General points Animal research has played a vital part in nearly every medical breakthrough over the last decade.
However, animal experimentation in medical research and cosmetics testing cannot be justified on the basis that animals are lower on the evolutionary chart than humans since animals resemble humans in so many ways.
Since death is the required endpoint, dying animals are not put out of their misery by euthanasia" The California Biomedical Research Association states that nearly every medical breakthrough in the last years has resulted directly from research using animals. Animals do not willingly sacrifice themselves for the advancement of human welfare and new technology.
Although these animals still endure the stresses and deprivation of life in the sterile laboratory environment, their lives are not recorded in official statistics.
So it is with laboratory research.
Studying cell cultures in a petri dish, while sometimes useful, does not provide the opportunity to study interrelated processes occurring in the central nervous system, endocrine system, and immune system.