Animals are among the everyday "tools" used by medical research institutes and pharmaceutical, virology and toxicology laboratories.
This issue regularly incites heated debate between defenders of animal rights and those who hold the notion of "a necessary sacrifice for scientific advancement".

For centuries, animals have paid a heavy price to man's scientific conquests.
As ideas about living organisms and in particular the status of animals evolved, people began to question animal experimentation in the mid-20th Century.