CLAIMS AND COUNTERCLAIMS   (Tactics of the  RDS  and other Pro-vivisection organisations)
 

"HE WHO DARES TO VIVISECT, DOES NOT HESITATE TO LIE ABOUT IT"
George Bernard Shaw

Defenders of animal research, such as  the RDS  etc. use a number of strategies to promote their cause:

· Anti-vivisectionists are dismissed as  ‘animal -rights activists’ who are against medical progress and lacking in scientific knowledge. This is  vital, since it ensures debates focus on moral/ethical, philosophical/religious  arguments and not on the scientific/medical reasons why animal experiments should be abolished. No genuine scientist, no medical practitioner-they would have the public believe- could possibly object to animal experimentation.  Dissenting voices are screened out. They avoid debating with vets or physicians so no matter how valid the argument of the opposing lay person, they can dismiss  it  by "pulling rank". Pro-vivisection propaganda is couched in emotional terms, presented as a choice between rats and babies and raising false hopes via ‘ ‘breakthroughs’  which never materialise.

· They deliberately avoid  or suppress the opinions of  the many hundreds of medical practitioners and scientists, who, over the years, have condemned vivisection on scientific grounds. They censor the growing number of physicians, veterinarians and ex-vivisectors who have joined together with the common aim of abolishing vivisection on scientific and medical grounds and exposing the dangers to human health of such fraudulent ‘research’, for example, the International League of Doctors Against Vivisection (Germany), Doctors and Lawyers for Responsible Medicine (UK), the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (USA) and the Medical Research Modernization Committee (USA). Such censorship is easily accomplished within the medical and scientific literature which is controlled by animal experimenters and/or academicians who function within a system that receives hefty grants for animal experimentation. The tactic of using the ‘professional penalty’ ensures that medical practitioners opposed to vivisection do not publicly object to it because of threats or actual damage to their careers, including denial of patient referrals, failure to be promoted and dismissal from their institutions.
However, thousands of scientists, researchers and practitioners are questioning the use of animals in research on scientific and socio-political grounds. They recognize that the protection of human health is tantamount to the need to look critically at animal testing. These professionals have no vested  economic interest in animal experimentation but understand the tremendous costs to public health caused by such research.
If vivisection is so vital, why do so many  in the field of medicine condemn it and why are  some companies and research facilities, etc. able to conduct research using the latest technological non-animal methods with successful results? Companies are voluntarily abandoning vivisection as technology gets more sophisticated, for example, Pharmagene in the UK. Enlightened universities and schools no longer require students to dissect  or practice surgical techniques  by cutting up animals. Vivisection is banned in certain states and  countries, for example, Bolzano in Italy and Lichenstein.

Dr. Murray Cohen, past chairman of the MRCM (Medical Modernization Research Committee) stated at the International Conference    ‘‘Future Medical Research Without the Use of Animals; Facing the Challenge", Tel Aviv, 1990, that "An awareness is growing that new methodologies are required to gain insight into important questions of human health and disease. Animal experimentation has not provided the hoped-for and much-needed answers to these vital questions."
Groups of medical doctors are now at the forefront of the scientific movement advocating that animal tests be replaced with new methodologies- extremely worrying for the chemical-medical-vivisection alliance! So much so that they have gone into overdrive funding  educational programes promoting vivisection in schools and colleges, producing glossy booklets, leaflets and advertisements  to persuade the public of  its benefits, having carefully ‘stage-managed’ debates on radio and TV and employing special spokespeople who are wheeled out to counter any adverse comments or opinions in the press, etc. Which is all very encouraging.
 
· The wealthy chemical-medical-vivisection industry conspires to suppress and censor contradictory opinions, facts, articles and books about vivisection. The industry-beholden media  presents vivisection in a positive and favourable light so that people are brainwashed into thinking animal research is necessary.
 
· Like any other multi-billion dollar federal bureaucracy, the animal research industry is powerful and deeply entrenched. The National Institute of Health ( USA) and its equivalents, attempt to justify their multibillion dollar animal research programmes by annually spending millions more tax dollars on public "education", tax-supported propaganda that includes outlandish claims for animal experimentation’s past and present value. No opposing viewpoint is represented. The next time you hear such a claim, please remember that it is made out of self-interest, not in the public interest.
(Acknowledgments to Stephen R. Kaufman,  M.D.  - (From MRMC - PO Box 2751 Grand Central Station, New York NY 10163-2751)

BRAINWASHING   -    REPEATED IMPRESSIONS MADE ON THE MIND OF A PERSON UNTIL IT IS ACCEPTED AS THE TRUTH

· Pro- vivisectionists  arrogantly claim that the "animal rights activists’ "  stock in trade is misinformation and whenever a lay person presents the facts they are dismissed as being ‘singularly uninformed’ or  ‘doctrinaire’. Thanks to the industry-beholden media, the pros have had the run on misinformation for years  but recently have had to develop strategies to deal with scientific anti-vivisectionists who are quite capable of researching the facts for themselves.                                                                          For example, proponents  claim that penicillin is not toxic to guinea  pigs, yet according to DBAE member Chris Day, Veterinary Surgeon, Hon. Secretary of the British Homeopathic Veterinary Association, states, "I have long nurtured the opinion that penicillin, was indeed toxic to guinea pigs, and veterinarians avoid its use for this reason."  Manufacturers of penicillin  also believe it to have a primary toxicity to guinea pigs , so it does appear that had penicillin first been tried on guinea pigs, its use in man would have been avoided.

The human birth deformities caused by thalidomide were the result of misleading results from animal experimentation, as well as the dishonesty and ruthless behaviour of drug companies. Yet, apologists still adhere to the defense that the tragedy could not have been predicted because the drug had not been tested specifically for birth defects before being marketed, as at the time it wasn’t required by law! In fact, when the link between foetal abnormalities and thalidomide was established, through clinical observation, resumed animal tests   could not duplicate the deformities. Eventually, after administering high doses of thalidomide to certain species of rabbit and primates could similar abnormalities be found. However, researchers pointed out that malformations could occur when practically any substance, including sugar and salt, be given in excessive doses. There are now second generation victims of thalidomide world-wide.

All this just reaffirms what many doctors and scientists have been warning for a number of decades - animal experimentation misleads science and any similarity to the human situation is merely a coincidence and cannot be verified until the experiment is repeated on humans. Experimenting on animals is like playing roulette. (Croce, P., "That’s why I am against vivisection" in CIVIS International Foundation Report, Ruesch, H. (Ed.), CIVIS, 1989, No. 7, p. 12)

Industry has always been quick to exploit the less-than -conclusive results of animal tests, especially in the field of cancer. Thus, saccharin remains on sale to the public because it appears to cause bladder cancer only in male rats. Tamoxifen, used to treat human breast cancer, reduces the incidence of mammary cancer in rodents, but increases the incidence of liver cancer in rodents. It  would appear also  to be nephrotoxic.

· Not a week  goes by without the media announcing some imminent ‘breakthrough’ in medical research. Virtually all these stories  involve  the proverbial rat studies, which "may" be useful or which will  "possibly" lead to a cure "ten years from now", when we have conveniently forgotten about it. Meanwhile share prices soar and nothing materialises.  Good PR though.
· Defenders of vivisection in the western world  would have the public believe that it is conducted humanely and that there are stringent laws governing the  animals’ welfare and the types of experiments that are permitted. In the US, the animals’ only legal protection , the federal Animal Welfare Act, covers only housekeeping standards and does not prohibit any experimental procedure, no matter how frivolous or painful. Institutional committees required by law to review proposed experiments are largely composed of other experimenters who ‘rubber stamp’ their colleagues protocols. Many crude experiments are duplicated, because there is no central information system that lists data from previous experiments. In the UK, The Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 gives the impression that the law gives protection to lab animals when in reality it gives none whatsoever. Horrific conditions and useless experiments are constantly being revealed by undercover investigations and are damning evidence of the cruelty, wastefulness and failure to adhere to the law. Section 24 of  The Act makes it an offence to disclose any information from within animal research labs.  The Animal  Procedures Committee has no authority to stop any experiment on any animal in the UK, yet the Home Office uses them from a PR perspective as a feature of their soothing rhetoric. The 3 ‘R’s policy  - Reduction, Refinement, Replacement - also helps to give the impression that something is being done for the animals’ welfare.

     The annual publication of the statistics regarding the numbers, species and types of    experiments gives  the impression of a system of public accountability. Omitted is the fact that some animals are used for more than one experiment and thousands of animals are killed because they are either unsuitable or surplus to requirements. The military uses unknown numbers of animals to test all kinds of weapons, including atomic bombs and its chemical and biological arsenal . Also undeclared are the numbers of animals  used in space programmes.Worldwide between 100 million to 250 million animals are used annually in experiments.

The majority of experiments are conducted without anesthetics, and  as vivisectionist  Myc Riggulsford of the RHCG (Research for Health Charity Group) states:
"…..the use of animals in veterinary and biotechnological research…. Undoubtedly causes suffering to the animals." ("SPA"  magazine, Autumn, 1997)

Examples of Experiments:

Rabbits may have their coronary arteries deliberately obstructed, in the hope that this will generate heart attacks.
Electro-shocking  monkeys to study their aggressive reactions.
Depriving guinea -pigs of adequate nutrition until they are exhausted from starvation.
Deliberately setting out to create cancer in animals - not least through carcinogenicity tests of tobacco.
Testing out innumerable drugs for humans on animals, in massive doses.
Deliberately infusing chemicals into the eyes of restrained rabbits for days on end, until the eye is damaged by developing ulcers.
Depriving baby monkeys of their mothers and terrifying them in experiments on " love-deprivation".
Animals are routinely subjected to the "LD50" test: this is the deliberate force-feeding of animals with large amounts of a potentially poisonous substance, until 50% of them are agonisingly killed by it. The idea is to see what dosage of that chemical substance  might be safe for a human.
Genetically tampering with animals, cloning them, making "chimeras" of them.
DOES THIS SOUND LIKE SCIENCE TO YOU?

(Acknowledgments to Dr. Tony Page -examples take from his  fully- referenced book, "Buddhism and Animals". For a fuller revelation on this matter, refer to "Slaughter of the Innocent", by the  founder of modern scientific anti-vivisectionism, Hans Ruesch.)

· Animal researchers and their proponents claim that animals must be used  because of the lack of ‘alternatives’ and that they are only used where no other method is possible. This implies that vivisection is valid and ignores the scientific methods directly relevant to human health such as epidemiology, autopsies, clinical studies and the technological advances that can help medicine in its search for real cures, such as non-invasive imaging techniques, mathematical and computer models as well as in- vitro human cell, tissue and organ cultures.  Since 1. 1. 99, no new licences have been issued  by the Home Office (UK)  for the use of ascitic animals  in the production of  monoclonal antibodies (Mabs), yet non-animal methods were known in 1989.

· It is   ironic the way pro-vivisectionists claim that ‘AR’ groups make fictitious claims in order to win support and money from people who have no access to other information! This is precisely the game plan of the pro-vivisectionist lobby themselves, who have had it their way for far too long, simply because they have the funds,  the power and ‘ he who shouts the loudest………’ mentality !!!  what are the vested interests of  genuine  AVs demanding the abolition of vivisection on scientific and medical grounds?
 
· Animal research defenders claim AVs distort medical history to show that  animal experiments were not essential for medical advances . It is they who are selective.

Important discoveries have rarely been achieved by one person performing one set of experiments and it is impossible to unravel every medical discovery of the past century. Since it has been a tradition of western medical science to use animals widely in most areas of research for at least the last 150 years, it is very easy for defenders of animal experiments to claim that they have been vital to medical progress. This does not prove that animal experiments themselves were the real key to the most important discoveries or that they were vital or irreplaceable, nor that medical progress will be hampered severely by their abandonment in future . Who can be certain whether or not as much or more useful knowledge could have been obtained from other sources if medical science had been forced to take an alternative direction? The doom predicted by research scientists if a ban were to be implemented is no more rational than the disintegration of civilisation forecast by those who opposed the end of  slavery. Excuses have been  used throughout history to justify social evil. In addition to presumed moral inferiority, victims are always presented as being necessary to maintain the fabric of society. Slavery was defended from both moral (they were savages) and economic necessity. Children forced to work in mines and factories  and women denied the vote were victims of similarly irrational justifications for their exploitation. Assumed inferiority was offered as an excuse for a tyranny which also conveniently maintained the prevailing power structure. Also, just because an opinion is generally accepted does not make it true. At some point in history, it was generally believed that the earth was flat and that the sun revolved around it.

· Vivisection is a deeply controversial political issue that is supposed to be regulated by our democratically-elected Government here in the UK. Thus the public need to know the facts about it if it is to form an informed opinion. Another ploy of the RDS, for example , is to complain about  publicly -distributed anti-vivisection literature to the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority), established to  adjudicate on commercial advertising, in an attempt to "gag" debate. The ASA’s competence to make any judgment on social political issues is questionable,  and it appears to support vested interests  and their censorship of legitimate and democratic debate over campaigning organisations.

Another  claim by the pro-vivisectionist lobby is that "AR" activists distort and exaggerate information, for example, the number of harmful medicines that are withdrawn from the market because of their harmful or lethal side-effects. There are over 250,000 pharmaceutical products on the world market today, only 250 of which, according to the WHO, are essential to life.  In 1987, the UN  published the 2nd edition of its 650-page catalogue entitled: "Consolidated List of Products Whose Consumption and/or Sale Have Been Banned, Withdrawn, Severely Restricted or Not Approved by Governments".  It lists vaccines, cosmetics, medicines, sera, agricultural  and industrial chemicals, etc. Some of these products (e.g. Clioquinol and Phenylbutazone) have, according to the medical literature, claimed over 10,000 victims. It is irrefutable evidence of the dangers of vivisection and the literature is growing at an alarming rate. Practically all of these products were tested by law on thousands of animals and found to be ‘safe’ and /or ‘effective’.  As a consequence of animal experiments, human experimentation is carried out every day. (Acknowledgments to Dr. Christopher Anderegg, M.D., Ph.D., medical doctor, biologist and former animal experimenter at Yale University and Hoffman-La Roche , speaking at DLRM’s  2nd International Scientific Congress, London, Sept 1992 )
Another book, the Physicians Desk Reference, lists the differences between the reactions of lab animals and people.
The General Accounting Office in the U.S. reported that between the years 1976-1985, of the 200 new medications  introduced over that period of time, 51% were either withdrawn from the market completely or else re-labelled, because of severe side effects not previously noticed.

If a truly reliable test were to be used before marketing, it would become immediately clear that a great percentage of drugs developed are worthless,  harmful or fatal to humans -disastrous for the pharmaceutical empire.

· More skeletons in the cupboard which are  conveniently left out of pro-vivisection literature are the diseases which  remain uncured despite decades of research on animals and billions of wasted dollars  -    cardiovascular diseases, cancer, AIDS, birth defects, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, cerebral palsy, sickle cell disease, mental disorders. If they are mentioned  it is  in order to claim that  vivisection is more vital than ever! This is like insisting on opening a locked door with the wrong key. You will never open it no matter how   hard you try unless you throw away the wrong key and get the right one.
·
Monies diverted into animal research could be used to prevent and treat the very disorders under study, for public  health education programmes and preventative medicine. This is undoubtedly a public interest issue as it involves an enormous amount of waste, yet the public have no idea what is going on. Careful human epidemiological studies have revealed that high blood pressure is the chief risk for strokes. Non-pharmacological approaches include switching to a vegetarian diet, stress control and reducing the consumption of dietary salt. Few measures in preventive medicine are as simple and economical and yet can achieve so much. But there is no money to be made in good health unfortunately.

ANIMAL RESEARCH IS A FACILE WAY TO STAY ALIVE IN THE "PUBLISH OR PERISH" WORLD OF ACADEMIA.

Nearly anything can be "proven’ using animal models - just as the tobacco industry still "proves" that cigarettes do not cause cancer.

They fail to mention how vivisection has delayed advances. For example, corneal transplants, for example, were delayed for nearly 90 years because of the results of misleading animal studies or that warnings  were not put on cigarette packets because animal experiments showed no link between smoking and lung cancer.

The suppression of alternative therapies and therapists  is widespread, such as Essiac, Hoxsey, Rife and Gerson ; so too,  the cover-up on the dangers of fluoridation, dental mercury amalgam and vaccinations and the role of the FDA, AMA NIH, NCI, etc. in keeping the truth hidden.

The public are not told  that  laboratory animals suffer from ARTIFICIALLY-INDUCED diseases which  are not the same as naturally occurring ones. Psychological disorders viewed through animal models are particularly controversial.. Studying animals to find a cure for drug addiction, for example, dismisses the social, cultural, economic, political and intrapsychic motivation behind such problems.

Mice are bred with obesity, rats with high blood pressure and hamsters with inherited heart disease. The SCID mouse has an almost completely destroyed immune system. Transgenic creatures are an attempt by  biomedical researchers to develop new animal models which more closely mimic human illness. {A tacit admission that animals are too different from people to be  useful!}  They have  devised ever-more ingenious ways of making animals sick, but whatever miracles biotechnology hopes to perform, it cannot transform animals into people. "Cystic fibrosis mice", produced by disabling a targeted gene, do become ill but there are differences from the disease in people; most importantly, the animals’ lungs do not become infected or blocked with mucous - it is lung infections which kill 95% of people with cystic fibrosis. Only clinical, patient-oriented studies and test-tube experiments with human tissues can produce valid results. Ultimately there is no substitute for ethical science.

· That the medical community has managed to convey the impression of unanimity on vivisection is among the lesser known public relations miracles of the twentieth century. However, the research community has never been of one mind about vivisection contrary to popular belief. They quote Nobel prize winners in its favour as if the  Nobel Prize confers infallibility.  "1000 Doctors (and many more) Against Vivisection"  by Hans Ruesch , shows the other side of the coin!  For example:-

"Why am I against vivisection? The most important reason is because it’s bad science, producing a lot of misleading and confusing data which pose hazards to human health. It’s also a waste of the taxpayer’s dollars to take healthy animals and  artificially induce diseases in them that they normally wouldn’t get, or which occur in different form, when we already have the sick people who can be studied while they’re being treated."
{Dr. Roy Kupsinel, M.D., quoted from his publication, " Vivisection -Science or Sham " (1988)}
 

· It is claimed that animals and veterinary medicine benefit from vivisection. Seeking to conquer diseases  and infections in animals should be done only by relying on humane methods, for example, epidemiology, test tube studies, tissue cultures and by studying sick animals ‘in the field’  in typical outbreak situations to obtain meaningful and valid results. The case for vaccines is still not resolved. Apparently incontrovertible evidence, for example, ‘vaccines benefit cats’ and other ‘self-evident’ remarks should be questioned.
 

Vaccination is a sensitive issue. The research ,development and marketing of vaccines are  primarily driven by the desire for profit. It is a multi-billion dollar industry. It has been suggested that the following can occur as a result of vaccination - encephalitis, neuritis, anaphylactic shock, fever, headache, Guillain -Bare syndrome, meningitis, arthritis, convulsions, paralysis, juvenile diabetes, infantile spasms, rheumatoid arthritis, death.
The mass vaccination campaigns of the Fifties and Sixties may be causing hundreds of deaths a year because of a cancer-causing virus which contaminated the first polio vaccine. Known as SV40, the virus came from dead monkeys whose kidney cells were used to culture the first Salk vaccines.
Researchers have so far uncovered evidence linking SV40 to a number of cancers, including brain tumours and bone cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and prostate cancer.

Vaccines are peddled as a panacea for Third World Health problems, when it is poverty that needs to be addressed. Major health improvements in western countries  are due to improved living conditions, clean water and a better diet.
Information about vaccination and the vaccine-damaged from:-
P. Rattigan, NEMESIS 1 Quarry Bank Rd, Chesterfield S41 OHH, UK &
Health Action Network, PO Box 43, Hull HU1 1AA, UK

If we were to simply sit back and "let nature take its course", it is likely that vivisection would be phased out gradually over the next 30-40 years. However, if we recognise  the fact that animal experimentation is seriously misleading and contributes little to consumer health and safety, and we still do nothing, then we are all guilty, by sin of omission, for not hastening its demise.
(Acknowledgements to Dr. Andre Manache, veterinary surgeon & President of DLRM)

***

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win" - Gandhi

June 1999

 

 


If you write to your politician, the Prime Minister  or the Home Office minister responsible for signing government licences permitting vivisection about vivisection - the reply you will receive will be about the 3 Rs policy of the 1986 Animals in Scientific Procedures Act - when this happens respond with the following below OR send them this information NOW !!! The information contained here is relevant and can be used globally.....feel free to circulate.

 

The 3 Rs, Alternatives and the Animals in Scientific Procedures Act 1986 Are Fraud - This Is Why Vivisection Must Be Abolished

 

The 3 Rs are anti-human, anti-science, anti-species.

 

Pro-animal experimenters all support the 3 Rs.

Organisations calling for alternatives support the 3 Rs.

Vivisection is perpetuated and protected by the 3 Rs.

The Animals in Scientific Procedures Act (ASP) 1986 is purely 3 Rs legislation.

 

TRUE ANTI-VIVISECTION ABOLITIONISTS SUPPORT THE 1 R = REMOVE

 

The 3 Rs were "devised by the British chemical interests and palmed off to the Parliamentarians of the Common Market in Strasbourg and Brussels as a progressive step in animal welfare, instead of a step backward.  Its purpose is anaesthetic - designed to fool the Parliamentarians and provide them with an alibi, and to allude the antivivisectionists that 'something is being done'.  Its unavowed purpose is of course to perpetuate vivisection, meanwhile extorting more money from the antivivisectionists; money that is then regularly funneled into the vivisectors' kitties, through the various 'funds for alternative research'". (1)

Vivisection and the Law

 

The British law says all "alternatives to animals used in vivisection laboratories must be tested on animals before they can be called alternatives". This clearly means all 'alternatives' are flawed since they are animal-based (human-based scientific research methods are listed at the end of the article).

 

There is NO law requiring drugs, cosmetics or products to be tested on animals in this country. It is amazing this fact did not appear in the ASP House of Lords committee evidence recently reported. Why on earth is it insisted that non-science (pronounced  'nonsense') of animal testing must continue?(2)

 

The statement that it is UK law for products to be tested on animals is often made in the British media and by the vivisection industry, but they refuse to answer when asked to produce evidence that any such law exists.  When cornered, MP's quote certain EU directives containing 'regulations'  (something to do with plants).  However, a regulation is not a law, and regulations can differ depending on what methods of testing are chosen: for example, our information is, that if a country chooses to use animals, then the regulation concerning procedures for these would need to be followed.  But if a country chose to test using methods that did not involve animals, then they would have to adhere to that part of the directive outlining regulations pertaining to these other methods. 

 

The reason our MPs are so secretive concerning this matter, is because they want British firms to be able to sell certain products in the US. The US will not allow such products to be sold within its borders unless their ingredients have been tested on animals (which is US law).(3)

 

Validation: animal research has NEVER been validated.  Human-based research HAS been validated. Would you prefer the non-validated fraudulent science? This is governmental choice (via the Home Office) as applied to the 1986 Animals in Scientific Procedures Act - which would you call 'scientific'?

 

Human-based research results in 96% safety for humans. Whereas animal research results in an average safety percentage of 12% for humans. What kind of logic is this? Is this scientific? Would you allow to be sold, and would you buy, electrical equipment which had been tested and found to be only 12% safe? Would you support a car manufacturer, buy, promote and use their cars, knowing that their manufacturing output of safe vehicles was only 12%?  If not, why not?(4)

 

".....I have even heard anti vivisectionists arguing that we have to talk with politicians in order to change the laws which force drug companies to perform animal experiments. As I have shown, there are no laws to change! There are no laws requiring drug or cosmetic companies to perform animal experiments."(5) 

 

Vivisector Colin Blakemore admitted this a year ago on a Radio 4 interview. Stating there is NO law requiring animals be used by vivisectors for product testing.

 

Media articles are now stating that the oh-so-caring 3 Rs welfare ethics according to the Lords want all products to be tested on 2 different species of mammals. The same articles which polish the Lords and government to care about numbers used and 'alternatives'

 

How IS it that NONE of this was stated in evidence to the HoL Animals in Scientific Procedures committee, or have we all missed it?

 

THE LAW & VIVISECTION

The actual situation is as follows - there is no law to say drugs must be tested on animals.

There is a but - and its a big but - it is against the law to market medicines not approved by the MCA (medicines control agency) in the UK or the FDA in the USA. This is a law (part of the Medicines Act) that does exist and can be found online.

And...here's the rub, these agencies (MCA and FDA) do require animal tests before they grant an approval.

So - there is no law to say animals must be tested for a new drug to be approved but it would be illegal to market such a drug as the MCA or FDA would not accept it and approve it.

There is no law to name -  but a law does exist in effect.

"You must test on animals" - does not exist

"You must get approval from the MCA" - does exist as part of the Medicines Act. ...and the MCA want animal tests.

So - practically speaking there might as well be a law that is written as "you must do animal tests" as it reflects the regulatory and legal situations.

 The scientists are not trying to get the government to over rule a law per se, they are asking them to alter how the MCA grants approvals.

Coleman misses the point that the legislatory bodies do not grant approval for drugs, the MCA does (which is a regulatory body not a legislatory body). The law only applies after the MCA make or deny an approval and this law is easy to find.

 

 91/414/EEC requires animal testing.

 

 

 

The 3 Rs and Alternatives

 

The mythology of how vivisection operates is demonstrated by an editorial in the Lancet. In this the writer complains that 'less prominence' has been given to 'the efforts of organisations that work steadily to educate people about the need for animal research and to promote a 3Rs approach to the problem'.


The 3 Rs represent:
  

(1) Reduce the number of animals used;
(2) Refine existing tests to minimize animal distress and the number of animals used;

(3) Replace whole animal tests with alternative methods.(6)

 

The duplication of products to be tested on animals is overwhelming. There is no reduction in numbers of procedures only growth; replacement is as flawed as the animal-based methodology which it is claimed to 'alternatively' replace and the refinement is another name to grade an experiment less painful but just as lethal. The pharmaceutical industry spin their own products, use 'named' ghost-writers and are overwhelmingly biased about the efficacy and accuracy of data and products.

 

At present, the bulk of vivisection is not for pharmaceuticals but for household, lifestyle, industrial toxins, pesticides and agro-chemicals. These poisons are a major cause of cancer. The 4th biggest killer in the UK is cancer. We are then treated with pharmaceuticals. The 3rd biggest killer in the UK is adverse drug reactions by prescribed pharmaceuticals, all animal tested. The total number of ADRs is now considered to be only 5-10 % of the total reported.

 

A report just released states the leading cause of death in the US is now recognised to be ADRs. No longer heart attacks, cardio-vascular accidents nor cancer but animal-tested pharmaceutical products.(7)

 

The figures for 1999 reveal that the total number of 'scientific procedures' carried out on animals was 2,656,753, almost exactly the same as in 1998 (2.66 million). Furthermore, in 2000, there was a significant increase in procedures which brought the total to a figure of 2,714,726. The year 2000 also saw an increase in the numbers of animals used.(8)

 

Britain inflicts painful and lethal experiments on up to 3 million animals every year -- a disgraceful record the government should
be ashamed of, a parliamentary committee said Wednesday. A report by a committee in the upper House of Lords slammed Prime Minister
Tony Blair's Labor government for caring more about "pandering to the whim of the vivisection industry".

Data published by the government this week show that animals -- mostly rats, mice and other rodents -- were used in more than 2.62 million scientific experiments last year.

But experiments using genetically modified animals, again mostly mice, rose by 49,000 to 631,000 in 2001.(9)

Home Office Statistics on Animal Experiments in 2001.(10)

 

Overall there was a meagre 2.8 per cent drop in the number of animals killed in British labs, which merely compensates for the 2 per cent rise in animal numbers the year before (2000). There are also some highly disturbing increases:

 

17% increase in the number of dogs killed in experiments
18% increase in the number of Old World monkeys
8% increase in total number of monkeys
8% increase in procedures using genetically modified animals (a 1207% increase since 1990)
27% increase in acute lethal toxicity experiments (11)


Consequently, any belief that the 3 Rs can make any noticeable difference is clearly misplaced. This is further demonstrated when the writer goes on to say, 'the unravelling of the human genome could change trends drastically', and comments on how 'there will also be commercial pressures for more animal work' and 'another likely effect of genomic research is an increase in the number of higher animals used, since, unlike chemicals, biologically based compounds targeting human molecules may be testable only in such animals, and perhaps only in primates'.

 

The writer then asks: 'How then are scientists and scientific organisations to proceed?' and goes on to answer his own question saying: 'Certainly they should be adhering strictly to the 3 Rs of animal research'.(12)

 

As is so painfully obvious, there is no desire by vivisectors to implement the 3 Rs and the writer himself admits that the numbers of animals used is likely to increase: in sum, it is absurd for anyone to propose the 3 Rs will be the means by which the suffering and misery caused by vivisection will be resolved.

Since the publication of The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique (1959), the 3 Rs (Reduce, Refine, Replace) have been increasingly popular with animal experimentors. The concept had a renaissance in the 1980's, and now the label 'alternative' is very often used as soon as one of the 3 Rs in Reduce, Refine, Replace apply.

 

(Obviously, if you replace an animal experiment with a non-animal alternative, the Refine and Reduce become irrelevant). N.B. Non-animal can still mean animal-based methodology - it does not mean human-based clinical research and observational methods.

 

Alternatives to animal experiments are not necessarily experiments without animals, but means experiments on animals which are supposedly 'less' painful (refined) and supposedly involve 'fewer' animals (reduced).

 

The absurdity of the term is revealed when applying the same logic to driving: when it is used in the context of the 3 Rs, it is not being used in the sense of an actual alternative in that an alternative to driving a car would be walking, cycling or swimming, but it is used to refer to continuing to drive your car - just a little slower or in a slightly different manner. Thus when used with the 3 Rs, it is not meant to refer to alternative at all, but merely a modification.

 

Despite this, the word alternative is now frequently used by politicians and research institutions who maintain that they are developing alternatives, they already use alternatives, and they need more money for their alternative experiments; but this is while they continue to vivisect countless animals, the numbers of which steadily increase....(13)
    

The fact that no confidence should be placed in in the 3 Rs policy, or the pro-vivisectionist's assurance that the 3 Rs will ensure that animal suffering will be reduced is commented upon, by the Vivisection Information Network :-

 

The 3Rs or looking for 'Alternatives' (to animal experiments) are practices accepted by those involved in research using animals. The three R's stand for:


REDUCE. When animals are used in biomedical research the lowest possible number ought to be used.
REFINE. The methods used should be refined in order to minimise both the suffering and the number of animals used.
REPLACE. That animals should be replaced as soon as viable 'alternatives' are found.
   

Based on the assumption that experiments on animals are scientifically valid and lead to cures and treatments for human disease, it is claimed that 'Reducing, Refining and Replacing' animal experiments with 'alternatives' in a continuing process is desirable. However, pursuing the 3Rs is not based on science or any real concern for medical ethics but merely serves as a means of making animal experimentation appear more reasonable and acceptable.


The so-called validation processes that are used to 'validate' 'alternatives', take years to complete and involve comparing data for the alternative with data from animal experiments. The animal experiments that the alternatives are supposed to replace are then repeated. This lengthy process of 'validation' over several years serves to justify yet more animal experimentation and is flawed by its dependence on animal data.


Those authorities responsible for the validation and assessment of alternative methods will only accept an alternative method if it produces the same result as the animal experiment it is expected to replace.

 

Those who endorse the 3Rs and 'Alternatives' attribute usefulness and necessity to animal experiments and say that they cannot be abolished until all such experiments, of which there are many many millions, are replaced by 'Alternatives'. This of course would take forever in a never-ending process. Pro-animal experimenters support the 3Rs by claiming that animal experiments can only be judged for scientific validity, necessity and justification on a case-by-case basis and that each and every experiment must be assessed. But science tells us otherwise:


* There is no need to use animal parts and tissue while human parts and tissue abound.
* Using intact animals to model humans frequently leads to human death or suffering and rarely leads to cures or treatments.
* Animal models do not 'predict' the human response. The use of animals in medical research is of no scientific benefit to medical progress.
* Transgenic models are no better than non-transgenic models. Just by changing one gene or receptor does not make the model a better causal analogue model. A transgenic mouse is still a mouse and still comes with the problems that speciation dictates.

 

The 3Rs and 'Alternatives' simply serve to deflect attention and debate away from the very real issue of the scientific validity of animal experimentation. While appearing to focus attention on their apparent concern for the welfare of laboratory animals, those promoting the 3Rs avoid entering into dialogue on the justification of using animals as models of human disease. The scientific literature of the last 100 years or so reveals sufficient evidence that demonstrates that using animal data in medical research is misleading, dangerous and wasteful of resources.(14)


As an example of ambigous and undefined 'spin' here's

 

Professor Michael Balls MA, DPhil, FIBiol, says on the problem of validating alternatives:

 

"Good human data would be ideal for use in validation studies, but they are hard to come by, and tend to be imprecise and not collected according to standard procedures. The fact is that currently employed laboratory animal tests are also not good enough to provide data of sufficiently high quality or relevance for protecting humans, other animals, or the environment. For example, because of the insurmountable problem of species differences, one must employ safety factors* when animal data are used in human risk assessment, due to the lack of knowledge of the degree of relevance of animal data to a particular situation."

 

* NB. The 'safety factors' mentioned here, are based on nothing more than an attempt at 'staying on the safe side' by reducing the anticipated toxic dose by a factor of 100. This is sheer guesswork.  The abolition of animal experimentation does not mean that society will have to give up pursuing medical progress. On the contrary we can begin to look forward to greater scientific excellence in medical research, greater safety in clinical trials, greater expectancy of sound results and a higher probability of cures for human illness. Medical research must be science driven and should not be polluted by false data from animal experiments.


The pro-animal experimentation lobby asserts that animal experimentation is an expensive business, and there can be no doubt that it is. But it is not just costing research grantors enormous sums of money, it is costing us far more in terms of human health.

Note:-


(1) It should be noted that the term 'Alternative' is in itself wholly misleading as something which is scientifically invalid obviously cannot be replaced with an 'alternative'. There are no 'alternatives' to misleading and dangerous animal experimentation.

 

(2) Many human-based methodologies have proved dependable and new ones are being developed all the time. It is these tried and tested methodologies and new technologies that are truly serving medical research. However, most are under-funded while in stark contrast, there seems to be no limit to the funding which is made available for animal experimentation. Furthermore, it would also seem that some vivisectors are unwilling to learn the new techniques which these human-based procedures require.(14)

 

Let us examine these three suggestions:

 

1) First suggestion - Reduction of animal experiments:


All those who support this proposal accept, perhaps without being aware of it, the standpoint of the animal welfarists, who reason as follows: let us try to limit the number of animals that have to suffer and die. Thereby they not only accept the path that promotes suffering and death for the animals, but also the claim that we cannot do without vivisection.


If these people are convinced that animal experiments are useful to medical science, their suggestion is certainly in keeping with their ideas. But this suggestion is in no way directed against animal experiments, even less so in a scientific sense. It only amounts to a limited form of animal protection. But a kind of protectionism that is subordinate to supposedly compelling human needs; a protectionism that accepts the principle of the human being the master of all other living beings and having the right to use them as he thinks fit.(15)


2) Second suggestion - Controlling through laws:

 

This too is a proposal of the animal welfarists or protectors. But precisely this suggestion is also advocated by vivisectionists, who see in it the triumphant Trojan horse: disguised as opponents of vivisection, they act as if they were supporting anti-vivisection, while their intention is to undermine it from within. To control animal experiments through laws means conferring a legal and moral status on this false method, awarding it a place among the truly scientific, ethically legal forms of procedures. It means giving the vivisectors the absolute right to carry on forever, undisturbed, sheltered and protected by the law.


Many of those who advocate the legal control of vivisection stoop to pragmatic consequences such as proposing to ban experiments only for unnecessary products like cosmetics, but retaining them for serious purposes like medicine, surgery and pharmacology. Thus according to them, vivisection is a serious matter, which must be reserved for serious purposes. This is the greatest eulogy ever received by animal experimentation, a deification of vivisection.(15)

 

3) Third suggestion - Total abolition:

 

This is the only logical choice, and the only correct choice on a scientific basis: total abolition of animal experiments, this unscientific method that is responsible for old as well as new damages to human health, and for some real iatrogenic (doctor-induced) disasters. A method which impedes the advance of medicine and prevents using rational and truly scientific methods.

 

At this point many will raise the objection that this is a maximum, ultimate objective, which cannot yet be attained at this moment in our history. They are wrong.(15)

 

In my book Vivisection or Science, which came out in Italy in 1981, I wrote on the first page, ‘The country which first abolishes animal experiments will be for the world what Italy was for the Renaissance; and why should it not be Italy once again?’. Well, I can tell you today that this prophecy has - in part at least - already come true; the Province of South Tirol has forbidden animal experimentation throughout its territory. The Provincial law on animal welfare, no. 16 of July 8 1986, states, in paragraph B of Article 7: ‘… anyone who experiments on living animals, even only for scientific or instructional purposes, is subject to the same punishment". So you see that the abolition of animal experiments is no Utopia. It has already been carried out in an Italian Province. Is this the beginning of the new Renaissance we are all waiting for?"(15)

 

Another useful statement which exposes the nonsense (non-science) of the 3 Rs concept is made by Dr Christopher Anderegg, MD, PhD:

 

Alternatives or Replacements?
Dr Christopher Anderegg, MD PhD


Those who endorse the three 'Rs' and support the research and development of alternative methods acknowledge animal experiments as a useful and necessary method which cannot be abolished, but only gradually and partially refined, reduced and replaced with alternative methods of equal value. However, as Prof. Pietro Croce wrote in Vivisection or Science

 

"Are there alternatives to vivisection? Of course not. There are no alternatives to vivisection, because any method intended to replace it should have the same qualities; but it is hard to find anything in biomedical research that is, and always has been, more deceptive and misleading than vivisection. So the methods we propose for medical research should be called 'scientific methods', rather than 'alternative methods''.   

 

It is therefore necessary to reject 'alternative methods' for the following reasons:


Most alternative methods are based not on truly scientific methods like human cell and tissue cultures and clinical investigations of human patients, but rather on animal cell and tissue cultures and computer models, which are of (more or less) equal value to the worthless and fraudulent animal experiments they are supposed to replace.


For the so-called validation of alternative methods - a process which takes years, if ever, to complete - the researchers not only compare the data for their alternative methods with the animal experiments, but they also repeat the very animal experiments that their alternative methods are supposed to replace, in order to obtain additional data for the purpose of further comparisons! This endless and absolutely sensless repetition of animal experiments over a period of years - despite the masses of data from decades of previous animal experimentation - leads to neither the reduction, nor the replacement, but rather the perpetuation of animal experiments.


The authorities responsible for the validation and assessment of alternative methods will acknowledge and officially accept an alternative method only if it produces the same results as the animal experiment it is supposed to replace! Since animal experiments are scientifically fraudulent, alternative methods therefore contribute only to the perpetuation of scientific fraudulence.


Although such methods are clearly detrimental both to the abolition of animal experiments on medical and scientific grounds and to animal protection in general, it is astounding that an ever increasing number of animal rights, animal protection and even antivivisection organisations...are not only endorsing the 3 Rs, but also promoting and financing the research and development of alternative methods.

 

Government, House of Lords, Media and Alternatives Lobby Collusion

 

The vivisectionists' support for the 3 Rs is revealed by their support for organisations which endorse the 3 Rs policy. For example, the organisation FRAME (Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments) is one of the principal exponents of the 3 Rs policy. It is therefore interesting to note those businesses which are listed as supporters of FRAME and the concept of the 3 Rs.


In its September 2001 bulletin, FRAME lists those 'Corporate Benefactors' who donate an annual sum of 10,000 pounds or more, 'Corporate Sponsors' who donate an annual sum of between 2 and 10 thousand pounds, and 'Corporate Supporters' who donate up to 2.5 thousand pounds per year, and these include: GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals, GlaxoWellcome Research and Development, Pfizer Ltd, Procter and Gamble Ltd, Unilever Research, Novartis Ltd, Covance and Huntingdon Life Sciences Ltd [reads like a sponsor list for the pro-vivisection lobbyists the RDS].


Those familiar with the subject of animal experimentation will recognize some of the above names, not only as businesses that support FRAME and the policy of the 3 Rs, but as businesses that use animals in experiments, or are customers of companies who use animals in experiments, or are involved, or have been involved in recent years, directly or indirectly, with animal experimentation. In the upshot, the fact that the 3 Rs finds so much support amongst those who are pro-vivisection is surely clear evidence that any suggestion which proposes the 3 Rs will assist in the elimination of vivisection is obviously absurd.


The fact that the 3 Rs serves as the means of continuing vivisection while also giving the impression that attempts are being made to reduce the number of animals used is demonstrated by the Government's refusal to consider any other approach. This was made apparent by the House of Lords' 'Select Commitee on Animals in Scientific Procedures' which heard evidence on the subject during the latter part of 2001.


Evidence was supplied by representatives from FRAME, Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research, the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW), and the RSPCA, together with Ms Angela Eagle MP (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for
Europe, Community and Race Equality, Home Office). EFMA (Europeans For Medical Advancement) was informed that its medical director would not be called to give evidence because other groups (naming BUAV, NAVS and Dr Hadwen Trust) had all submitted objections on exactly the same grounds as EFMA and therefore to hear EFMA's submission would be duplicating the evidence.


Responding to this, EFMA stated on 7 November 2001: 'EFMA does not support the 3 Rs, and/or the moral arguments on which these named groups base their arguments...We conclude that the standards of comprehension of the material submitted to the Lords must either be very low indeed or very biased. It also seems that the same people and groups are being heard at these hearings and many of them promoters of 'Alternatives' and/or the '3 Rs''.


In sum, it would appear that the primary interest of the House of Lords' Select Commitee on Animals in Scientific Procedures was centred on the 3 Rs. Any anti-vivisection organisations that wholly reject the 3 Rs (something clearly not working and unworkable) were excluded. Consequently, many felt that the, no doubt, expensive deliberations of the House of Lords Committee was only to underscore and reinforce the use of vivisection.(16)

 

This has recently been backed-up by the BMJ article BMJ 'Lack of evidence to support House of Lords report' which stated, "we wish to draw attention to the poverty and paucity of this evidence. There are hardly any systematic reviews, meta- analyses or retrospective, historical evaluations which can be drawn upon" and "If there is no evidence to support the use of a particular methodology and only custom and practice sustain it, then that methodology should be discarded. At present we are in the ridiculous situation whereby animal tests are used as the gold standard by which so called 'alternatives' are judged, yet there is virtually no evidence to support the use of the animal tests themselves. In the few cases where systematic reviews of animal experiments have been conducted serious doubts have been raised about the methodologies used". This is an example which is not untypical, but ongoing, of statements being made by the scientific and medical professions.(17)

 

During 2001, there was clear evidence that any assurances about vivisectors implementing the 3 Rs to reduce the number of animals used in experiments were false.

 

(1) At the beginning of 2001, The Sunday Times confirmed that researchers were planning to announce 'the construction of three new vivisection facilities in which experiments will be conducted on hundreds of thousands of animals'. The Babraham Institute in Cambridge and the Mouse Genome Centre in Harwell, Oxfordshire, which are both funded by the Government (i.e., the taxpayer), intend constructing 'state-of-the-art facilities' in which mutated mice and rats can be bred. The third facility will be in Cambridge, and will house primates for brain and behaviour experiments. The article reports, 'It is expected that the new centres will contribute to at least a doubling of the present number of experiments'.


The article goes on to say that Harwell has been 'dosing mice with toxic chemicals' to produce genetic alterations: 'The programme has led to mice with bat-like faces, bent noses, missing limbs and other defects'. A spokesman for the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council said, 'There is going to be an increase in this kind of work across the board'.(18)


(2) The increase and the likelihood of a continuing increase in the number of animals used in experiments was also confirmed by the House of Lords: Animals In Scientific Procedures - Minutes of Evidence.(19) In May 2001, one of those who provided evidence stated :

 

The development of genetic modification and the possibilities that offers for experimenters will mean that the numbers increase...I think that the perception that there will be an increase in the number of animals used is one which is shared quite widely by the scientific community.(20)

 

Revealed: the 582,000 animals that are genetically modified in Britain's labs.

 

"The report, which covers the development of GM animal technologies worldwide, says that many experiments are highly inefficient, wasteful of animal lives and frequently involve suffering. Abortion, premature death and infertility are regular side-effects of these genetic technologies," it says.

 

"The extent of animal suffering and the reasons for it are being hidden from public scrutiny and debate", says Dr Sue Mayer, one of the report's authors who also sits on the government's agriculture and biotechnology committee which oversees biotechnology development."

 

"Of more than 10,000 attempts at animal cloning worldwide so far, says the report, there have been only 124 live births and just 65 animals have reached maturity. Many of these showed serious physical defects. In one peer-reviewed study of 40 cloned calves, 34 showed prenatal abnormalities, several had limb deformities, and most were described as very slow or weak. In another study of 80 GM lambs transferred to surrogate mothers, all but three died inside 12 weeks with abnormal kidneys, brains or livers." (21)

 

(3) In its article 'Cambridge presses on with new animal lab', the Independent reported that 'Cambridge University is pressing on with plans for a new animal research laboratory'. It advises that monkeys and other animals will be used in experiments there. In addition to animal rights campaigners opposing the new laboratory, there has been opposition from college fellows and councillors.

 

Plans for the multi-million pound scheme did not end after it was rejected by the local council earlier in the year as an amended planning application was made to the council (South Cambridgeshire District Council) after alterations were incorporated in the design.(22)


THES of 31 August 2001 subsequently reported that 'the government has thrown its weight behind Cambridge University's plans for a multimillion-pound animal research laboratory, insisting the primate facility will ensure the United Kingdom becomes a global leader in neuroscience'. It went on to report that the amended plan was 'supported by the science minister Lord Sainsbury'.(23)

 

The plan for the laboratory was, fortunately, abandoned at a later date due to South Cambridgeshire District Council refusing to grant planning permission for the site. Since that time Lord Sainsbury and Cambridge University pledged to pay for policing costs for the site to quell any public-dissent (meaning the site would be policed through private monies i.e. the public service with a private-paid security = corruption. Since this time John Prescott, the UK Deputy Prime Minister is reported as personally deciding on whether the site will go-ahead. An indictment of central government interference and anti-democratic autocracy.(24)


The year 2001 also witnessed not only the British Government, but the media giving wholehearted support for animal experimentation. In January 2001 it was reported that Huntingdon Life Sciences, a major testing laboratory, was at risk of closing down due to the campaigning of anti-vivisectionists. The British Government promptly came to its assistance and ensured that it was able to continue (again with taxpayers' money). Furthermore, newspapers (some of which are usually neutral on the subject) included articles by vivisectors and journalists who claimed that animal-testing was essential for the production of medicine although they conveniently ignored the fact that the majority of vivisection is not concerned with medicine but other products, e.g., oven cleaners, weedkillers, insecticides, pesticides, household products etc.


While the public is constantly and deliberately led to believe that the pharmaceutical industry is genuinely concerned about the welfare of the animals used in their experimentation, this is surely revealed to be nonsense by the fact that the Managing Director of Huntingdon Life Sciences, a company which has been exposed on so many occasions (25), was awarded the 'Pharma Industry Achievement Award 2001', receiving 80 per cent of the votes cast from directors of UK pharmaceutical companies. It was also reported that the editor of the Pharmaceutical Times praised the HLS Managing Director's 'exceptional bravery and personal sacrifice in defending his principles as he presented the award'.(26)


On 20 January 2001, Yahoo! News, reporting the BBC News, stated: 'About 750 dogs and 190 primates are tested and killed in the name of science each year at Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS). It is the largest contract research organisation in the UK with nearly every major pharmaceutical firm in the world listed amongst its clients. It tests medicines but the majority of products are agricultural chemicals such as weedkillers and pesticides, household products like oven-cleaners and chemicals for use in industry'. This rather significant fact was overlooked by those journalists who were so anxious to defend HLS and vivisection and condemn anti-vivisectionists.


It is also significant that virtually all reporting decided against making any reference to why HLS had actually become a target for anti-vivisection campaigning. On the rare occasion when this did occur, there was only a brief note that the abuse of animals by HLS staff had been featured in a Channel 4 documentary in 1997 and HLS had taken action over this. The journalists, supposedly writing accurate articles, chose not to mention that HLS has been exposed, not one time, or two, or three, or four, but on five different occasions (27).


Furthermore, in view of the difficulty in gaining access to vivisection laboratories to make these exposures, some might feel that any exposure of a laboratory only represents 'the tip of the iceberg' of what happens to the laboratory animals inside the premises. Nonetheless, this highly pertinent information was wholly ignored and the media chose to present an utterly biased supportive view of both HLS and vivisection.

 

Therefore, incredibly, the Government and media, despite being confronted with current evidence from the medical profession, that animal testing is unreliable/dangerous, continued and continue to proclaim that such testing was 'essential'. (Remember, despite what the pro-vivisection lobby tell the public - the majority of vivisection is not concerned with medicine but other products, e.g., oven cleaners, weedkillers, insecticides, pesticides, household products etc - it is not what you are told but in the majority of case; what you are not told). In the light of this, i.e., the Government and media adopting a clearly absurd position, it is not difficult to appreciate why some anti-vivisectionists have adopted more radical forms of campaigning to bring about an end to vivisection. In reference to the many drugs 'tested' on animals, which have disasterous effects on humans, anti-vivisection campaigning is concerned with the protection of both animals and human beings.


NB. The Independent of 4 February 2001 advised the pertinent fact that the British Labour Party (in government), which is currently anxious to defend and encourage vivisection, received 'substantial' cash support from leading vivisection businesses for its election campaign.

Defenders of vivisection constantly and vigorously assert that genuine attempts are being made to implement the 3 Rs policy (Reducing numbers of animals used, Refining procedures to minimise suffering, and Replacing animal work with alternative methods), and therefore, the number of animals being used is reducing. However, anyone who monitors vivisection trends will be only too aware that no such policy is operating.


The failure to reduce the number of U.K experiments in 1999 and the marked increased in the number in 2000 clearly reveals that such assurances are nonsense. This is further demonstrated by the news, as reported in the Guardian article of 27 October 2001, '50 million animals in mass test plan'(28) that the European commission intends the testing of  'thousands of chemicals for toxicity' that will be 'the biggest animal testing programme Europe has ever seen and require the death of at least 50 million animals'.


The article also reports :-

 

(i)the BUAV estimates that at least 63 million animals would be needed in view of the number required to test every chemical [a 3 Rs endorsing 'anti-vivisectionist' organisation suggesting more animals to be used than the official figure!] ;

(ii)The tests would involve a range of different animals including monkeys, rabbits, dogs and birds;

(iii) Force-feeding in this way can cause bleeding from the eyes and nose, convulsions, vomiting and ultimately a slow death. Even the pro-vivisection RDS (Research Defence Society) is reported as saying that using animals to test those chemicals already being used could be considered 'a bit wrong-headed and unnecessary'.(29)

 

 

If you've ever wondered whether FRAME are a genuine anti-vivisection organisation, look at the list below, of who funds them.

 

Listed you will see a who's who of pharma-corps(e) and animal research labs, including HLS and Covance (who Brian Cass worked for pre-HLS). Sainsbury is, of course, included and their massive 'donations' to Tony Blair and the Labour party give evidence to the government and mainstream media protection of vivisection.  Especially after the media whitewash for a week, in January 2001, renouncing anything remotely AR or AV after the Royal bank were forced to foreclose on HLS due to relentless pressure. HLS were then propped-up by Sainsbury's string-pulling of Bliar who, in turn, bailed out HLS via a loan from the Bank of England - taxpayer's money, the general public's money !!

 

Sainsbury was also the 'political' weight behind the intended, but unpermitted, primate facility which was to be sited at Huntingdon Road for Cambridge University.

 

Who gives, how much to the Labour party, check out Lord Sainsbury.

http://www.red-star-research.org.uk/subframe3.html

 

-----------------------------------------------

Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments (FRAME)

1. Corporate Benefactors

These are companies which donate an annual sum of £10,000 or more. Corporate benefactors may collaborate with FRAME in specific or general research projects or contribute to the general funding of FRAME.

Asda Stores Ltd
AstraZeneca plc
Aventis Pharma Ltd
Avon Products Inc
The Boots Company plc
British American Tobacco
Elida Fabergé Ltd
GlaxoWellcome Research & Development Ltd
Robert McBride Ltd
L'Oréal
Pfizer Ltd
Procter & Gamble Ltd
Safeway Stores plc
J Sainsbury plc
SmithKline Beecham Consumer Healthcare
Superdrug Stores plc
Unilever Research

2. Corporate Sponsors


These are companies which donate an annual sum of £2,000-£10,000, either for a defined purpose or for general funding.

British Association for Chemicals Specialities
Coty UK Ltd
The Gillette Company
Hoechst Marion Roussel
Marks & Spencer plc
Wm Morrison Supermarkets plc
Next plc
Reckitt Benckiser
SafePharm Laboratories Ltd
Somerfield Stores Ltd
Tesco Stores Ltd
Waitrose Ltd

3. Corporate Supporters


These are companies which donate an annual sum of £250-£2,000 to the general fund.


Such donations are of particular value in providing money for activities such as education and publicity, which do not involve research.

Albright & Wilson Ltd
Anglo European Trading (UK) Ltd
S Black (Import & Export) Ltd
Carter-Wallace Ltd
Colgate-Palmolive Ltd
A & E Connock Ltd
Covance Laboratories Ltd
Firmenich UK Ltd
Givaudan-Roure Ltd
Globecrown International Ltd
Th Goldschmidt Ltd
Huntingdon Life Sciences Ltd
Inveresk Research International Ltd
Johnson & Johnson Ltd
Johnson Wax Ltd
Mercona (GB) Ltd
Oriflame Manufacturing Ltd
Quintiles England Ltd
Shell International Ltd
Smith & Nephew Research Ltd
Thor Group
TNO BIBRA International Ltd

FRAME supports the 3 Rs.  Pro-animal experimenters all support the 3 Rs.

True AV abolitionists support the 1 R = REMOVE

---------------------------------------------------

 

There is no alternative to vivisection, this is what pro-vivisectionists want, to be able to self-perpetuate. The true answer is not 'alternatives' based on the animal model but abolition of vivisection and human-clinically-based observation with the associated human-based scientific research.

 

"The first internationally widely known organisation that started collecting AV moneys by promising to find 'alternatives' to vivisection was FRAME (see Slaughter of the Innocent, p.339 and p.428), but its image has grown increasingly blurry since it officially announced that it is NOT an AV society, and that animal experimentation is necessary "if the remaining diseases which lessen the length and quality of human and animal life are to be overcome." "

 

"These identical words were pronounced at the Council of Europe by well-known vivisectors like Prof. Dayan and Prof. Paton. So it was not surprising that the day FRAME decided to set up an 'expert' Toxicity Committee to examine the use of animals in safety testing and the role of 'alternative' testing procedures, the Chairman of the Committee turned out to be no one else but Michael Balls, who was at once Chairman of the FRAME Trustees and an active vivisector - just like other members on the Committee !"

 

"This circumstance was denounced even by Dr Robert Sharpe of London's 'moderate' NAVS, in an article entitled "FRAME's Disappointment", which added other interesting information, to wit.....the FRAME Committee announced its findings, arrived at after 3 years' hard work. And they had decided that animals are still essential for safety testing, and although many researchers emphasized the difficulties of transferring results from animals to human beings, they concluded from this that MORE research was necessary to discover how to transfer the result of animal tests to human beings !"

 

"If it takes a good dose of idiocy - or decitfulness - to put out such kind of crap, it certainly also takes agood dose of idiocy to fall for it, and not to realize that any 'Fund for Alternatives' contains an in-built fraud-clause : it confirms the validity of current animal experimentation, which has no validity. The only valid alternative is Abolition, enforced by law."

 

Hans Ruesch, CIVIS Bullet-in Nr 1, p.17 and p.19. 

 

 

Grass-roots is where the truth is and is where the changes are made. The grass-roots need the support rather than the 3 Rs 'AV' orgs who make a massive profit from vivisection.

 

 

 

 

    

Anti-vivisectionists must reject alternative methods

 

Most alternative methods are based not on truly scientific methods like human cell and tissue cultures and clinical investigations of human patients, but rather on animal cell and tissue cultures and computer models, which are of (more or less) equal value to the worthless and fraudulent animal experiments they are supposed to replace.

 

For the so-called validation of alternative methods - a process which takes years, if ever, to complete - the researchers not only compare the data for their alternative methods with the data from their animal experiments, but they also repeat the very animal experiments their alternative methods are supposed to replace, in order to obtain additional data for the purpose of further comparisons! This endless and absolutely senseless repetition of animal experiments over a period of years - despite the masses of data from decades of previous animal experimentation - leads to neither the reduction, nor the replacement, but rather the perpetuation of animal experiments.

 

The authorities responsible for the validation and assessment of alternative methods will acknowledge and officially accept an alternative method only if it produces the same results as the animal experiment it is supposed to replace! Since animal experiments are scientifically fraudulent, alternative methods therefore contribute only to the perpetuation of scientific fraudulence.

Although such methods are clearly detrimental both to the abolition of animal experiments on medical and scientific grounds and to animal protection in general, it is astounding that an ever increasing number of animal rights, animal protection and even antivivisection organisations... are not only endorsing the three 'R's, but are also promoting and financing the research and development of alternative methods...(30)

True anti-vivisectionists promote only one R = Remove (ALL animal experiments).

 

A scientifically invalid practice cannot be replaced with an alternative. There are no alternatives to animal experimentation. Anyone interested in seeing improvements to medical science might enquire of groups and individuals campaigning for or against animal experiments, whether they support the 3 Rs and if so, how do they justify doing so?

Further Reading and Research:

The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique, W.M.S. Russell and R.L. Burch, Methuen,
London, 1959. Reprinted by UFAW, 1992.
Also available http://altweb.jhsph.edu/science/pubs/humane_exp/het_toc.htm

The Boyd Group, http://www.boyd-group.demon.co.uk/  This umbrella group promotes the pro-vivisection 3 Rs. It's website has links to both pro-vivisection groups and anti-vivisection 'welfare' groups, who survive on public-funding thro' mass-advertising, supporting the 3 Rs. These websites have links to other such groups. The Boyd Group claims that it discusses the scientific validity of animal experiments but in fact we have only ever seen them address welfare and ethics, of animals which are caged in laboratories waiting to be vivisected. The Boyd Group incorporates vivisector Colin Blakemore and Edinburgh-based Advocates For Animals.

Brute Science, LaFollette and Shanks, Routledge 1997

Sacred Cows and Golden Geese: The Human Cost of Experiments on Animals, Greek & Greek  2000 Continuum International

Specious Science: How Genetics and Evolution Reveal Why Medical Research on Animals Harms Humans, Greek & Greek, 2002 Continuum International.

 

How many per day - how many per second ?

 

The following figures show how often each species of animal are killed in the UK due to animal experiments.  They are based on the figures released for the year 2000, which are the most recent available. The true figure is probably much higher, as the animals killed as surplus to requirements are only included for rats and mice, yet cats, dogs, and other animals are known to have other deaths not included in the statistics. Animals dying from illness, transportation, trapping, fighting, accidents etc are also not included. Animals killed in Ministry of Defence experiments are not included either.

The number of humans listed is an estimate of the number killed by adverse drug reactions - iatrogenic, legally prescribed, animal-tested pharmaceuticals.  The total number of humans killed by vivisection is undoubtedly much higher.

Mice  14,077 per day - one every 6 seconds
Rats  4,595 per day - one every 19 secs
Guinea Pigs 154 per day - one every 9 minutes
Hamsters  20 per day - one every 72 mins
Gerbils  11 per day - one every 133 mins
Rabbits  75 per day - one every 19 minutes
Cats 1-2 per day -  one every 14 hours
Dogs 13 per day - one every 110 minutes
Ferrets 3-4 per day, one every 6 hours
Other carnivores 1-2 per day, one every 13 hours
Horses, donkeys etc. 1 per day, 1 every 19 hours
Monkeys, 8 per day, one every 4 hours
Birds, 330 per day, one every 4 minutes
Reptiles, one every 6 days
Amphibians, 26 per day, one every 54 minutes
Fish, 665 per day, one every 2 minutes,
Genetically Modified Animals (species unknown),1594 per day, one every 54 secs
Humans 55 per day, one every 26 minutes (this is the reported estimate and projected to be only 5 - 10% of the full total).

Total 20,072 per day, one every 4.3 seconds

So much for the pro-vivisection 3 Rs Animals in Scientific Procedures Act 1986. Governmental legislation for sanguinous murderous carnage.

 

This is our 'friend', Hilary Benn, the Home Office Minister responsible for over-seeing and implementing the government's 3 Rs animal experimentation procedures, who signs the government permits for vivisection to be classed 'legal'. His previous experience which democratically qualified him for the post as being knowledgeable about vivisection were employment and education. (The previous HO Minister, Bob Ainsworth, responsible for vivisection came from a background of environment, transport, housing, aviation, coastal policy, countryside and wildlife, water, waste strategy, science and technology policy).

Home Office

Hilary Benn MP
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
Home Office
50 Queen Annes Gate
London SW1H 9AT

Tel: 020 7273 2750
Fax: 020 7272 2043

Constituency

2 Blenheim Terrace
Leeds
LS2 9JG

 

Tel: 0113 244 1097

Fax: 0113 234 1176


Westminster

Hilary Benn MP
House of Commons
Westminster
London SW1A 0AA

Tel: 020 7219 3000

The 3 Rs espoused by many non-abolitionist organisations are pro-vivisection policies...

ALTERNATIVES TO VIVISECTION?

Animal experimentation is a methodological error. A science based on a false methodology can only be a false science.

The abolition of vivisection would allow a true health service to focus attention on the many valid healing therapies which are harmonious, non-invasive and compatible with other life-forms. Briefly they incorporate:

  • A search for patterns and causes of dis-ease and dis-harmony;
  • Integration and concern with the patient as a whole;
  • Focus on caring as a component of healing;
  • Minimal intervention with technology;
  • The adaptation of totally non-invasive techniques including psychotherapies, diet and exercise;
  • Study of the individual and family patterns;
  • Provision of substantial, thorough and comprehensive therapeutic programmes and surveys;
  • Investigation and rectification of pollution points;
  • Education of self-esteem and responsibility.

A FOCUS ON CLINICAL RESEARCH AND PREVENTION, TOGETHER WITH THE ABOLITION OF VIVISECTION, IS THE ONLY WAY TO TURN THE PRESENT SICKNESS SERVICE INTO A HEALTH SERVICE. (31)

ARE THERE VALID RESEARCH METHODS ?

Those with vested interests in animal experimentation claim that vivisection has been responsible for improvements in public health and progress in medicine. On the contrary, medical historians have shown the exact opposite to be the case. True scientific methods that are directly applicable to humans accounted for any real advances, and because of its misleading and contradictory results, animal experimentation had rather than contributed anything worthwhile, continually brought about confusion and hinderance. Sadly, animal experimentation became the vogue early this century after the chemical/pharmaceutical companies realised the importance of a research method whose misleading and contradictory nature can provide malleable results that can conceal the dangerousness of their chemical products. Consequently, true scientific research methods that can provide accurate results are starved of much-needed funding, while billions are wasted on unscientific animal experiments.

Fortunately there are currently numerous research methods available that are truly scientific and not of the same haphazard nature as animal experimentation.

 

PREVENTION

We all know that prevention is better than cure, don’t we? So why don’t the majority of us practice preventative health measures? Well one reason could be that we are not given the information; there are no big campaigns to educate us. We see adverts for drugs on TV and in the newspapers, to ‘cure’ headaches, hayfever, colds, etc. We do not see adverts for preventative health measures. The reason is, of course, financial. Whereas there is little money to be made from healthy people, the profits from selling pharmaceutical drugs run into billions of pounds each year.

We are all responsible for our own health and adopting a healthy lifestyle is vital. In the UK 50% of people will die from heart disease - as we know, the causes of heart disease are related to lifestyle and so it must stand to reason that heart disease is largely preventable. Cancer claims the lives of one in four people in the UK, yet 80% of cancers are related to lifestyle and environmental factors and so are also preventable.

 

CLINICAL AND EPIDEMIOLOGICAL SURVEYS

The single most important research method is the study of human disease in individuals and in specific populations. Clinical surveys use human volunteers, clinical case studies, autopsy reports, and statistical analysis linked with clinical observation of disease. This permits far more accurate observation and use of actual environmental factors related to human disease than is possible with unnaturally confined animals.

Pathology is the study of the diseases of the individual. Epidemiology is the study of the diseases of whole populations. How can we study the diseases that occur in humans? One of the most natural and immediate methods is that of observation. Observing that which occurs spontaneously in as great a number of human models as possible scattered throughout the world. The concept of epidemiology includes this kind of observation and is a method which permits the multiplication of individual observations by a sufficient number of times to form conclusions analogous to those which in the mechanical and physical sciences are called ‘laws’.

This knowledge enables preventative measures to be taken against many diseases. For example, epidemiology demonstrated the necessity for sterile techniques in surgical operations. Epidemiology has shown that there is a greater incidence of skin cancer in Europeans living in the tropics, connecting the illness to excessive exposure to ultraviolet light. In the 1960s, five thousand people agreed to take part in a study involving a series of clinical and laboratory examinations and replying to a questionnaire concerning their lifestyle, eating habits, tobacco and alcohol use, the amount of daily exercise etc. The conclusion?

Those most at risk from heart disease are people who smoke, drink, eat animal fat, do not take enough exercise, are obese and suffer from high blood pressure. These risk factors are so well known today, we do not question them. We can all see the truth of these facts in our everyday lives. Epidemiological studies of cancer yield some interesting facts. It is surprising to realise how many conditions seem to cause cancer, but as none of these conditions gives rise to cancer in everyone exposed to them, one has to conclude that they may not be causal but may favour its emergence. How much is due to environmental factors, how much to genetic or racial factors? Breast cancer is common in North America and Europe, rare in China and Japan. Tumours of the central nervous system occur most frequently in Israel and are rare in Asia and Africa. We can see that it is not necessary, (or possible) to recreate the above studies in other animals in laboratory conditions. To help humans we need to study the diseases which occur in humans, and they are all around us, an invaluable source of information.

 

TISSUE AND CELL CULTURES

Single cells from human or animal tissues (for use in veterinary medicine) are grown outside the body after separation from their original tissue or organ. Each generation of these cells breeds identical cells almost without limit, thus providing a constant supply of identical test materials that can be kept free of contamination for years. This level of accuracy is impossible with living, changing animals, and what is more important, by testing substances on cells of the same species of animal, you do not have the problem of species differences. These tests are extremely useful for toxicity and irritancy testing.

ORGAN CULTURES

Groups of cells from a single organ are grown in a feeding medium. The normal structure of the organ is retained, and the reactions and effects of substances upon a complete organ can be tested with results similar to those in an intact body. These cultures can be used in biochemistry, cancer research, genetics, immunology, microbiology, pharmacology, physiology, radiation, toxicology, and virus research.

Developments based on culture techniques have included discovering the mechanism of the growth of nerves, establishment of the number of chromosomes in the human cell, the discovery that Down's syndrome is due to genetic defect, studies of the activities of hormones, study of muscle physiology, and study of electrical activity of nerves.

 

NON-INVASIVE IMAGING TECHNIQUES

The development of non-invasive imaging devices, such as CAT, MRI, PET, and SPECT scans, has revolutionized clinical investigation. These devices permit the ongoing evaluation of human disease in human patients. For example, these scanning machines have been valuable in the early diagnosis and evaluation of Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease, and musculoskeletal tumors, and they have also contributed to the body of knowledge in the basic sciences, such as physiology of vision.

 

GAS CHROMATOGRAPHY AND MASS SPECTROMETRY

These are methods used in the molecular analysis of such bodily fluids as blood, urine, and gastric fluids. Solutions are separated through vaporisation into their basic elements and then identified by mass. These methods have proven very successful in vitamin and drug research, and in determining the type and amount of drugs taken in the case of an overdose.

 

THE AMES TEST

Invented by Dr. Bruce Ames of the University of California at Berkeley, this in vitro test checks substances for carcinogenicity by using strains of the Salmonella bacteria, which produce cancer in humans and other mammals. The test takes 2-3 days and costs a few hundred dollars rather than the 2-3 years and US$150.000 required for typical animal tests.

 

PLACENTA

The human placenta, which is usually discarded after the birth of a child, can be used for practicing techniques of microvascular surgery, and for testing toxic side effects of chemicals, drugs, and pollutants. It provides a medium far superior to animal tissues because it is human, and it's entirely without cost.

 

MECHANICAL MODELS

Sophisticated mechanical models are used as subjects for safety testing, such as car crash studies and tests of fireproof

fabrics, and as teaching devices. Complex models are now available for use in medical and surgical training, and can provide reactions to many different drugs. A simulator has been created that includes a heart circulatory system, lungs,

and a respiratory system, along with a means of testing responses to drugs and kidney functions.

 

QUANTUM PHARMACOLOGY

This is a computer based technique used in theoretical chemistry to study the molecular structure of drugs and their receptors in the body. By using existing knowledge it is now possible to predict from a drug's structure what its effect will be on any given target organ in humans. This can be extrapolated to the point where the actions of a new drug, as yet unsynthesised, can be studied.

Quantum pharmacology has been used in the studies of, for example, nerve transmitters, hormones, beta-blocking heart drugs, histamine, anti-depressants and anaesthetics, amongst many others.

 

COMPUTERS AND MATHEMATICAL MODELS

Developments in computer technology have made available a wide range of sophisticated programmes which can be used for research and training. They have made possible studies and predictions of drug actions of various organ systems, and allowed further developments based upon these predictions.

These systems 'fit' molecules of the various chemicals being tested into the computer's model of the chemical 'receptors' in the body, and predict the outcome. Some programmes keep records of the makeup of known chemicals so that when the makeup of a new chemical is fed in, a comparison of the likely effects can be made. Others allow simulation of the normal physiology of organs such as the heart, or respiratory control and kidney function.

Computer models of the human circulatory and respiratory systems are now used as teaching devices in medical schools. HUMTRN (pronounced HYOOM-tran) is a "living", everchanging computer data bank that provides access to 10 million bits of information about how a human body will react to any given substance.

It is programmed to eat, breathe, perspire, and age.

 

AUDIO-VISUAL AIDS

The primary use of these techniques is in the field of education, from primary school level right up to medical school and beyond. They include models, television, film, slides and audio/video tape. These allow repeated viewing, playback, and holding on a specific area of a demonstration. (32)


 

NEW CELL TESTS BEAT ANIMAL TESTS

Animal tests have come under repeated and well-deserved criticism for failing to predict dangerous effects of drugs and other chemicals. Of 19 chemicals known to cause cancer in humans, only 7 caused cancer in standard animal tests. The cancer-causing effect of chemicals varies so dramatically between species that tests on rats yield different answers from tests on mice for one in every three chemicals tested, according to researchers from Carnegie-Mellon University. Using rodent tests to predict effects in humans is risky at best.

Animal tests routinely miss toxic effects of drugs. The U.S. General Accounting Office reported that, of all new drugs that entered the market between 1976 and 1985, 52 percent proved to be more dangerous than animal tests and limited human studies had predicted- so much so that they had to be relabelled with new warnings or pulled from the market.

Late 1996, brought two long-awaited breakthroughs. First, a new study shows that safety tests using human cells are more accurate than animal tests. Second, a new company offers methods for developing new drugs that use no animals at all.

 

Human Cell Tests Show Their Power

In the Multicenter Evaluation of In Vitro Cytotoxicity tests (MEIC), researchers from the U.S., Europe, Japan, and other countries tried 68 different test-tube methods to predict the toxicity of 50 different chemicals, such as aspirin, digoxin, diazepam (Valium), nicotine, malathion, and lindane. The effects of the chemicals in humans were already known from poison control centers. The study’s goal was to see how well the cellular test matched actual human experience and to compare them with data previously reported for animal tests.

The results were presented at the Conference of the Scandinavian Society for Cell Toxicology, in September 1996. The human cell tests were clearly superior. The rat LD50 tests – lethal dose tests that measure the dose of a chemical that kills 50 percent of the animals given it – were only 59 percent accurate. But the average human cell test was 77 percent accurate. Accuracy was boosted to 80 percent when results from three different human cell tests were combined. The best test combination was:

  • A 24-hour exposure using Chang cells, developed by Lourdes Garza-Ocanas of the University Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, Mexico.
  • A 24-hour exposure using HL-60 cells, developed by Noriho Tanaka of the Hatano Food and Drug Safety Center in Kanagawa, Japan.
  • A six week exposure using MRC-5 cells, developed by Paul Dierickx of the Institute for Hygiene and Epidemiology in Brussels, Belgium.

The MEIC researchers have enlarged the number of chemicals they are testing. They are also using human cell tests to assess more complex processes, such as how drugs pass from the digestive tract into the bloodstream or from the blood into the brain, and to measure the toxicity of drug breakdown products. Some companies have used animals for these purposes but often get unreliable results in addition to the ethical objections such tests raise.

Some human cell tests are already well established. For example, the Eytex system, developed by Virginia C. Gordon and her colleagues (In Vitro International, 16632 Millikan Ave., Irvine, CA 92714), replaces the infamous Draize test, which assesses the damage done as chemicals are dripped into the eyes of rabbits. An Eytex vial contains proteins that turn cloudy in response to irritating chemicals, just as the cornea of the eye does. The test is faster and cheaper than the Draize test and is highly accurate, with a 98 percent predictive value.

 

New Medicines without Animal Tests

Pharmagene Laboratories, based in Royston, England, is the first company to conduct new drug development and testing using human tissues and sophisticated computer technologies exclusively. With tools from molecular biology, biochemistry, and analytical pharmacology, Pharmagene conducts extensive studies of human genes and investigates how drugs affect the actions of these genes or the proteins they make. While some have used animal tissues for this purpose, Pharmagene scientists believe that the discovery process is much more efficient with human tissues.

Pharmagene personnel came from other large pharmaceutical companies, particularly Glaxo Wellcome, SmithKline Beecham, Shire Pharmaceuticals, and others. The company works on contract with other pharmaceutical companies.(33)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Many national anti-vivisection organisations, who run welfare, ethics campaigns, wholly support the fraudulent methodology of the 3 Rs. Instead, please give your support to the scientific anti-vivisection organisations and grass-roots groups who call and campaign for the immediate end of all animal experimentation. Your support of these organisations is invaluable. No bureaucratic or political dilution ONLY ABOLITION.

 

For more info see :-

 

Absurdity of Vivisection http://vivisection-absurd.org.uk/

BAVA http://www.bava.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/

CARN-AGE http://www.carn-age.org.uk/

CIVITAS http://www.linkny.com/~civitas/

DLRM http://www.dlrm.org/

EFMA http://www.curedisease.net/

Guardians http://home.mira.net/~antiviv/

Judicial Inquiry Campaign http://www.vivisection.info/

NZAVS http://www.nzavs.org.nz/

PCRM http://www.pcrm.org/

Pro Anima http://www.proanima.asso.fr/

RDS-Online http://www.rds-online.org/

SHAC http://www.shac.net/index.php3

SIAV http://www.siav.org/

Vernon Coleman www.vernoncoleman.com/main.htm  

Vivisection Abolition https://marcussternum.tripod.com/

Vivisection Info Network http://vivisection-absurd.org.uk/vinind.html

WDDTY http://www.wddty.co.uk/

 

Remember - there is NO law requiring drugs, cosmetics, agro-chemical or industrial products to be tested on animals in the UK.

NO law requiring vivisection - unnecessary, unreliable and fraudulent.

 

References

 

(1) Hans Ruesch, CIVIS Bullet-In, Nr. 2, The Infiltration in Animal Welfare, page 29.

(2) CARN-AGE

(3) DLRM

(4) ibid 2

(5) Prof Vernon Coleman's online book 'Fighting for Animals'

(6) The Absurdity of Vivisection

(7) http://researchprotection.org/testimonypresentations/armymeddept.html

(8) ibid 6

(9) British Record on Animal Experiments Slammed, Yahoo News www.yahoo.com Science - Reuters Wed July 24 2002

(10) www.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm55/5518/5518.pdf 

(11) ibid 6

(12) Animal research in the post-genome era, Lancet, vol. 357, No. 9259, 17 March 2001.

(13) ibid 6

(14) VIN (Vivisection Information Network) vivisectionkills@hotmail.com

(15) Prof. Pietro Croce’s address - First International Symposium of Doctors Against Animal Experimentation, Zurich, 25 April 1987

(16) ibid 6

(17) Lack of evidence to support House of Lords report, BMJ, www.bmj.com 7 August 2002
(18) More animal test labs to be built, The Sunday Times,
28 January 2001.
(19) http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld200102/ldselect/ldanimal/19/1050104.htm

(20) ibid 6

(21) The Guardian, Wednesday May 15, 2002 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,715515,00.html 

(22) Cambridge presses on with new animal lab, Independent, 7 August 2001.
(23) Hackles rise over lab plan, THES,
31 August 2001.

(24) Cambridge News, 02.08.02 http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/news.asp?sec=1&id=132573
(25) Sections 1,2,3 Exposures of Vivisection
http://vivisection-absurd.org.uk/expose.html

(26) The boss of animal testing company Huntingdon Life Sciences has scooped a prestigious pharmaceutical award, Ananova, 27 September 2001.

(27) ibid 23

(28) The Guardian, Saturday October 27, 2001 http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0%2C4273%2C4286426%2C00.html

(29) ibid 6

(30) ibid 3

(31) NZAVS

(32) Guardians

(33) PCRM (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine) Good Medicine Magazine Spring 1997


Special credit and thanks to the Absurdity of Vivisection http://vivisection-absurd.org.uk/

 

DEMAND A UK JUDICIAL INQUIRY!!!
 

Judicial Inquiry Campaign http://www.vivisection.info/

 

 

July, 2002   (acknowledgements to  MC & DB )