Bette Overell

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Photo: Liz Brooks

Bette Overell, Founder of the New Zealand Anti-Vivisection Society (Inc.)

"In 1978 Bette Overell founded the N.Z. Anti-Vivisection Society of which she was President for over 15 years.  Many New Zealanders will remember her Society's spectacular marches through the Capital that took place each consecutive World Day for Laboratory Animals on 24 April during this period.  In 1984 NZAVS took a Petition to Parliament seeking abolition of the notorious Lethal Dose 50 toxicity test where Overell presented evidence that the procedure is not only illogical and unsound, but that it is carried out solely as an alibi for legal and commercial purposes.  In 1989 she led a march to Parliament with a further Petition, signed by 100,640 New Zealanders demanding the abolition of all experiments on animals after obtaining affidavits from doctors all over the world who claim vivisection is medically and scientifically invalid.
    Drawing on evidence of which the author says there is an abundance, this book is Bette Overell's answer to Animal Research Saves Lives, a booklet produced and distributed widely throughout New Zealand in 1990 by the Ministry of Agriculture and private organisations.  An eye-opener ANIMAL RESEARCH  T A K E S  LIVES - Humans and Animals BOTH Suffer exposes facts seldom if ever published in the popular press, such as the growing medical movement against animal experimentation, the injustice of the peer review system whereby animal experimenters make their own laws and regulate their own activities, and the colossal profits and academic advantages being made from the industry.
    Bette Overell is recognised internationally for her work in the new abolitionist movement.  This startling book, the first of its kind to be published in Australasia, is essential reading for all those who have been brainwashed to believe that health must depend on animal experiments.  It could save your life!"--- Animal Research Takes Lives by Bette Overell

Four Vivisectors' Lies by Betty  Overell

Book:
Animal Research Takes Lives by Bette Overell

Quotes
Without exception the advocates of abolition quoted in this work, and even the vivisectors themselves, who unwittingly time and time again give a good case for abolition, do so on the grounds that vivisection creates medical catastrophe.  The writer has not discovered a single doctor's comment which condemns animal experiments because they are cruel or infringe the rights of animals. Perhaps like the writer they believe such considerations are self-evident.  In every instance doctors condemning vivisection do so because of their concern about human health and the great dangers arising from basing this most precious of all commodities on the false premise of animal experiments.  Whatever their motives for taking stand fair and square in the anti-vivisection camp I am indebted to these pioneers and forerunners of the truth, who, having the courage to step out of line and speak against commonly-held beliefs based on bigotry and brain-washing, fall into the category of Galileo Galilei and Semmelweiss, the former because he insisted the world was round and not flat and the latter because he ordered doctors to wash their hands before examining women in childbirth."---Animal Research Takes Lives by Bette Overell