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Pros of Animal Research

      
    “We have all benefited immensely from scientific research involving animals. From antibiotics and insulin to blood transfusions and treatments for cancer or HIV, virtually every medical achievement in the past century has depended directly or indirectly on research on animals.”
        As explained above, Animal research allows doctors to develop and refine treatments, procedures, and cures and is a proven method for doing so (for examples see 'Advances').  Animal testing is also important to test drugs and medications used for both humans and animals. Were animal research to be banned, almost all medical advancement would halt because alternative methods are not yet advanced enough to work as accurately and quickly as animal testing.   Allowing researchers to test on animals has saved a countless amount of both humans and animals lives and will continue to do so in the future.  Some diseases/medical conditions have even been completely wiped out because of advancements developed from experiments on animals.

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Cons of Animal Testing

        An undeniable con of animal testing is the lost of many animal lives, those animals who do not die in tests are put to sleep.  This adds to the estimated 90 million animals killed worldwide for research.  A major criticism is that many medications or treatments tested on animals will not be used for humans.  This makes it seem like the animal died with no benefit to humans.  Statics show that 92% of the medical products tested on animals will fail human health tests, making animal testing seem very unreliable.
         Though 93% of tests either have no pain involved or pain that is relieved by anesthetics, 7% of experiments are classified as 'causing significant pain that was not relieved'; since mice and rats were not included in that statistic the number of cases with unrelieved pain might be much higher. 
        Animal tests are very expensive and this is considered by some, mostly researchers on a strict budget, as a con.