Did you know that each year in the United States, an estimated 70 million animals are meaninglessly killed, tortured in numerous ways and suffer excruciating pain just for your cosmetic products, makeup, shampoo, hair care or skin care products? Animal testing should be abolished.

Animal testing is wrong. Unless you are cruel, heartless or sadistic, I am sure you will all agree that the excruciating pain animals undergo whilst fully conscious, even risking their lives for us—or shall I say our unnecessary goods – is not worth the bottle of shampoo we buy in supermarkets. Animals each year are dissected, tortured, gassed, blinded, and infected whilst fully conscious because anesthetics or painkillers would interfere with the outcome of the experiment, meaning they go through extreme agony. But here is the fun part of animal testing: scientists have the ability and authority inflict pain upon the terrified, guiltless victims. Scientists no doubtingly they take advantage of their power. After all, who wouldn’t enjoy torturing an innocent animal in every way possible? From April 2004 to March 2005, a PETA investigator worked undercover at a Covance primate lab in Virginia. Experimenters were unknowingly filmed hitting monkeys excessively and cursing at them, for example some scientists said “I’m gonna kick your *** again”, “You little *****” and other unnecessary insults to an animal which does not understand. What this shows is the animals are not only put through agonizing pain, but also go through unneeded pain by being, for example physically harassed by scientists through their own sadistic personalities and for their own personal amusement. Ladies and gentlemen, do you really think this is acceptable? To let animals suffer in so many different ways? Making animals suffer through pointless psychological and physical pain whilst even going through slow, tormenting deaths? Animal testing must be stopped once and for all.

I am sure we all agree animal testing is unnecessary. 70% of animal testing is for cosmetics, a nonessential good. How many more hair products do we need? How many more vitamins do we need that offer the same thing as those in the container next to it on the shelf? How much makeup does one company need in order to be profitable? Once an ingredient has been found harmful, there is no point in different companies testing it again and again. Not only does this waste time, but identical, repeated experiments waste excessive amounts of work and money. Your money. Ladies and gentlemen, scientists and companies know animal testing has its lethal consequences, yet they still do it because they think they have no alternative. However, this is far from true. Friends, why do you continue to unknowingly waste unnecessary amounts of money and expenses on animal testing, whilst millions of animals die solitarily, painfully and slowly because of this unworthy inhumane practice? Animal testing should be stopped.

Ranjan Shandilya, an author states “Testing on animals has helped develop vaccines for many life threatening diseases like Herpes Simplex” Of course, there are those who say animal experimentation will help develop cures for diseases such as cancer and STD’s, which will save many lives. This is a lie. In actual fact, animal testing is a flawed and generally misleading method of scientific investigation that wastes time, money and resources. But friends, who pays for these experiments? We do, through our money, through our donations and through our consumer habits. Animals are distinct to humans in uncountable different ways, including psychologically, physiologically and genetically. There are cases that highlight the absurdity of assuming that humans and animals have a biology sufficiently similar for experimentation to yield useful results. For example: morphine calms humans but excites cats. As a result of this, it has been proven animal testing and vivisection does not produce accurate results, furthermore as the trauma and stress animals endure can affect experiments, the results are often invalidated. Making the process meaningless. Yes, scientists have discovered cures for other diseases such as sexually transmitted diseases and the development of antibiotics, vaccines and surgical techniques. But if the products from medical research based on the use of animals are so reliable, why is it that drugs that pass animal tests end up harming or killing humans about 61% of the time? Only 8% of drugs tested on animals actually make it to the market, meaning 92% are found to be either harmful or ineffective on humans. Again, some may argue; if they do not have any effect on humans, surely they cause no additional problems. However, if drugs and medication tested on animals are ineffective on humans, why do we continue to spend billions of dollars for something which does not have an impact at all, let alone harm us, even killing us in many cases? Two, out of thousands of shocking cases o