ANIMAL RESEARCH  T A K E S  LIVES
- Humans and Animals BOTH Suffer

contents | Chapter 21 index | index

DRUGS AND THE LAW

SECTION 3 - Animal based medicines: LETHAL - yet legal

The following expose of the widespread universal damage resulting from "testing" on healthy animals, drugs designed for sick and diseased human beings, and human beings suffering the effects of preventable pollutants, is brought about by a law so deviant in logic, and barbarous and unlikely in practicality it could be conjured by the devil himself.  This law epitomises the criminal and immoral activity which is legally established and maintained despite expert evidence and massive public criticism, and standing accused of the sometimes heart-rending chaos which ensues from it are governments which are subservient to the might of the multi-nationals for which this law conveniently represents gilt-edged security.

Perhaps this is why neither of NZAVS' petitions to abolish vivisection were heard or considered by the New Zealand politicians, who, with the exception of Mr John Terris (then Labour M.P. for Western Hutt and for years a sympathiser and ally of NZAVS and perhaps because of this no longer a politician), were all markedly hostile to the petition and the petitioners.  Investigation into the way the Government handled, by ignoring totally, the 1989 petition signed by 100,640 New Zealanders brought the following written comments to the Society:

• "All Select Committees are empowered to deal with petitions as they see fit."
  (To NZAVS, from Fran Wilde M.P.)
• "The extent of the consideration to be given by the Committee is ENTIRELY over to the Committee."
  (To NZAVS, from the Chief Ombudsman, quoting from Parliamentary Practice in New Zealand.)

At this point the author wishes to make it quite clear that those campaigning to abolish vivisection are not against medical research, but against medical research using animals.  The diligent and observant reader will understand why, and for those who are not yet convinced, the following examples of drug failures, attributed to the faulty and grotesque law that drugs must be tested on animals are picked at random from thousands of drugs that are having serious ill-effects.  These examples are not to be construed as a comprehensive list for dangerous medicaments are so numerous that no book of normal size could accommodate all their names - or list all the devastations they are causing on a daily basis.

ORAL CONTRACEPTIVES

Found to increase the risk of blood-clots leading to heart attacks, lung disorders and strokes.  By 1980 over 400 deaths reported.

"Not only had the animal tests failed to identify the hazard, but in rats and dogs oral contraceptives produced entirely the opposite effect, making it more difficult for the blood to clot."
(Z. Bankowski and N. Howard-Jones, Biomedical Research Involving Animals.)

HIGH ESTROGEN CONTRACEPTIVE PILL

Seventeen deaths between January 1 and end March 1982.  Medical Journal Annual Reports claim 787 deaths.

"This is less than usual probably owing to drop in reporting by doctors rather than improvements in drug safety."
(Committee for the Safety of Medicines.)

ANALGESICS

Phenacetin, withdrawn in 1980, is one of many analgesic drugs that cause kidney damage in people but not in laboratory animals.  Since human studies first identified the link between kidney problems and analgesics there have been many animal experiments to investigate the effect.  All so contradictory that a major review of the subject by Iulius Rosner of the Institute of Pharmacology in Paris concluded that:

"Animal researchers would never have suspected, foreseen or predicted the phenomenon."
(I. Rosner, CRC Critical Reviews in Toxicology, Vol. 4, 1976, pages 331-352.)

ASTHMA AEROSOL DILATORS

In the 1960s almost four thousand deaths resulted from Isoprenaline aerosol inhalers.  In 1974 seventeen hundred deaths, and between 1975 and 1985 asthma deaths doubled as the use of aerosol pressured dilators trebled.

"The effects had not been predicted by animal experiments and even after the dangers were revealed it was impossible to reproduce the damage in animals."
(Reported in a BBC debate entitled Vivisection is Scientific Con, June 22 1987.)

In New Zealand not until the Fenoterol investigations reported on April 24 1989 (World Day for Laboratory Animals) were asthmatics informed of the danger of these drugs.  (In its submission to Parliament supporting its petition to abolish vivisection, the N.Z. Anti-Vivisection Society had given written evidence that thousands of deaths had resulted from these prescriptions.)  (An address by Dr R. Sharpe at a congress organised by IAAPEA in Philadelphia, June 24 1989.)  Dr Paul D. Stolley, of Johns Hopkins Hospital who found in July 1972 that the aerosol-pressured dilator Isoproterenol killed "thousands of asthma sufferers" and described it as "the worst therapeutic drug disaster on record".

ANTI-DIARRHOEA MEDICINES

Clioquinol, also marketed as Mexaform, Enterovioform, Intestopan, Sterosan and approximately 168 other trade-names, caused, in Japan alone, 30,000 cases of blindness and paralysis and thousands of deaths in Tokyo in 1978, the common-denominator to the tragedy being the inclusion in the formula of the drug Oxychinol.  Marketed by Ciba-Geigy, Clioquinol caused a hideous new disease called Subacute Myelo-Optic Neuropathy, or SMON.  Though Ciba-Geigy claimed "there is no evidence Clioquinol is neuro-toxic" in its tests on rats, cats, beagles and rabbits, subsequent experiments at the Okayama University Medical School reproduced the effects in mongrel dogs.  The experimenters however added that "different species respond differently to the drug, with monkeys, hens, cocks and mice only mildly affected, even after higher doses", and that "beagle dogs were 3 to 4 times less sensitive to Clioquinol than mongrels".  Hans Ruesch reveals on pages 19 and 21 of Naked Empress that Ciba-Geigy had been fully aware of the dangers of Oxychinol prior to marketing, even to the extent of the firm circulating a warning among veterinarians not to use the drug in veterinary treatment and publishing a warning that "it should not be administered to house pets"!  Damage and deaths from Oxychinol also occurred in Holland, Denmark, Germany, France, Great Britain, Belgium, Italy and Sweden.  On April 28 1980, at the Hotel Penta in Geneva, a press conference on SMON was held for 37 international reporters, organised by a Japanese committee.  Participants included lawyers and medical authorities from Japan, Malaysia, Australia, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Sri Lanka, U.S.A., France, Sweden, Norway and Italy.  It was concluded from the conference that "Ciba-Geigy had disregarded the ill-effects of its Clioquinol in animals knowing full well that animal tests are of no value", and proceeded to market the drug worldwide for human consumption.  Present-day sufferers of multiple sclerosis are said to be suffering from Clioquinol-induced SMON.

ANAESTHETICS

Both the U.S. Department of Justice and the Food and Drug Administration are investigating charges of alleged impropriety by Swiss-based Hoffman-La Roche in connection with its liquid anaesthetic Versed which is linked to more than 40 deaths from respiratory failure.  Time Magazine, February 17 1992 in an article titled "Can Drug Firms Be Trusted?" highlights charges of fraud which "have struck an industry already reeling under allegations of deception, greed and insufficient attention to product safety".  Dr Sidney Wolfe, a consumer activist who heads Public Citizen's Health Research Group, a medical-industry watch-dog based in Washington contends, that "the heart of the drug companies' credibility problem is the dangerous amount of control the industry has over testing.  Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands injured because data have been falsified".  Other companies accused of fraud are:

The anaesthetic Halothane causes liver toxicity but prior to marketing "produced no evidence of liver damage in animals".  Anaesthetists at Edinburgh's Royal Infirmary reported that "early attempts to produce an animal model of halothane hepatitis (liver damage) proved disappointing".

The April 1973 issue of Anaesthesiology pointed out that Fluroxine, a form of ether, when used as an anaesthetic in man produced no untoward results, yet when used in dogs, cats and rabbits, they all died of ataxia, hypotension, seizures etc.
(Hans Ruesch, Slaughter of the Innocent, page 255.)

Incidence of breast cancer in female anaesthetists is 50 times higher than normal.  Anaesthetists' children suffer from a disproportionate number of neurological problems.
(P.J. Tomlinson, "Health Problems of Anaesthetists and Their Families in the West Midlands", British Medical Journal, March 3 1979, pages 779-784.)

PAIN-KILLING DRUGS

"Phenylbutazone produces an extremely high incidence and wide variety of toxic effects, many of which are potentially lethal."
(British Medical Journal, July 20 1957, page 146.)

In the U.K. The Guardian, February 27, March 5, March 7 1984 reported that painkillers made from Phenylbutazone, marketed by Ciba-Geigy are to be banned from general use.  Brand names are Butazone, Butazolidin and Butacote.  Other painkillers containing Oxyphenbutazone are also under threat of removal, brand names being Tanderil and Tandacote.  These drugs were associated with more than 1,500 deaths in Britain alone since 1962.  The drugs were given to approximately 500,000 arthritis sufferers in 1982.  According to one authority (Martindale, The Extra Pharmacopoeia, Pharmaceutical Press, 1977) "side effects occur in some 25 to 40% of patients taking the drug".  In Pharmacology: Drug Actions and Reactions, R. Levine, 1978 it reports that "the chances of adverse effects of phenylbutazone in people compared with laboratory animals are heightened because it takes much longer for human beings to metabolise the drug.  In people it takes 72 hours for the body to break down half a dose of the drug, and in animals the corresponding times are 8, 6, 6, 3 hours in rhesus monkeys, dogs, rats and rabbits respectively".  When the tragedy of the deaths occurring from Phenylbutazone was reported in Dominion, January 6 1983, Dr Treadwell was reported as saying:

"All drugs have side effects... This is a safe drug in relation to other medicines."

Butazolidin (caused 575 deaths in 1983) which had no adverse effects on hundreds of thousands of rats, mice, monkeys or dogs, which was removed from the market in early 1984 with the admission that "human side effects dangerous and drastic... We know these things do happen" commented Dr Boyd, Asst Dir. Clinical Services, Wellington.  (Chairman of the Drug Assessment Advisory Committee and the Restricted Drugs Committee, who commented about Benoxaprofen, with 81 deaths and 3,000 seriously ill "symptoms experienced with humans could never be detected in animals".

Another painkiller Flosint resulted in 217 reports of serious reactions which caused gastrointestinal damage and at least 7 deaths.  British Medical Journal, January 7 1984, page 77 reported:

"The original animal tests on Flosint revealed an LD50 of 700mg/Kg (700 milligrams of drug per kilogram of the animal's body-weight) in mice but 84 mg/Kg in rats.  More prolonged toxicity tests in rats showed 'excellent tolerability'.  In addition, tests indicated the drug to cause less gastrointestinal damage than aspirin.  The drug was also well tolerated in the dog and the monkey in medium-term toxicity trials; to date the compound has caused no sign of toxicity in both these species in long-term trials.  As a result of these 'animal experiments' the drug was entered for clinical trials and subsequently marketed... animal tests obviously do not ensure safety for human beings."

ULCER PRESCRIPTIONS

Tagamet (Cimetidine) produced by Smith, Kline & French in 1977 after extensive testing on dogs, rabbits, hamsters, mice and rats, none of which gave signs of stomach cancer.  By 1981 the British Committee for the Safety of Medicine had received 2,459 reports of adverse reactions which included headaches, dizziness, skin disorders, psychiatric disorders, liver disorders, tremor, abdominal pain, nausea and diarrhoea and 21 reports of stomach cancer.  By December 1981 there had been 31 reports of joint pain due to Tagamet (Cimetidine) with other patients suffering joint-swelling and muscle pain.

The New Scientist, September 17 1981, in an article titled "Ulcer Drugs May Increase Risk of Stomach Cancer", and Lancet, Vol. 2, September 12 1981, page 550 published details of studies carried out by Doctors Reed, Haines, Smith, House and Walters of the Gastrointestinal Unit, Wexham Park Hospital, Slough, Berkshire; the Biochemistry Section, Leatherhead, Surrey; and the Department of Pharmacology, Guy's Hospital Medical School, London.  The conclusions of which reveal that "despite there being no signs of stomach cancer in animals on which the drug was tested, there could be an increased risk of stomach cancer on the human patients to whom it is prescribed".  Discussion at the conclusion of the study included the following statements:

Further evidence against Tagamet (Cimetidine) came from a doctor, who alarmed that some of his patients taking the drug had developed stomach cancer, reported it to the Committee on the Safety of Medicines which wrote:

"I and many of us, hope that this whole business turns out to be a red herring: If not, it would cast doubt on the whole basis on which we determine drug safety."

This should set the astute reader seriously considering how cushioned from the hazards of reality is this powerful Committee which entrusted with the responsibility for public health, appears ignorant of the many doctors on every continent, who, for the past couple of decades have not merely "cast doubt" but vociferously shouted and vigorously rallied forces in an international challenge of the basis used for judging the safety of medicines, namely vivisection.  At time of writing, the author is studying the itinerary of the forthcoming International Scientific Congress of the Doctors in Britain Against Animal Experiments, which being held in London on September 24 1992, titled "A Renaissance for Scientific Medicine?", hosts leading prestigious medical men of the highest order in many facets of medicine from ten countries to address the gathering.  In contrast to the open agenda of these doctors which is the ABOLITION OF VIVISECTION BECAUSE IT IS AN INVALID METHOD OF JUDGING THE SAFETY OF MEDICINES, the agenda of the Committee for Safety of Medicines may be a hidden one which guarantees there will be no change to the colour of the afore-mentioned herring.  To adequately substantiate the authenticity of this statement we remain down under and meet the Committee's first cousin the Therapeutic Goods Administration Drug Evaluation Branch (Australia), the Director of which, one Brewster Ashley, was reported in Auckland Star, March 7 1991, page 7 under World News as telling an international conference on drug regulation:

"We have to remember that the main aim of pharmaceutical companies is not to make drugs for the good of mankind, but to make profits for their shareholders."¹

On the prescribing information issued by SK & F in 1981 the firm boasts that "over eleven million patients have been prescribed Tagamet (Cimetidine)... The control it gives you is backed by a lot of experience.  Tagamet (Cimetidine) puts you in control of gastric acid".

Animal toxicity tests of Tagamet (Cimetidine) conducted by SK & F included "the highest doses in rats, mice, hamsters and dogs which caused tremor, convulsions and death which yielded no sign of joint problems... Studies over 12 months in dogs, mice, rats and rabbits which gave no sign of stomach cancer".  The observant reader will be bearing in mind that headache, dizziness, psychiatric disorders, nausea etc. could not be predicted from animal tests anyway!  The Committee for the Safety of Medicine now accepts that Tagamet (Cimetidine) causes stomach cancer.

"They (gastric and duodenal ulcers) never occur naturally in animals, and they are hard to reproduce experimentally.  They have been so produced, but usually by methods of gross damage that have no relation to any possible causative factor in man; moreover, these experimental ulcers are superficial and heal rapidly, and bear little resemblance to the indurated chronic ulcers we see in our patients."
(Dr W. H. Ogilvie, Consulting Surgeon to Guy's Hospital, Lancet, February 23 1935, page 419.)

"The hypothesis that acid acting on nerve-endings in the floor of the ulcer is the primary cause of ulcer pain is based upon unnatural experiments, false anatomy and faulty pathology²... Many patients with 'ulcer pain' have no nerves in the ulcer floor, some have no acid, and some even have no ulcer..."
(Dr V. J. Kinsella, Sydney, Lancet, August 22 1953, page 361.)

ANTI-INFLAMMATORY DRUGS

In December 1985 the anti-inflammatory drug Suprofen also sold as Suprol, produced by the drug company McNeil (parent company Johnson and Johnson), dispensed to over 500,000 patients in the U.S.A. alone, caused over 100 cases of kidney damage and 25 percent of the patients had to be hospitalised.  The Health Research Group alleged negligence on the part of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approval of the drug because it is "it is a similar drug to Smith Kline's Selacryn which the FDA banned in 1980 which caused kidney and liver damage... The FDA do not appear to be unduly worried however because they have only received 270 reports of kidney damage"!
(Scrip, 1143, October 8 1986.)

Flenac, brand-name for the anti-inflammatory drug Fenclofenac (Reckitt and Colman, makers of Janola) was reported in Lancet to have incurred over 15,000 injurious effects including 7 deaths.  Removed from the market in 1984 Flenac had been "tested extensively" by being injected into the paws of rats to study "paw-swelling", an enormous range of toxicity tests, mainly on rats and pigs, and "coldness tests" which involved keeping animals alive in 15C temperatures for 45 minutes.  These ludicrous and ill-conceived tortures did not however prevent the volunteers in a clinical trial from suffering skin-rashes, stomach problems and vomiting.  When withdrawn from the market for "severe side-effects" the British National Formulary said:

"There is no orthodox drug which does not cause some type of unwanted side-effects.  In the case of Flenac, these were described as relatively mild, and included intestinal discomfort, bleeding, nausea, rashes, headache, vertigo, hearing disturbances, and effects on the blood."!
(Outrage, March/April 1986.)

DRUGS FOR FUNGAL INFECTIONS

Ketoconazole, produced by Janssen Pharmaceutical Ltd in 1981 after "extensive animal tests for effect and toxicity", by 1983 warnings of adverse reactions to Ketoconazole appeared.  By July 1984, 700,000 prescriptions had been dispensed and four months later the CSM had received 82 reports of liver damage and 5 deaths.  Many patients were given the drug for skin, nail and vaginal infections.  In January 1985 Ketoconazole was still being prescribed, the CSM advising doctors to "carefully weigh the risk of liver damage and to monitor their patients".
(Outrage, October/November 1986.)

DRUGS FOR HEART DISORDERS

Cordaronex, introduced in 1982 by Labaz Sanofi U.K. Ltd, as a drug to dilate the coronary for angina.  This drug had "the full range of animal tests over the period 1968 to 1981".  It was "tested" on dogs, rats and cats for its effect on the heart; on guinea-pigs and hundreds of rabbits to see the effect on the thyroid gland.  In 1982 "serious adverse reactions including 4 cases of hepatitis" were reported to the CSM.
(Outrage, October/November 1986.)

DRUGS FOR RHEUMATISM AND OSTEOARTHRITIS

Zomax, introduced in 1981 by Ortho-Cilag Pharmacutical Ltd was withdrawn voluntarily by the company in March 1983 after 5 deaths from allergic shock, in the U.S.A..  "The full range of animal toxicity tests were carried out".

Osmosin, by Merck, Sharp and Dohme.  A drug for rheumatism introduced in December 1982 after "extensive animal tests".  This drug was withdrawn worldwide on September 2 1983 when the Committee on Safety of Medicines admitted there had been 18 deaths and 400 reports of serious side effects which included bleeding and perforation of the intestine.

DRUGS FOR INCONTINENCE

DRUGS TO PREVENT MISCARRIAGE

Diethylstilbestrol, "tested without adverse effects on animals" for years.  Caused cancer in girls whose mothers had been prescribed the drug in pregnancy (because it passes through the placental barrier and triggers cancer in the fetus).  Six million women were given DES in pregnancy.  Hundreds of women developed vaginal cancer because their mothers were given DES, thousands of female offspring were in pre-cancerous conditions.  Time Magazine, March 23 1980 reported that cancer, miscarriages and stillbirth as well as ectopic pregnancy was caused by DES (the fetus growing outside the uterus).  The New England Journal of Medicine and other medical publications reported that DES extends to the third generation and also affects the genital organs of the male offspring!

DRUGS FOR THE "MORNING AFTER" CONTRACEPTIVE

Diethystilbestrol (see above) prescribed to prevent miscarriage (which it causes), was also doled out to whole populations as a morning-after pill though the dangers were known.  Causes still-birth, infertility, congenital defects, malformations, breast cancer, asthma, arthritis, diabetes.  Worldwide thousands of legal claims made against Eli Lilly and other pharmaceutical companies.  A Dutch DES Report estimates that in the European community alone up to 9 million people could have been exposed to DES in the womb.  That ninety percent of women prescribed DES now have problems in their reproductive organs.  A support group for New Zealand victims is being set up by:

Mrs A. Gibbs, Private Bag, Tokomaru.  (Always send SAE.)  Full page article Palmerston North, Evening Standard, December 12 1992.

DRUGS TO LOWER BLOOD CHOLESTEROL LEVELS

Clofibrate.  Introduced in 1960 to lower blood cholesterol levels.  The World Health Organisation claims it causes death from several diseases including cancer.  Is still on the market.

TRANQUILLISERS

"Tranquillisers impair memory and intellectual functions, hazardous for elderly people, cause distressing and dangerous side effects.  Consumers 5 times more susceptible to accidents."
(U.K. National Association for Mental Health.)

Refer to Chapter 22, Living 25 Years Longer Than Our Great Grand Parents.

ANTI-INFECTION DRUGS

Abbott laboratories has voluntarily recalled its new anti-infection drug Omniflox following three deaths and 50 serious reactions, including low blood-sugar, linked to the drug.  The drug was given FDA approval in January 1992 and was marketed from February to June 5.
(New York Times, June 6 1992.)

ANTI-HISTAMINE DRUGS

At time of writing, July 17 1992, the Dominion newspaper drug of the day to be avoided is the anti-histamine Teldane, otherwise known as Seldane, which is commonly taken by people with hay-fever or allergy symptoms.  The article claims that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave reports of four deaths and 60 cases of "sudden heart problems".  "The drug", says Dr B. Boyd, N.Z. Health Department Spokesman, "will still be sold in New Zealand"!

DRUGS FOR DIABETES

The London Newspaper Group publication Fulham Post, August 8 1991, in a bold front page article "Doctors Say 'No' To Diabetes Pills: Tests Show Capsules Are Not What They Seem" say that doctors at Charing Cross Hospital were sceptical of the safety of a diabetic drug which supposedly makes patients improve their condition.  Four patients from West London took part in the trials at Charing Cross Hospital after which the drug Glibenclamide was withdrawn.

ANTI-MALARIA DRUGS

The drug Camoquin, widely distributed to travellers going abroad, in order to prevent malaria was found to cause "severe, sometimes fatal agranulocytosis".  The condition involved bone marrow damage which leads to the loss of white cells from the blood.  "Sufferers become open to a variety of life-threatening infections against which they have no natural defence."  Parke-Davis faced a $5 million law-suit over deaths and injuries in the United States and similar actions in Great Britain.  When sought by Dominion journalists the New Zealand agents for Parke-Davis could not be contacted.
(Dominion, December 1 1987.)

JAMA, August 5 1992, runs a full-page article reviewing a book titled Japan's Dark Side to Progress: The Struggle for Justice for Pharmaceutical Victims of Japan's Post War Economic Boom.  Takanori Goto the author was the plaintiffs' attorney in the Chloroquine retinopathy trials which lasted for many years.  The drug, which discovered in 1945 to have anti-malarial activity was used in U.S.A. in 1957 in long-term treatments of patients with arthritis.  When it caused irreversible retinopathy, which often progressed to blindness, even when the medicine was discontinued, warning letters were sent to physicians and the drug was withdrawn.  From 1961 to 1974 Chloroquine was prescribed widely in Japan without application to the Japanese Regulatory Authority on the grounds that it had previously been approved to treat malaria.  In this account of the court case for the victims of Chloroquine, Takanori Goto says the Japanese Court System is as corrupt as the Regulatory Authorities who are described as pawns of the pharmaceutical industry.  "Pharmaceutical companies" he says are "driven solely by profits, to the degree that falsifying or witholding data is common".  Goto goes on to describe the system whereby the "drug companies have begun setting aside amounts of money proportionate to sales, to use to compensate victims when drug-caused damage occurs... A sort of industry insurance".

DRUGS FOR IMPOTENCY

The drug Papaverine, prescribed for male impotency "could have dangerous and long-term side effects" a United States specialist told the AAP in Sydney.  Used by being injected into the penis as a means of producing an erection Dr Zasler said "doctors who did so could leave themselves wide open to lawsuits... It could lead to severe penis scarring as well as problems such as gangrene... which the drug sometimes induced".
(Evening Post, May 11 1988.)

DRUGS FOR CANCER

If governments are guilty of instituting immoral and incorrect laws, either to suit their own ends or in subservience to higher powers, or both, Professor Croce puts it very succinctly on pages 85-87 of Vivisection or Science - a choice to make, that others on massive scale are in on the conspiracy:

"Whole teams of people are active in an institute, that is, a complex entity comprising imposing buildings, sophisticated scientific apparatus, and staff of various professional disciplines such as doctors, biologists, chemists, physicists, administrators and subsidiary personnel.  All of these are to be found in the prestigious National Institute for Cancer in the U.S.A.."

He is referring to the revelation in an article by Giuliana Dego in the Washington Post headed "Treatment for Cancer in the U.S.A. Worse Than the Disease Itself".

This article gives horrific details of tens of thousands of patients, including many children, who have been prescribed more than 150 experimental drugs, many of which "have caused more painful deaths than the illness itself would have done".  The Washington Post revealed that the number of deaths attributable, not to cancer but to the experimental drugs which were supposed to cure it, amounts to 620.  Robert Young, administrator of the Food and Drug Administration admitted:

"There is at times little regard for human life.  In Boston a hospital used a new drug from the National Institute for Cancer on some children and in the space of a few days their kidneys failed.  Some of these drugs actually stimulate the development of tumours and cancers."

(Which means as Prof. Croce is quick to point out, that this refutes the supposition that the experimentation was carried out only on those suffering from cancer.  If patients developed cancer because of the drugs it means that they didn't have it before!  This Prof. Croce accuses is "purely and simply experimentation... blind, violent, genuine vivisection".

Prof. Croce when investigating this issue at the National Institute for Cancer was told by an official:

"Our theory is that there really must be a chemical that cures cancer.  We decided that the only way of discovering it is to keep pumping millions of these substances into the veins of human beings."

At this point it must be emphasised that the key factor in the above affair is not that the highest, most sacrosanct and affluent institutions on Earth, namely the cancer institutions, are using human beings to test their drugs, but that THEY ADMIT TO IT, for insodoing they simultaneously admit that experiments on animals are erroneous.  Abolitionists are aware that all drugs are tested on human beings and that the animal "tests" are merely a legal alibi, but the most valuable weapon in their possession is the confession, freely given by the vivisector himself, and it must be used against him over and over again.  Assuming that the reader is interested in Prof. Croce's reaction to the vivisectors' confession, and since it reflects precisely the author's belief that it must be the premise which supports all moves to end vivisection, it is copied below.  It could surely have been written with the New Zealand circumstance and NZAVS' exhaustive efforts of the past 14 years in mind:

"One might despair of struggling against such an 'establishment', or of ever undermining its dogmas.  But the Lord always lends a hand to the weakest and does so in 'unforseeable ways', as the Scriptures say.

The most unexpected help has been rendered to anti-vivisectionists by vivisectionists themselves at the very moment they decided to cross the threshold from experimenting on animals to experimenting on humans.  That amounts to confessing that experimentation on animals is useless and is precisely the affirmation which forms the basis of all anti-vivisectionist thinking.  Therefore we should like to thank our unwilling allies: we despise you for your crimes but we are grateful to you for helping us to fight you more effectively."

By coincidence whilst writing this section a timely documentary was screened on Foreign Correspondent, July 23 1992.  This gave details of a proposed controversial trial on healthy women of a breast cancer drug Tamoxifen (ICI), which regardless of its dangers, has been prescribed for years to women recovering from breast cancer surgery.  Dr Craig Henderson, Chief of Medical Oncology at the University of California in San Francisco claims the trial is "in response to public demand for a drug to prevent breast cancer".

The head of the U.S. National Women's Health Network, Dr Adrienne Fugh-Berman, with the support of 25 scientists who oppose the trial, has organised a protest to be submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, on the grounds that the proposed trial on healthy women of experimental drugs cannot be compared with surveys of diet, fluoride in the water and other factors.  Further, those alarmed at the trial claim that studies of the drug showed that it has caused serious health problems as follows:

• known increased risk of bloodclots
• known increased risk of cancer of the lining of the uterus
• suspected increases in the risk of liver cancer and abdominal tumours and
• suspected promotion of new cancers

The programme went on to say that whilst the U.S. debates the issue doctors in the United Kingdom "are conducting experiments with Tamoxifen using healthy (i.e. those not suffering from cancer) older women as guinea-pigs".  Dr Trevor Powles, of Britain's Royal Marsden Hospital, cancer specialist who is conducting the trials said in defence of his experiments:

"We may be able to show that Tamoxifen does things in test-tubes, we may be able to show that it does things in rats, and we may be able to show that Tamoxifen does things in other animals, but in the end we do not know what it does in humans.  That's it - we've got to do the experiment."

At conclusion of this documentary the presenter said "There are no plans to do the trials in New Zealand", upon which he made the astounding announcement that "healthy New Zealand women are however being used in special tests of Tamoxifen, using normal post-menopausal women, with their consent, to see if Tamoxifen will prevent bone loss".

In other words New Zealand women are being experimented upon with a drug which is known to increase risk of bloodclots and cancer of the lining of the uterus and suspected of increasing risk of liver cancer and abdominal tumours and the promotion of new cancers!

Three points spring to mind from this programme:

1. The bonanza of profits for the drug company and their vivisectors if multitudes of healthy women can be enticed or frightened into taking their daily wonder pill to "prevent" cancer.
2. The money that should be spent on legitimate surveys of life-style, environment, pollution, diet etc. to seek the reason for the increasing incidence of cancer - in which unfortunately for the drug companies there are no such profits.
3. If such a trial is approved and promoted - how long before similar ones are taking place as normal practice, with or without the consent or knowledge of the participant?  Pills to prevent all ills, or perhaps a single one to prevent all our sickness, which history has revealed will only serve to create further disease on large scale.

As pointed out by Professor Croce, trials of drugs on healthy human beings is the natural progression of vivisection.  It epitomises the fact that vivisection, which a few years ago conjured up thoughts of experiments on animals, now means experiments on people.

For experiments on the mouse, without a shadow of a doubt leads directly to experiments on the man (or, in this case, the unsuspecting woman).

"Animal experiments inevitably lead to human experiments."
(Dr Moneim Fadali, taped interview with Kathy Ungar.)

A substantial resume of vivisection on human beings which is horrific in content is noted in People and Animals, by Dr J. D. Whittall, published by the National Anti-Vivisection Society, London.  But warning, it pales the foregone into insignificance.

No resume of the use of animals in cancer research can be made without referring to the evidence of that giant on the subject, Dr Irwin D. J. Bross mentioned elsewhere in this work:

"From a scientific standpoint, what is pertinent is that what are called 'animal model systems' in cancer research have been a total failure... Not a single essential new drug for the treatment of human cancer was picked up by the animal model system... Thus, the tens of millions of animals killed in the mass screening for new cancer drugs died in vain... Two high-powered promoters were pushing a study which used a particular drug called '5-FU'.  They presented animal data to support their claims for using this drug on human breast cancer.  In our studies which included 5-FU, the doctors had unanimously decided to drop it because there was no sign of benefit but very serious toxicity.  In my experience it is the worst anti-cancer drug in wide use.  However, the American Cancer Society owns a piece of 5-FU.  Since the American Cancer Society hands out the dollars it isn't surprising that many physicians swear by 5-FU... While I ended up losing my ACS-paid trips to conventions at resort hotels (where research may involve wine, women and golf), this isn't why the episode rankles.  My efforts to head off the poisoning of hundreds of women with breast cancer, with a dangerous drug that could destroy their host defence systems failed.  The National Cancer Institute went right ahead with its plan to fund this deadly study and others like it.  Not a few women with breast cancer have paid with their lives for this stupidity... animal model systems not only kill animals, they also kill humans.  There is no factual evidence to show that the use of animals in cancer research has led to the prevention or cure of a single human cancer."
(Irwin D.J. Bross, PhD, Director of Biostatistics, Roswell Park Memorial Institute, Buffalo, New York, "Animals in Cancer Research: A Multi-Billion Dollar Fraud", Reprinted from Fundamental and Applied Toxicology, November 1982, Ack. to K. Ungar, U.S.A.)

DRUGS FOR INFERTILITY

Clomiphene, marketed under various trade names including Clomid and Phenate in New Zealand, is reported by Leigh Parker, Health Reporter for Wellington Dominion quoting from an article in New Scientist, likely to damage the reproductive tract of a fetus, so the female, when she reaches child-bearing age would be prone to miscarriages and premature deliveries.  Her vagina, uterus and fallopian tubes may also be malformed.  United States and Japanese researchers say these drugs are "used by thousands of women worldwide though they may affect the development of female fetuses".

The N.Z. Health Department's Medicines and Benefits Unit Principal Medical Officer, Ralph Risley says that "the risk of taking such drugs were discussed fully with patients before use".  (A tall story and highly unlikely, the volunteering of major detrimental information about drugs, by doctors prescribing them is totally outside the author's experience.)

PROFITS FROM THE LEGAL LETHAL DRIP "FREQUENT PRESCRIBER PLAN Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories gives doctors 1,000 points on American Airlines' frequent flyer program for each patient they put on the hypertension drug Inderal LA. PROFITABLE RESEARCH As part of a 'study', Roche pays doctors $1,200 if they prescribe the antibiotic Rocephin for 20 hospital patients. BIG-SHOT PROGRAM In return for purchasing vaccines, Connaught Labs awards points redeemable for VCRs, personal computers and TVs. COMPUTER FREEBIE Consortium of 10 drug companies provides doctors with free $35,000 computer systems if they spend 20 minutes a week reviewing 'promotional messages' and 'clinical information' and complete four continuing medical-education programs a year. BEACHSIDE BONUS Ciba-Geigy offers free Carribbean vacations to doctors in return for sitting in on a few lectures about Estraderm, an estrogen patch." (Senate Committee on Labour and Human Resources hearings, December 1990, Time Magazine, March 18 1991.)

DRUGS FOR AIDS

• "The AIDS drug Zidovudine causes blood toxicity, sever anaemia and damages bone marrow, people with liver or kidney problems have a greater risk of toxicity from Zidovudine."
  (Drug Facts and Comparisons, Lippincott, 1988.)

---

• "AZT (Zidovudine) is very very destructive to healthy cells.  A very dangerous drug."
  (Medical Journal of Australia, reported in Wellington Dominion, March 22 1989.)

Liberator (BUAV), March 1988, reported development of over 80 different AIDS drugs and 25 vaccines - all by rival drug companies.  Wellcome's Retrovir claims to hold the "virus" at bay although with risk of serious side effects.  The Independent, U.K. wrote:

• "At a treatment cost of 4,500 pounds sterling per patient each year, the arithmetic begins to look exciting - By 1991 the drug could be contributing 750 million pounds sterling per year to Wellcome's sales and 250 million pounds sterling to profits."

---

• "Even when a drug has been subjected to a complete and adequate pharmacologic investigation on several species of animals and found it to be non-toxic it is frequently found that such a drug may show unexpected toxic reactions in diseased human beings... it is known that idiosyncrasies occur in normal human beings and so far this has not been predicted by animal experimentation."
  (E.K. Marshall, PhD, M.D., Journal of the American Medical Association, January 28 1939.)

Refer also to Chapter 9 AIDS.

DRUGS FOR MORNING SICKNESS

Refer to comprehensive article in Section 1 of this Chapter.

DRUGS FOR MENINGITIS

"The drug prescribed to combat the outbreak of meningitis has a number of unwelcome side-effects, including inhibiting the effectiveness of oral contraceptives."

In an article titled "Meningitis Drug has Side-Effects", Evening Post, April 23 1992, the drug Rifampicin was highly criticised.  Along with other adverse effects it "turns urine bright orange, similarly tears and perspiration".  Prescriptions of Rifampicin have been discontinued across the country.

DRUGS FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASES

"The chief credit for the conquest of the destructive epidemics ought to have been given to the social reformers who had campaigned for purer water, better sewage disposal and improved living standards.  It had been their efforts, rather than the achievements of the medical scientists which had been chiefly responsible for the reduction in mortality from infectious diseases."
(Brian Inglis, Diseases of Civilization, Paladin, 1983.)

By surveying different communities, social reformers discovered that people who lived in dirty, overcrowded and insanitary conditions with little food or clean water were the most likely to die of infectious disease.  These human population studies were used to influence sanitary reforms with the result that deaths from almost all the infectious diseases were declining long before specific drugs or vaccines were produced.
(Dr R. Sharpe, The Cruel Deception: The Use of Animals in Medical Research.)

In 1971 Edward Kass, President of the Infectious Disease Society of America described the decline of infection disorders and the correlation with improving socioeconomic conditions as "the most important happening in the history of man".
(E.H. Kass, Journal of Infectious Disease, Vol. 123, 1971, pages 110-114.)

In 1952, 4,000 chronic bronchitis sufferers died within 4 days in London.  Human epidemiological studies had shown the link between atmospheric pollution and sickness and deaths from chronic bronchitis, and in 1956 the Clean Air Act was passed.  Following this date deaths from bronchitis started to decline in line with the reduction of smoke in the atmosphere... by 1970 deaths from bronchitis had fallen by 80%.
(W.W. Holland and A.H. Wainwright, Epidemiologic Reviews, Vol. 1, 1979, pages 211-232.)

"It is estimated that in 1977 - 120,366 patients were discharged from or died in hospital in the U.K. due to the adverse effects of medicinal agents."
(Sir George Young, U.K. Health Minister, 1980, Outrage, February/March 1990.)

The following is taken from the medical textbook Iatrogenic (Doctor Induced) Diseases:

"It is now widely reported that 18% of hospital beds in Great Britain are occupied by people suffering toxic damage from drugs and in excess of 7,000 prescription drug deaths are reported each year.  In the United States it was reported as far back as 1985 that one in seven hospital beds are taken up by patients under treatment for adverse reactions caused by drugs."

The following tables are taken from Animals Defender, November/December 1985:

"It is commonly known that only 16% of doctors report adverse effects on their patients."
(Outrage, October/November 1986.)

"When a medicine has been shown to be harmless for 15 different animal species, including primates, who is to say it will also be harmless for man?  But to put it the other way round is also valid: when a medicine has been shown to be poisonous for 15 animal species, who is to say that it will be equally poisonous for man?"
(Dr A.L. Bachrach, Research Laboratories of Wellcome Chemicals, quoted in Quantitative Method in Human Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Edition Pergamon Press, 1959.)

On December 13 1975 under the title "The Medicine Bluff" an interview was published in the French weekly Paris-Match with Dr Henri Pradal, a specialist in pharmaceutical toxicology of whom Paris-Match stated:

"Henri Pradal spent twelve years in the camp of the industrial laboratories before leaving it in order to say what he could no longer keep silent about."

Hans Ruesch, who reproduced extracts of the above interview on pages 88-89 of One Thousand Doctors (and many more) Against Vivisection, says that what Dr Pradal told Paris-Match applies to all the industrialised nations:

"The medical profession is not informed, or, rather, it is instructed almost exclusively by the journals and brochures from the laboratories, and thus by advertising.

When the people finally discover the cause of the illnesses, the sale of medicaments will abruptly drop.  But we must first get them to understand it."

Ruesch, in his usual inimitable style comments of the above:

"Dr Pradal forgot to explain that the fraudulent 'safety-tests' on animals were what lay behind the whole swindle."

AUTHOR'S COMMENT

At this juncture it should be obvious from the foregone, even to the sceptic, that vivisection as an institution exists solely for the benefit of the vivisectors and their satellites, despite mass holocaust of animals and the inherent tragedies suffered, sometimes unknowingly, unacknowledged and unidentified, by the human race.  Out of context, but perhaps relevant at this point the author will now deal with ARSL's statement which reads on page 7 thus:

"Much as we love animals, no human being should ever be put at risk because of a reluctance to do the tests on animals that are needed."

And so true to form, the publishers of ARSL in refusing to acknowledge that the ongoing world-opposition to vivisection is based by doctors against vivisection on the fact that its results are disastrous to the human race, they perpetuate the myth that such opposition springs from widespread concern about animal suffering.  A very convenient error which will never be effective in ending vivisection but absolutely guarantees its continuance.

The author allows Professor Croce to give the official answer on behalf of the new abolitionist movement of medical professionals, of which he is a leading figure, and with whom the author, has the honour to work in conjunction:

Footnotes

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