Thanks to animal testing, multiple medical breakthroughs have been made such as the invention of the vaccine for polio, cure to some cancers, and kidney transplants and dialysis. The vaccine to polio was developed by Jonas Stalk in and was first tested in 1952. Polio is a serious illness that is caused by a virus and can cause an inability to have little to none movement in a person's arms and legs and can initially cause death. The virus is spread by drinking water contaminated with the virus and kissing an infected person. Before the first vaccine was created in 1952, thousands of infants got polio every year. Now it is one of the rarest diseases in the world. Animal testing has brought a cure to many types of cancer, such as cervical and breast cancer in women. Cervical Cancer is the second leading death by cancer in women after breast cancer. This cancer is caused by a very common virus called the human papilloma virus, or HPV for short. .
The vaccines were created in 1977 and involved the testing of rabbits; the first two vaccines were available in 2006 after an abundance of test and research. Animal research was essential for the discovery of Herceptin, a humanized mouse protein which has helped increase the survival rate of those with breast cancer that could not have been obtained without animal testing on mice. Another medication used to treat breast cancer that was created by the testing of animals is Tamoxifen. Tamoxifen is a synthetic drug that is used to treat breast cancer and also infertility in women. It acted as an estrogen antagonist and was found in the early 1970s by Harold W.C. Ward in Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham. Kidney disease requires a patient to excess water and waste removed from the body by kidney dialysis. Kidney dialysis is a procedure developed using the testing of animals such as monkeys, rabbits, guinea pigs, and dogs. Research involving animals has also been used in the development of the different techniques for kidney transplants.
