking that we are enjoying the development that we are enjoying because of the knowledge that we have gained through animal testing.