Animal testing

Should people do experiments on animals? Every year animals are subjected to experiments so painful and damaging that no one would ever do them on humans. On theother hand, these experiments are mostly done so that humans--and sometimes animals--will suffer less in the future. Deciding on whether or not to do a painfulexperiment on an animal can be a tough choice.
And the answer may not be so simple. We must weigh the benefits of the discoveries we hope to make from theresearch with the costs of making animals suffer. We should be concerned about how animals are treated in research, and we should all work to minimize--if noteliminate--the number of animals who suffer.
How Many Animals Are Used in Research?
It's impossible to know exactly how many animals are being used in research becauseU.S. laws do not require scientists to report how many mice, rats, or birds they use. But even though no one is sure how many rats and mice are used in research,most sources agree that about 90 percent are rats and mice.
There are many animals that scientists do have to report using in experiments, including dogs, cats,sheep, hamsters, guinea pigs, and primates. Of the animals that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) collects numbers on, 1,438,553 were used in research in2002.
Since more than 1.4 million mammals other than rats and mice were used in research, and since mice and rats probably make up 90% of the animals in labs, we canguess that about 14 million rats and mice were used in research in 2002. That means that over 15 million warm-blooded animals are used in research every year.