ANIMAL RESEARCH T A K E S LIVES
- Humans and Animals BOTH Suffer
<< previous page | next page >>
contents | Chapter 1 index | index
To best understand and appreciate this book the reader should be aware that its contents are constrained to rebutting the claims made in Animal Research Saves Lives. The author therefore recommends that it be read in conjunction with the booklet, which can be viewed by selecting this link.
Animal Research Saves Lives began being distributed widely in New Zealand in November 1990. It was produced jointly by the New Zealand pro-vivisection community as follows:
New Zealand is not alone in launching its cleverly orchestrated campaign to combat the growing abolitionist movement. In England on April 27 1991 The Imperial Cancer Research Fund and The Research Defence Society introduced a scheme through which the biomedical community introduces, on a large scale, representatives to speak in schools and colleges to educate children about "the importance of animal experiments". It is also arranging regional "education" meetings with their teachers. The Daily Telegraph, London, April 27 1991.
In May 1991 the British Association for the Advancement of Science promoting medical research using animals began distributing a "declaration" compiled to promote animal experimentation. Signed by over one thousand medical research organisations the declaration is now targeted to scientists and doctors, the latter being pressured to display literature and posters in their waiting-rooms promoting animal research. The Doctor, Guilford, May 23 1991.
In August 1991 the Wellcome Trust, Imperial Cancer Research Fund, Cancer Research Campaign, British Heart Foundation, Cystic Fibrosis Research Trust, Multiple Sclerosis Society, Muscular Dystrophy Group and Action Research launched the Research for Health Charities Group (RHCG). According to the Chairman of the Group who is also the Director of the Wellcome Trust, as well as attempting to restore public support for animal experiments, convincing schoolchildren of the need for animal research was high on the Group's agenda. "The anti-vivisectionists have targeted young people so successfully", she declared:
"That students are coming into vet school saying they want nothing to do with experiments on animals". - (Annual Review of Advocates for Animals, 1991.)
In the U.S.A. in order to quell mounting public criticism and anger about the appalling number of animals done to death in vivisection laboratories in that country, a Petition has been launched to the Congress of the United States seeking continued funding for experiments on animals on the grounds that those committed to abolishing vivisection "would put millions of Americans out of work by closing any business or industry that entails the use of animals".
Gigantic pro-vivisection promotion, propaganda and publicity is not the only weapon being used against the growing move to abolish vivisection. Other intimidating tactics include the blacklisting for jobs of those in any way aligned to the abolitionist movement, threats and physical attacks on those who speak out against the vivisection conspiracy (Hans Ruesch's Civis Foundation Report, Nr 12) and there is widespread suppression of the news... This is particularly obvious in New Zealand where it is now the accepted fact that World Day for Laboratory Animals marches of 400 to 500 people through the country's capital city go unreported, as have other demonstrations and campaigns on a regular basis. For example on WDLA April 24 1992 approximately 400 people bearing banners condemning General Motors for crash-testing their vehicles on animals, marched to the firm in a strong and extremely visually effective demonstration. This did not receive a mention in the media and though televised, as was the previous year's march to Parliament which included a spectacular display of simulated victims of drugs being pushed through the city in wheelchairs, and which though filmed in its entirety by T.V.3, was not screened. It is quite common for the public libraries not to make available to the public, abolitionist material presented to the libraries for students of the subject.
In this situation where blatant censorship against anti-vivisectionists is an unpalatable but accepted fact the news is not only suppressed, but contrived. For example those curious or concerned about vivisection are inveigled by its profiteers to make their assessment of its worth, or worthlessness, from the growing number of articles in glossy magazines which are the result of interviews between animal experimenters and willing journalists, who, if they wish to get their work published must believe without question, and certainly without a hint of challenge, these respected gods. Or, from the ongoing daily fix of articles administered to the public in almost all our newspapers, which depending for their survival on advertising revenue from agents of the vivisection industry tranquilise their unsuspecting readers with regular doses of pro-vivisection propaganda, lauding the development of potential life-saving wonder-drugs and vaccines, formulated on rats, mice, rabbits, cats, dogs, monkeys and other unlikely candidates to mimic the ailments of the human race, which are about to cure its every ill. Or, from works like Animal Research Saves Lives aimed at nipping in the bud the spillage of truth which threatening to break through the fortress of secrecy protecting this most suppressed issue of the last one hundred years, is beginning to focus the attention of the public on the fact that vivisection, far from having the slightest value, is unscientific, medically unsound and unworkable.
Though available to the knowledgeable abolitionist who does not rely on State-controlled information, many of the facts revealed in the following pages are not easily accessible to the public. It is the writer's wish that this rebuttal of the State-produced Animal Research Saves Lives, which the N.Z. Anti-Vivisection Society hopes will be placed in all educational institutions and public libraries in New Zealand, will be made available through those institutions, to students, many of whom, judging by the number of enquiries which pour into the Society's office, are intensely interested in studying the subject of animal experimentation, or, vivisection. Since the writer doubts these students will find such illuminating and consolidated evidence so easily at hand elsewhere I trust they will react to this book by applying their capabilities to expanding its theme, thus speeding up the process of public enlightenment.
The information the writer has collated is freely given by doctors expert in every conceivable field of medicine, and from medical historians, who applying their skills to the study of vivisection, conclude, as honest investigators must, not only that it is worthless, but that it is time, after a century of brainwashing, that the public learns the truth. Because of the tailor-made statements provided by these professionals, medical qualification was not essential when compiling this work. However once underway diligent application and determination to stick with the enormous task despite a vast array of set-backs, was a prerequisite of critical importance and the writer has applied considerable time, trouble and great effort in consolidating the facts as logically, correctly and truthfully as possible.
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.
Because of the courage of present-day doctors defecting from the established school of thought that vivisection brings health, it is now only a matter of time before the institutionalised practice of using animals and people as alibis to camouflage, sanitise and float despicable businesses in order to beget tainted profits, is recognised as the international conspiracy that it is, and overthrown.
In November 1990 the New Zealand pro-vivisection alliance bombarded New Zealand with its publication Animal Research Saves Lives, the lie which postulates the official and institutionalised science of vivisection as a valid foundation for health. The reader is urged to listen to, and read the facts, which herald the truth louder and clearer than can these authorities which merely echo their established doctrine because it is in their own self-interest to do so. The astute reader will also bear in mind the rigid alignment between that which ARSL's publishers promote as officially true and that which is in line with their profit-oriented policies. In the last decade it has been exposed in New Zealand that despite public dissent all official decisions and actions (which included ignoring two legally-submitted Petitions to Abolish Vivisection along with their accompanying Submissions and evidence) run parallel with the official policy that masquerades the trickery of vivisection as science.
The author asks the reader to consider why the 20th Century biomedical establishment which has the precision of modern technology at its fingertips goes to such extremes to defend animal experiments which even the vivisectors criticise as a flawed principle? Why an obsolete and ugly methodology, which pro and anti-vivisection advocates alike have established can never be conclusive, blocks the use of sophisticated and powerful techniques, which, as is briefly described in the text, were rejected, ignored, even scorned, when presented to the New Zealand medical establishment, including the Minister of Health? And why precisely, if abolitionists are "paranoid" as declared in the media, and "bizarre" as claimed in Parliament (terms the writer believes more applicable to the vivisectors than to those who oppose the practice) did the bio-medical community consider it necessary to combat their message to the extent of publishing Animal Research Saves Lives?
In conclusion, the reader who may find the work painful to digest can perhaps be drawn back on course by the thought of the desperation and the pain of the animals, which, on a daily basis, without voice, choice or hope must endure agonies we cannot even begin to imagine. A further thought could be given to the human victims who suffering the backlash of this greatest injustice of our age are so vast and ever-increasing in number that a book could be devoted to their sufferings alone. A fleeting moment could also be spent musing upon the vast gulf between pro and anti vivisectionists, for unlike the former and their literary accomplices, who hardly neutral, produced Animal Research Saves Lives because they feel challenged and threatened, and having much at stake and more to lose, are motivated entirely and without a single exception by fear and greed, neither the author nor her exceptional colleagues receive research grants, salaries, expense accounts, gratuities or other mercenary incentive. The fact that around the world innumerable others are simultaneously struggling, striving and sacrificing on a voluntary basis for this cause spotlights the supreme distinction between exponents of vivisection and exponents of abolition. It is the distinction which the author believes must eventually lead today's fighters in the war against vivisection to the success both they and the animals so richly deserve.
Included throughout ANIMAL RESEARCH T A K E S LIVES - Humans and Animals BOTH Suffer the author channels the evidence of two giants who lead today's new abolitionist movement. For the reader who is glimpsing the subject of vivisection for the first time, or for those bewildered by the baffling amount of reading springing up on the subject, the author unhesitatingly recommends that nothing is comparable to their work and nothing to be learned by reading others when one has been introduced to them. Without a doubt leaders of anti-vivisection groups who neglect to bring to their members the truth exposed by these men should be immediately investigated for their motives, along with the organisations they represent. Whilst thousands of members of honest groups will be familiar with their names the author hereunder formally introduces to the reader, those who in the book will be referred to simply as Hans Ruesch and Professor Croce.
Shocked by what he discovered, in 1974 Ruesch founded his own CENTER FOR SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION ON VIVISECTION, a publishing house dedicated exclusively to the fight against vivisection, from which he despatches regular Foundation Reports in many languages. In 1979 Ruesch's Slaughter of the Innocent was the breakthrough which altered the whole concept and course of the 'anti-vivisection movement'. Revealing that vivisection is not merely a question of cruelty to animals, but also the vital international alibi which paves the way, through fraud and conspiracy, to solid-gold profits, in Great Britain Slaughter of the Innocent lasted a few short weeks before being banned from the shelves. Abandoning his lucrative literary career Ruesch pledged to devote the remainder of his life to this cause. He has been highly successful, not only in becoming the recognised father of the new abolitionist movement, but for his many subsequent powerful works on the subject.
In 1985 Ruesch was a key figure in the Swiss Referendum Against Vivisection, when on December 18 of that year a third of the Swiss population voted in favour of abolition. In October 1987 he helped launch the first ever INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE OF DOCTORS AGAINST VIVISECTION of which he was made Honorary President. The world's most sought after exponent of abolition Ruesch undertakes a gruelling lecture circuit, debates with adversaries at symposia, addresses international congresses and is a well-known figure on European and American radio and television. He is the draw-card which leads marches and addresses rallies, always dispensing the facts as they are. Many organisations worldwide have been formed to support Hans Ruesch, whose name and rightly so, since we and future generations are in his debt, is already carved in history.
(In December 1978 the author of ANIMAL RESEARCH T A K E S LIVES - Humans and Animals BOTH Suffer founded the N.Z. Anti-Vivisection Society and thus began a long affiliation with Hans Ruesch who became the Society's Patron.)
For thirty years, from 1952 to 1982 Professor Croce was head of the laboratory of microbiological-pathological anatomy and chemo-clinical analyses at the research Hospital L. Sacco of Milan, Italy. A member of the College of American Pathologists, he is a prolific author of medical books, scientific papers and press articles. Professor Croce is still professionally active in his great contribution to the current movement of doctors against vivisection which now numbers thousands in 29 countries. Past President of the INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE OF DOCTORS AGAINST VIVISECTION, Professor Croce currently holds the position of Honorary President of DOCTORS IN BRITAIN AGAINST ANIMAL EXPERIMENTS, which was founded on March 22 1990. Participating on the circuit of international medical congresses with this fast-growing group of like-minded scientists he lectures, debates with opponents and addresses gatherings in Paris, Geneva, Lausanne, Athens, Tel Aviv, Zurich, London, Munich, Frankfurt, Holland, Brussels, Spain and the U.S.A.. Professor Croce campaigns on the urgent need to "abandon the animal model system" in medical research, which he and his medical colleagues say is "the wrong methodology".
A former believer in animal experiments Professor Croce writes in his latest book Vivisection or Science - a choice to make:
"The proposition is made... Let us take the animal as the experimental model for the human being. But here at once comes the first objection: Which animal? The mouse? The dog? And why not the rhinoceros or the warthog?... There are over three hundred thousand animal species on our planet, not one of which is a model for man. It only needs the appropriate animal species to produce the desired result."
At a recent conference Professor Croce declared:
"If I still believed in the usefulness of animal experiments, I would say: Let's do them. However, I've come to realize that they are not only useless, but moreover highly damaging for medical science, owing to their unreliable results. So if I advocate the abolition of vivisection it is not because I am concerned about animal suffering, but out of my concern for human health."
Photo: Advocate for Animals
Prof. P. Croce: Promoter of Scientific Anti-Vivisectionism