I was lucky enough to be asked to speak at WEEAC in Melbourne this year re vivisection. I departed from the script but my intended speech is below:
Since then I have seen images of the suffering of animals in labs, corrosives in eyes, stomachs, heads cut off, but while still alive... "If our capacity to imagine could see that which constantly happens in the laboratories of vivisection, our dreams would be disturbed and there wouldn't be another day for us in which we could be happy and serene." Dr Raplh Bircher ("Die drei neuen Gesichter der Vivisektion", in "Der Wendepunkt", March 3, 1963) reprinted in "Holocaust" by Milly Schar-Manzoli p5
Given substances are not necessarily carcinogenic to all species. Studies show that 46% of chemicals found to be carcinogenic in rats were not carcinogenic in mice. [23] · DiCarlo DrugMet Rev,15; p409-131984.
"Experiments on animals do not only mean torture and death for the animals, they also mean the killing of people. Vivisection is a double-edged sword."
- Major R.F.E. Austin, M.D., 1927, Royal College of Surgeons, Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians. "The reason why I am against animal research is because it doesn't work, it has no scientific value and every good scientist knows that."
- Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, M.D., 1986, Head of the Licensing Board for the State of Illinios, paediatrician & gynaecologist for 30 years, medical columnist & best-selling author, recipient of numerous awards for excellence in medicine.
"Giving cancer to laboratory animals has not and will not help us to understand the disease or to treat those persons suffering from it."
- Dr. A. Sabin, 1986, developer of the oral polio vaccine. "My own conviction is that the study of human physiology by way of experimenting on animals is the most grotesque error ever committed in the whole range of human intellectual activity."
- Dr. G.F. Walker, 1933. "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 taxpayer's dollars to take healthy animals and artificially and violently 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., 1988, medical magazine editor, USA. "Animal model systems differ from their human counterparts. Conclusions drawn from animal research, when applied to human beings, are likely to delay progress, mislead, and do harm to the patient. Vivisection, or animal experimentation, should be abolished."
- Dr. Moneim Fadali, M.D., 1987, F.A.C.S., Diplomat American Board of Surgery and American Board of Thoracic Surgery, UCLA faculty, Royal College of Surgeons of Cardiology, Canada.
" Poor replication of even high-quality animal studies should be expected by those who conduct clinical research. Drs Hackam & Redelmeier, Journal of the American Medical Association, October 11, 2006, Vol 296, No. 14 1731-1732.
There's no scientific basis for it. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't." (Commenting on the FDA's historic requirement to test drugs on animals before humans) Dr Carl Peck, director of the University of California, San Francisco's Center for Drug Development Science and former head of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, San Francisco Business Times, 20th January.
even primates are of no value for human medical research or testing..."Drugs known to damage the human foetus are found to be safe in 70% of cases when tried on primates." Developmental Toxicology: Mechanisms and Risk, p313, McLachlan, Pratt, and Markert (Eds). 1987
So far over 80 AIDS vaccines have been successful in primates, none of them have worked in humans.
To wit; "More than 800 chemicals have been defined as teratogens in laboratory animals, but only a few of these, approximately 20, have been shown to be teratogenic in humans. This discrepancy can be attributed to differences in metabolism, sensitivity and exposure time." Schmid, Trends in Pharmacological Sciences, vol 8, p 133. (That is a failure rate of 97.5%)Dr Sharratt, British Petroleum "As an index of acute toxicity, this (LD50) is valueless."D. Lorke, Institute of Toxicology, Bayer, AG "…even if the LD50 could be measured exactly and reproducibly, the knowledge of its precise numerical value would barely be of practical importance, because an extrapolation from the experimental animals to man is hardly possible."
"The predictive reliability of this technique has been questioned and its use on living animals has been criticized." (Beecham Products Research Dept.) "…the rabbit eye is structurally and physiologically different from the human eye." (Johnson and Johnson) "As an ophthalmologist in the New York University I am surprised that the Draize eye irritation test is done at all... I know of no case in which an ophthalmologist found Draize data useful."
(Stephen Kaufman, M.D., New York.)
"The results of these tests are of no use to physicians."
(Sandra Davies, M.D., Columbia, Maryland.)
"The results of these (animal) tests cannot be used to predict toxicity or to guide therapy in human exposure."
(Christopher D. Smith, M.D., Longbeach, California.)
"The data produced by these tests don't keep harmful products from being sold."
(Ellen Michael, M.D., Beverley Shores, Indiana.)
"After intensive study of the issue, I am convinced that the Draize eye irritancy and the Lethal Dose 50 tests are inaccurate, unreliable, costly and cruel to the animals. The tests deceive the very consumers whom they are supposed to protect, by certifying as SAFE household products and cosmetics that cause two hundred thousand hospital-recorded poisonous exposures annually."
(Paula Kislak, D.V.M., Sherman Oaks, California.)
"As a practising physician who is Board certified in internal medicine and oncology, I can find no evidence that the Draize test, L.D. 50 test, or any other tests using animals to support the 'safety' of chemicals and cosmetics have any relevance to the human species. I strongly support legislation that prohibits the use of such animal tests by industry."
(Donald C. Doll, M.D., Columbia, Missouri, 1988.)
Also see www.vivisectioninformation.com www.safermedicines.org www.mrmcmed.org www.speakcampaigns.org www.pnc.com.au/~cafmr www.pcrm.org
(Sharon Begley, 'Research lags due to few physician-scientists', Wall Street Journal, 25 April 2003).
8. In Tamoxifen’s case, a drug first developed as a potential contraceptive languished for many years before its present application was found. Furthermore, its propensity to cause liver tumours in rats, a toxicity problem that thankfully does not carry over into humans, was not detected until after the drug had been on the market for many years. If it had been found in preclinical testing, the drug would almost certainly have been withdrawn from the pipeline. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 2003; 2:167
9. "The fundamental problem in drug discovery for cancer is that the model systems are not predictive at all" Science 1997;278 Nov 7 1997 p1041
This caused me to wonder why vivisection would continue when it was such an apalling failure. It was not until later that I learned the real reason for so called animal 'tests'...
German researchers Drs H and M Stiller, "In praxis, all animal experiments are scientifically indefensible, as they lack any scientific validity and reliability in regard to humans. They only serve as an alibi for the drug manufacturers, who hope to protect themselves thereby". Peter Tatchell, "Animal Research Is Bad Science", 2001.
- Prof. Gianni Tamino, 1987, biologist at Padua University, a Congressman in the Italian Parliament
- Dr. Irwin Bross, Ph.D., 1982, former director of the largest private cancer research institute in the world, the Sloan-Kettering Institute, then Director of Biostatics, Roswell Memorial Institute, Buffalo, NY.
by Prof Pietro Croce
Are there methods that offer an alternative to vivisection or animal experimentation? Certainly not! Then why this book? And why the public outcry against the vivisectors? And the refusal, by a growing number of students and researchers, to carry out animal experiments? And the indictments and court sentences against the researchers?*
This argument, like all intellectual forms of expression, requires a semantic premise. The precise reason why we say that there is no 'alternative' to vivisection is that a method which aims at replacing another should have the same characteristics. But it would be difficult to find, in the field of biomedical research, anything equally bogus, deceitful and misleading as vivisection has been in the past and continues to be in the present. That's why the methods proposed to biomedical research should be called 'scientific methods' and not 'alternative methods'.
The vivisectors ask us: 'What do you offer to Science in the place of vivisection?' - 'In the place of vivisection, nothing: for vivisection is a festering sore which makes Science sick and gives it a bad name, even among the general public'. Actually, the vivisectors should not ask us, 'What are you offering to Science?', but, more honestly, 'What are you offering to us?'
'To be sure, without animal experimentation the vivisectors would lose the opportunity of reaping, with no talent and little effort, academic titles and honors, of publishing papers, making money and pursuing a glittering career. They would also have to waive the chance to curry the favors of the Powers-that-be by supporting one thesis one day and the opposite thesis the next, with the same persuasiveness - all this on the strength of allegedly 'irrefutable' animal experiments, and according to what result has been requested by whoever foots the bill.
There are endless possibilities for producing irrefutable evidence in support of any theory, through the use of various animal species; all one has to do is to select the appropriate species.
So I, and the public had been fooled. We had been fed the line "What would you rather it be, your child or a dog" when the truth was it was the child and the dog and the planet who sufferred. The so called animal 'tests' misleading and variable data provides legal protection to industries whose products kill and harm humans and once we are suffering from over 30,000 diseases as we are now the fraudulent so called 'medical research' based on animals provided hope but no cures to a single human disease and provided ongoing income to the disease business. To quote George Bernard Shaw; "Whoever does not hesitate to vivisect will hardly hesitate to lie about it."
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. has been involved in animal issues for 22 years since seeing a film of monkeys in brain research in 1988. Animal experimentation has been the area which concerns Douglas the most but he has been involved in all types of animal issues over that time. Douglas will be a regular contributor to Viva la Vegan! and hopes that he can help people to use the most effective anti-vivisection arguments and action. Contact Doug This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
- Details
- Published: 21 November 2012
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia Licence
