ANIMAL RESEARCH T A K E S LIVES
- Humans and Animals BOTH Suffer
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ARSL's claim that human lives continue to be saved because of pig-burnings demonstrates sick and stunted mentality, lack of logic, and total disregard, perhaps even a perverted enjoyment in witnessing suffering at its most extreme. "Why think when one can experiment?" said the Greek vivisector, Galen. Burning pigs requires nothing more than a blow-torch, sub-normality and the constitution of an inquisitor. On the other hand the prerequisites for implementing new and valid systems are medical and scientific capability, sensitivity, a bent toward the ethical and the will and ability to change. The potential of the human placenta, especially in the area of burn research is impressive and astounding. Its application would be the death-knell of the vivisector whose skill and aptitude is limited to cutting up rats and rabbits... and burning pigs!
ARSL defends the burning of fully-conscious pigs with blow-torches on the premise that the world was at war with "many pilots and aircrews dying from burns". The writer is acutely aware that the same war provided human burn casualties of such proportion to provide an abundance of requisite material, entirely suitable, to gain practical knowledge of how to treat burns, how to carry out necessary skin-grafts, and how to learn first-hand by accurate clinical observation and experience at the bedsides of thousands of human burn patients.
Medical literature abounds in the conclusions of such research:
"Preliminary work soon demonstrated that a burn on the skin of an experimental animal produced results differing from those commonly encountered in man."
(American Journal of Physiology, Vol. 95, 1930, page 302.)
Foremost in the field of burn research have been the contributions made by the workers at the Medical Research Council's Burns Unit, Birmingham Accident Hospital, under the direction of Professor Colebrook, who reached the conclusion that:
"Negative results in animals do not rule out the possibility that antihistamine drugs may influence the course of human burns. We decided, therefore, to experiment on a group of human volunteers."
(British Medical Journal, July 7 1952, page 57.)
It is the clinical research of such burn units and their workers which led to the development of modern burn therapeutics. Refer to Lancet, July 28 1951, pages 137-147.
Many nurses are now actively opposing vivisection to the degree that in Great Britain they have formed their own organisation, Nurses Against Vivisection. In an article written on their behalf in Animal Aid's Outrage, Geraldine Dyson states:
"My message to you is - animal experiments can seriously damage your health."
Of using animals in burn experiments these nurses have this to say:
"In 1984, in the United Kingdom alone, over 1000 animals were burnt according to government figures. They were burning animals 150 years ago - it is a scandal it is still allowed to go on.
But where are the scientists when burned patients are admitted to hospital? I was a nursing sister in casualty for many years, and I have never seen any interest shown in observing our burnt patients.
Because animals are readily available and so commonly used, scientists prefer to inflict these injuries on animals and study them instead. Government figures say that over 5000 animals in 1984 suffered other forms of physical trauma (and by trauma I mean violence to the body and other mutilations) to simulate human injury.
But where are the scientists when we receive daily in our accident units, patients who have stab wounds, severe head injuries, people who have been run over, or who are haemorrhaging? One has to ask why there is so little interest in human suffering, and why so much government funding goes into reproducing these horrendous accidents in animals unnecessarily: It is expensive to the taxpayer, agony to the animals, and impedes the real progress by using animal data which is often dangerously misleading.
The answer is:
(Neither is there a requirement by law to use other methods. Author.)
Dyson then quotes Dr Raymond Green who wrote in the Lancet:
"We must face the fact that the most careful animal tests may tell us little about humans - animal experiments may even prevent the use of excellent substances."
The author is in possession of a plethora of damning evidence supplied by Nurses Against Vivisection.
On December 6 1983, at a meeting of the Lands and Agriculture committee in Wellington (to implement animal ethics committees) at which the author was present, the Chairman of the Committee prompted by an article about the human placenta in the author's submission to the Committee, questioned Dr Maclaurin and Professor Fielden of the Royal Society about its capabilities as a tool of research. Being aware of the versatility of the placenta, especially in the area of burns research, and the acclaim it was receiving overseas by doctors endeavouring to overthrow the vivisection system, the author was astounded by the evasive negativity with which the question was received. Professor Graham Liggins of the National Women's Hospital in Auckland later said: "The placenta is not used here in the same way as in UK research... there, it is seen in terms of human tissue, but here we see it solely as a placenta." In palming the pig-burning atrocities off as science ARSL's publishers demonstrate the vivisectors' fanatical determination to prevent progress and illuminates the bigotry and fraud upon which the health of New Zealanders is based, merely in order to maintain its associated lucrative remunerations.
This work is designed to rebut ARSL's claims and is not intended to be a comprehensive index of valid medical research systems. For further information on the limitless horizons offered to human medicine should the benefits of the placenta be applied refer The LD50 Alibi and the New Zealand Parliamentarian, authored by Bette Overell.
| "Laboratory tests on animals are not reliable predictors of effects in humans... human tissue suitable for experiments may be being destroyed in vast amounts, for one of the most promising experimental animals of the future could be the human placenta." (Anthony Tucker of the Guardian.) |
Refer also to Chapter 10 Differences Between Cats, Dogs and Humans.
| NOTE: The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, PCRM Update, March-April 1991 reports equally obscene experiments are still being carried out by the U.S. armed services. One of which involves burning aeroplanes with animals tied inside. (Doubtless ARSL would laud the ensuing "benefits to the human race" from such lunacy.) |