ANIMAL TESTING: THE HORRIBLE TRUTH BEHIND COSMETICS INDUSTRIES

Cruelty is a sensitive subject to most of us, especially when it involves helpless animals. Millions animals that were used in research in 2002 (not including mice, rats, and birds) were used in research that was either painful, distressful, or both most of these animals are only used in one experiment, but sometimes the same animal will be used in more than one experiment, most are euthanized shortly after being used in an experiment. Just to make you prettier, more than 100 million animals are poisoned, burned, crippled, and abused in other ways in U.S. labs only each year. This should be stopped the government should illegalize the cosmetic industries animal testing. By doing this we will not allow society to lose its humanity, will permit the industries that choose not to test animals to increase their sales by catching consumers that care for this subject, and it will spare the live of untold thousands of innocent animals .This is a decision that concern and affects all of us, today we teach our kids that to kill mice and rats without any remorse exposing them to pain and distressful experiments for beauty is nothing, what about tomorrow?

As you might know experimentation on live animals, began as early as the 17th century. During that time period, Philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) rejected Philosopher Rene Descartes' theory that animals are not able to reason and therefore do not feel pain and suffering. Bentham held that living creatures can suffer and enjoy, and that their inability to reason is irrelevant to the moral issue of how animals should be treated. Bentham's philosophy on animals was: "The question is not, can they reason? or, can they talk? but, can they suffer?"

Now day, society lives in a countdown clock where everything should be fast and almost perfect. In the way of trying to achieve this perfection we have lost somehow our way to view things, we are egocentric, always looking for our own benefit, we’ve become careless, we are losing our humanity. To sacrifice innocent animals just to look younger, to have better hair or skin is a way to lose it. Torture or torment is the application of severe pain[1], isn’t this what we are doing? So why call it research? I completely agree to Philosopher Jeremy Bentham, maybe animals can’t reason, but does this means that they can´t feel?

Even though society is becoming self-center there is still hope, there is still people who care , I believe that there are people willing to support this cause, people who love life, people who will start a movement and stop buying products which are  tested in animals. This can be a life changing event. Cosmetic industries will lose tons of their revenues; their inventory will stay in stock which will soon reveal into a massive chaos, leading them into a bankrupt. Elie Wiesel a romaine writer of 1924 said once “A destruction, an annihilation that only man can provoke, only man can prevent.”

That’s what I’m asking you , ¡prevent! Prevent that in a future our kids would not hesitate about killing someone because of beauty, prevent the death of millions of innocent, helpless animals, prevent that in a future our judging standard is transform. Today we kill animals because they don’t have any reasoning thoughts, because they can’t speak, because we believe that human race is superior. But tomorrow , we are going to find people who can’t talk or have any reasonable thought, would that mean that we’ll be permitted to kill them too? You tell me.

Scientist that work in cosmetics would say that animal testing is the only way to try a new shampoo, conditioner, powder, mascara etc… instead of testing it in humans, but this is a lie. Science have advance in so many ways , for example when a vehicle has finish it’s fabrication process, they test how will an impact like a car crash will affect the people who are inside the car, do they use real person for this?  NO they don’t, they use a prototype that simulates what damage will a real person would have , they don’t test a dog or a cat . Then does it seem fair to kill a dog just to create a new longer lasting hair dye?

What hurts the most is that some of these experiments are even for even nothing. Recently, while browsing a website in my financial analysis class, I came across an article on CNN. This article was written by a woman who formally worked in a laboratory performing experimentations on animals. The woman decided that she could no longer remain employed at the laboratory when she was told to inject five doses of chemical into a dog until it died. She was told that the purpose of this experiment was to determine the amount of toxins that a person could handle while using medication. When I read this information, it angered me that people can actually do this to a live animal. Then, I read that this woman performed the experiment because at the time, this was her only way of making enough money to survive on. Soon after this experiment, she quit and never returned to another lab again. She says that sometimes she thinks back to that day and wonders how many other animals have died in the terrible way that the dog did that day early in the morning. Later on in her life, she began fighting against animal experimentation and providing her experience as justified support to her reasoning. Now that I have read this article, I realize that innocent animals are dying for unnecessary reasons. Therefore, I feel that animal experimentation must be abolished before more of this torture continues.

In conclusion, there are alternatives to animal experimentation that should be considered as a replacement. Animal testing should be illegalized. The US government funds for these experiments are outrageous, while this money could be better funded for more important matters such as education or helping people in Africa that dies of hunger every day.

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[1] Webster's 21st Century Dictionary,279

  

References

BIBLIOGRAPHYInvestor's Business Daily. (24 August 2006). Predators Unleashed . Investor's Business Daily. 

animals, A. f. (n.d.). http://www.allforanimals.com/history.html. Retrieved from http://www.allforanimals.com/history.html

Broughton, Z. ( March 2001). Seeing Is Believing – cruelty to dogs at Huntingdon Life Sciences . The Ecologist.

Epstein, D. (August 22, 2006). Throwing in the Towel. Inside Higher Education.

Herman, E. (, October 21, 2003). "PETA video depicts Columbia 'atrocities'.New York Daily News.

THE EFFECT OF THE GLOBAL CRISIS IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

I have always lived in the Dominican Republic, and since I was a little girl I´ve heard people talking about economic crisis. Dominicans think of this word as a passive-aggressive term, or something in the middle. It feels like we’re in crisis most of the time, so we just think of the word as a common thing to say , not something really serious. Very different than what an American or an European would think right?  I remember that when I turned 16, I thought I understood what the real definition of crisis was. I was talking to a friend who went to live to the United States, at that time it was almost her 15^thbirth day, and I asked her if she was going to do her 15^th party in a hotel or a club , something we’re used to do in DR when we turn 15. Her answer was no. I couldn’t understand , 15^th parties is something you plan even a year before. “Here the situation is complicated, the company that my dad works for is in bankrupt.” She said. I told her that may be he could get a loan from the bank. Here in DR we are always in crisis, but we can find the way. “You don’t understand,” she said, “banks are collapsing, most of my friends lost their homes because they couldn’t even pay for It.”   I was overwhelmed. 

Five years later I completely understand what my friend was saying, and its only because I now know the magnitude of the crisis, how it has spread all over the world, and more specifically how it affected the Dominican Republic badly but also in convenient way somehow.    

The diminishing effects of the global crisis in the Dominican Republic are: a moderate economic slowdown from our pre-crisis growth levels, a free trade agreement with the U.S. and five Central American countries, and a relatively moderate rise in GDP.

The financial system of the Dominican Republic has escaped in a certain way the direct effects of the crisis, but the same cannot be said for other sectors of the economy. Given the close economic bond with the United States, it was thought that the market crash will affect the country in two

fundamental areas: commerce and direct foreign investment, which did affect the internal market and the economic growth rate of the country.

Pelin Berkmen from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - Research Department prognosticated that as a result of the crisis,   the GDP economic growth for 2008 from 8.5%to 5.5%, along with 3% and 4.5% for 2009 and 2010,respectively. Inflation was expected to between 13% and

14% for 2008, due to the rise in prices of imports and assuming a deterioration of exchange rates. In spite of this, the investment risk grade of the Dominican Republic has remained stable, as Fitch Rating demonstrated in September 2008, the Inflation was only a 10.6%  instead of 14%  as they expected, this  maintain the country at B rating.

I can only think of one thing that truly helped us throughout this situation, the  DR-Cafta Trade, even though it was approved in 2005 it started in late 2007. The world crisis was expected to affect badly specifically the commerce area, but with a free trade agreement as our wildcard , global

crisis couldn’t affect us in the same way as it affected other countries.  

In conclusion, I particularly don’t say that we didn’t felt the crisis, as a matter of fact we did. We actually got in a big external debt to keep our country flouting, but we also created some strategies so that at the time we could save the economy. Some things got out of our hands, like the gas prices that kept rising until now days, or the dollar an euro exchange rate

References

·         Pelin Berkmen from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - Research Department  

·        http://www.indexmundi.com/dominican_republic/inflation_rate_(consumer_prices).html 

·         http://www.cei-rd.gov.do/ceird/pdf/acuytra/tlc/acuerdo_centroamerica_y_rd.pdf 

·         http://colonialzone-dr.com/colonialzonenews/2011/03/29/cost-of-gasoline-in-dominican-republic/