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
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 (
(Acknowledgments to Stephen R. Kaufman, M.D.
- (From MRMC -
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
A report
just released states the leading cause of death in the
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)
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
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
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
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
"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
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,
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 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
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
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
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
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:
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
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,
(16) ibid 6
(17) Lack of
evidence to support House of Lords report, BMJ, www.bmj.com
(18) More animal test labs to be built, The Sunday
Times,
(19) http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld200102/ldselect/ldanimal/19/1050104.htm
(20) ibid 6
(21) The
Guardian,
(22)
(23) Hackles rise over lab plan, THES,
(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) ibid 23
(28) The
Guardian,
(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 )