ANIMAL RESEARCH T A K E S LIVES
- Humans and Animals BOTH Suffer
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Such is the title of the written veterinary policy of the INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE OF DOCTORS AGAINST VIVISECTION. It was written by veterinarian Andrew Menache, Co-founder of Israel's first anti-vivisection league, who helped organise the International Medical Congress held in Tel-Aviv on May 15-16 1990, on behalf of the ISRAEL SOCIETY OF PHYSICIANS FOR RESPONSIBLE MEDICINE, of which he is President.
This comprehensive paper outlines veterinary therapies, none of which are dependent on vivisection and all of which are virtually free of side-effects. It was not considered by the Primary Production Committee at the Hearing of NZAVS Petition to Abolish Vivisection on March 20 1991 as NZAVS was not granted the time or the opportunity to address the issue. Conversely, orthodox veterinarians, as practising under the auspices of the Ministry of Agriculture (the co-publishers of Animal Research Saves Lives - Humans and Animals Both Benefit) were invited to make written submissions and to present oral evidence upholding the ongoing system!
| SEVENTY-FIVE per cent. of my cattle were suffering from so-called "contagious" abortion and sterility when I decided to give nature a chance in the elimination of disease from my herd. Over a period of two years I had spent nearly 100 pounds sterling in vaccination and the orthodox treatment of sterility, and the only result was more disease of all kinds, particularly the disease that was being treated. Some animals aborted as often as three times after being vaccinated against abortion, and one cow after another was declared by the orthodox veterinary practitioner to be of no further use for breeding after he had used a succession of different treatments and failed. I was advised to get some fat on the sterile animals, and sell them for slaughter to help meet the insatiable public demand for beef; and as a policy for the future to admit no animal to the herd until she was vaccinated. But I had had enough of vaccination, and decided that no treatment at all was better than throwing my limited capital down the drain, and getting deeper than ever into disease in the process. My faith in the germ theory had already been severely shaken by experiences of nature cure in my own family, and when 25 per cent. of my cows continued their normal and healthy lives amidst millions of brucella abortus, I was satisfied that the germ was not the primary factor in the cause of disease. After four or five years' working on that assumption, with the gradual elimination of so-called contagious diseases from my farm, I have come to the conclusion that bacteria are not only not the main cause of disease, but they are in fact one of nature's chief means of combating disease. For years now my farm has been manured exclusively in a natural way and the animals on the farm fed almost exclusively on crops grown on the farm. Cows and young stock have been allowed to live their lives as nearly as possible under natural conditions. After a period of time under this regime, when I found that sterile animals began to breed again, I advertised in the farming press for pedigree animals that had been declared by veterinary surgeons to be sterile and incapable of breeding; and also for animals suffering from mastitis, a disease of the udder. I was able to buy at ridiculously low prices a number of cows that would otherwise | have been sold for slaughter. They were given a period of treatment based on fasting, resting and then a diet of naturally-grown foods. With the exception of one animal, which had a psychological defect, I have cured them and brought them into production of both calves and milk. Animals that I have bought for 15 pounds sterling returned to their normal pedigree value of 100-150 pounds sterling, and are, of course, producing calves into the bargain. Tuberculosis has also been treated effectively, and animals rejected by the Ministry of Agriculture as tubercular have, after natural treatment, subsequently been re-admitted to the herd by the same Ministry, as sound, and have continued to pass the tuberculin test regularly. I have even taken the discharges of cows badly suffering from mastitis and applied the virulent bacteria to the udders of healthy cows, with no ill-effect whatever to the healthy cow. This is a disease which is said to be spread from one cow to another by invasion of the udder with bacilli, and strict germicidal measures are claimed to be the most effective preventive. My cows suffered seriously from this trouble in the days when everything to do with milking was almost continuously submerged in disinfectant. The fact is that this disease is merely a catarrhal condition of the udder brought about by feeding for high milk yields, or by feeding cows of catarrhal predisposition with foods deficient in the natural vitamins which are essential to proper functioning of the endocrine glands in the region of the udder. It is not possible, here, to go into details about the natural treatment of animal diseases, but encouraged by experiences on my own farm I started, early in 1946, the publication of The Farmer (Journal of Natural Farming and Living), which is devoted to natural methods of management and treatment of animals and the soil, as well as human living which has its basis on proper farming methods. No farmer, or small livestock owner, need fear animal diseases of any kind if he makes friends with the germs which we are taught to dread, and allows them to take their rightful place in nature's scheme of things. It is only when we persist in unnatural methods of feeding and management that these bacteria are made to combat the conditions such methods engender." |
The Abolitionist (Newsletter of the BRITISH UNION FOR THE ABOLITION OF VIVISECTION, May-June 1947, page 21.)