Marta : Animal testing is certainly a disgrace, and this house believes that it should be banned. It firstly is fairly unreliable. Animals don't have the same body systems as us, and what might be good for them may not have the same great effect on us. It has been proven that 92 percent of experimental drugs which are safe and effective in animals fail in human clinical trials because they are too dangerous or don’t work. This means that the animals died for a cause that didn't even work out. Animal testing can even delay research because of its unreliability. Cosmetics, drugs, and other animal tested products can also cause health problems due to unreliability. Secondly, it is a barbaric way of researching. It is just trial and error on animals. Animals' lives are treated like dirt, and while they can't talk, they still have rights. Approximately 19.5% are killed every year in research. Innocent animals are dying, and 9 in 10 animals die for a product that doesn't even work. Also, cures for many diseases and medical conditions like stroke and asthma, have made little progress over the past century, yet have used excessive animal testing in experiments. Testing is often painful, and includes many sickening ways of completing experiments, like pouring drain killer into the eyes of animals, or rubbing chemicals on shaved skin. Painful? You bet. Most of these experiments aren't used with any sort of painkiller. A lot of animals' lives are thrown away. This must stop. Helen : Pro has presented two reasons why we should ban animal testing, I will refute them one by one. Pro claimed that "92 percent of experimental drugs which are safe and effective in animals fail in human clinical trials because they are too dangerous or don't work". This is very misleading and it doesn't prove anything. We use animal testing to find the drugs potentially dangerous to human. Those that pass the test are not automatically safe but they are less likely to be dangerous than the ones that were discarded thanks to the test. Let's imagine something like this: 1000 drugs need to go through two tests. 900 fail the first test and only 100 are allowed to take the second test, then 92 fail and only 8 pass. So 92% of the drugs which pass the first test fail the second test. Does it mean the first test is useless? Obviously not. Pro also stated that animal testing is barbaric. This argument is very emotion-based. The fact is we should and we must put our own benefit over other species. Animals are killed in order to make drugs for human. So what? Animals are also killed to be consumed by human. What is wrong with that? Human right is above animal right. Pro talks about the animals' pain. But how about the pain of the people tormented by diseases? If animal testing helps saving human lives then there is no reason to stop it. What is Helen’s response to the statement “it is a barbaric way of researching”?

Question

Marta :

Animal testing is certainly a disgrace, and this house believes that it should be banned. It firstly is fairly unreliable. Animals don't have the same body systems as us, and what might be good for them may not have the same great effect on us. It has been proven that 92 percent of experimental drugs which are safe and effective in animals fail in human clinical trials because they are too dangerous or don’t work. This means that the animals died for a cause that didn't even work out. Animal testing can even delay research because of its unreliability. Cosmetics, drugs, and other animal tested products can also cause health problems due to unreliability.

Secondly, it is a barbaric way of researching. It is just trial and error on animals. Animals' lives are treated like dirt, and while they can't talk, they still have rights. Approximately 19.5% are killed every year in research. Innocent animals are dying, and 9 in 10 animals die for a product that doesn't even work. Also, cures for many diseases and medical conditions like stroke and asthma, have made little progress over the past century, yet have used excessive animal testing in experiments. Testing is often painful, and includes many sickening ways of completing experiments, like pouring drain killer into the eyes of animals, or rubbing chemicals on shaved skin. Painful? You bet. Most of these experiments aren't used with any sort of painkiller. A lot of animals' lives are thrown away. This must stop.

Helen :

Pro has presented two reasons why we should ban animal testing, I will refute them one by one. Pro claimed that "92 percent of experimental drugs which are safe and effective in animals fail in human clinical trials because they are too dangerous or don't work". This is very misleading and it doesn't prove anything. We use animal testing to find the drugs potentially dangerous to human. Those that pass the test are not automatically safe but they are less likely to be dangerous than the ones that were discarded thanks to the test. Let's imagine something like this: 1000 drugs need to go through two tests. 900 fail the first test and only 100 are allowed to take the second test, then 92 fail and only 8 pass. So 92% of the drugs which pass the first test fail the second test. Does it mean the first test is useless? Obviously not.

Pro also stated that animal testing is barbaric. This argument is very emotion-based. The fact is we should and we must put our own benefit over other species. Animals are killed in order to make drugs for human. So what? Animals are also killed to be consumed by human. What is wrong with that? Human right is above animal right. Pro talks about the animals' pain. But how about the pain of the people tormented by diseases? If animal testing helps saving human lives then there is no reason to stop it.

What is Helen’s response to the statement “it is a barbaric way of researching”?