History of how People Started Animal Testing

Planet Earth has been in a constant state of change for the length of its existence, which is close to five billion years. The first life that began to form was bacteria and that was 1.5 billion years after the Earth formed. Bacteria moved to fish, the fish sprouted legs and went onto land, then the fish turned into reptiles (dinosaurs) then they ruled planet. Only two hundred million years ago mammals came into the equation, and in the last 1.8 million so did the human race. Humans are by far the most intelligent species that have ever come to live on the planet. Humans have done some amazing things, since their emergence, such as build immensely tall skyscrapers, built the car, invented the nuclear bomb, and found the cure to many deadly diseases. The cure for diseases and viruses came a lot in term from the medical experimentation of animals, namely primates such as chimpanzees and orangutans. The medical experimentation of these primates, though immoral and evil, should be used because: the primates are very similar to humans in terms of genetic makeup, scientists are able to find the cures for deadly diseases and viruses, and scientists and doctors are able to test the effectiveness of the drugs that they create in the labs.

A little back ground on the topic of animal testing on chimps and orangutans. The first time a primate, chimps mainly, were used in testing was in the “1920s, when psychologist Robert M. Yerkes began studying the behavior of a chimpanzee” (savethechimps.org, para 1). He did it to just communicate. To see if there was cogitatively something there. This was just used to get an understanding about a different animal. But later, different scientists implemented his findings into a medical aspect. They brought in orangutans as well. Researchers learned that these animals were kind of like people in a sense, so they thought that it would be a good idea to try using them for medical experiments and testing. They found out many things from these animals like chimps and orangutans that could be transferrable to humans. The learned that they were genetically similar as well and psychologically similar (but this essay won’t talk much about the mind).

As mentioned a little earlier, primates like those of chimpanzees and orangutans have a very similar genetic makeup as their human counterparts. Chimpanzees and orangutans are 98.8 percent similar in their DNA to humans. This means that these animals are the most similar living organisms that are currently coexisting with humans in terms of genetic makeup. An article by the University of California at Davis Primate Research Center quoted Dr. Jeffrey Kordower, a neuroscientist who examines how diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s affect the brain (UC Davis Article, para 4). Dr. Kordower stated that “Monkeys have certain traits and characteristics that make them essential and irreplaceable in medical research. They’re the bridge to the clinic”

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