What are the benefits to people from animal testing? What discoveries have been made using animals?
Countless medical treatments, techniques, and technologies have come about, at least in part, through animal experimentation. The development of immunization against such diseases as polio, diphtheria, mumps, measles, rubella, pertussis, and hepatitis all involved research on animals, as did the discovery of insulin and the study of diabetes. Animal research also has played a part in the development of organ transplantation, hip replacement, chemotherapy, cardiac pacemakers, coronary bypass surgery, ongoing efforts to understand and treat AIDS and Alzheimer’s disease, and more. Not everyone agrees, however, on the extent to which animal research was essential to all these discoveries, nor the extent to which is it necessary for future medical progress. The American Anti-Vivisectionist Society, for example, contends that “results derived from animal experiments have had a very minimal effect on the dramatic rise in life expectancy in the 20th century.” The organizations represented by A
