The following is taken from Mobilise! 36, July 1993, the newsletter of the New Zealand Anti-Vivisection Society (Inc.), pages 7-9.

"Tomorrow, in many countries of the world, hundreds and thousands of people will be taking to the streets to voice their protest at the continuance of animal experimentation... or... to give it its correct name - VIVISECTION.

For 15 long years the N.Z. Anti-Vivisection Society has struggled in vain for justice and a fair Hearing through the Parliamentary system.  Two particularly bitter experiences spring to mind:

• The first in 1983, when NZAVS submitted to Parliament a Petition of 64 thousand signatures to Abolish the Lethal Dose 50 Toxicity test in which the Society presented evidence from international medical and scientific authorities that the procedure, which involves poisoning animals to death on mass scale, is carried out, not for medical, but for commercial and legal purposes.  Though the Hearing of this Petition resulted in a recommendation for favourable consideration, the test was not abolished, but placed under the auspices of specially set up 'ethics committees'... committees which are formed by vivisectors, composed of vivisectors, and wherein every aspect of animal experimentation is decided, judged and monitored by vivisectors - in an absolutely watertight and deliciously comfortable and lucrative peer review system.

  The 'ethics committees' are sanitised by the presence of representatives of the RNZSPCA and other 'chosen' lay-persons, who, to quote from the guidelines, must be suitable, well-rounded, respected, and trusted by the community... in other words their function is not to act in the interests of the animals, but as pacifiers between vivisection and the public conscience.  This system is now the New Zealand Law.  A LAW WHICH IS AS DISGRACEFUL AS IT IS ARCHAIC.

• The second bitter experience came six years later in 1989 when NZAVS petitioned Parliament for the abolition of all vivisection on the grounds that it is scientifically and medically fraudulent.  Once again the Society accumulated and presented evidence and affidavits from thousands of highly prestigious doctors.  This Petition signed by 100,640 New Zealand citizens was ignored by the Government which 'did not have time' to read the Submissions, 'did not have time' to hear the witnesses, and apparently did not have time to send the outcome of the Petition to our Society, for to this day, four years after the event, we have never received the result of the Petition, despite many appeals to the Prime Minister and to the Chairman of the Primary Production Select Committee - Mr Ross Meurant.

This then briefly is the Society's history and horrifying experience with the Parliamentary legal system.  Today, to commemorate World Day for Laboratory Animals 1993, we are therefore NOT launching a third Petition, we are launching a book - a book which in addition to detailing the truth about the fraud of vivisection being one of the most lucrative industries on Earth, which operates not for health but for profit, also gives the truth about the fraud of the Parliamentary system, which is closed to abolitionists simply because our policies are not in line with the profit-oriented policies of the State, which upholds vivisection because of the financial, political and academic benefits it represents.  Vivisection is not about guarding and promoting the health of the people as its champions would have us believe - but about guarding and promoting those who profit from the vivisection industry.

WHY EXACTLY did we produce this book?  Why bother to undertake two years' gruelling and exhaustive effort to document, with meticulously detailed evidence, the blatant fraud and corruption of today's medical establishment, which, aided and abetted by Governments, seriously expect and urges otherwise intelligent people to believe that our health can be improved, restored, or in any way bettered by creating dis-ease, damage, misery, torture and death in animals?

We produced this book because the Government - which did not have time to give us a Hearing - found enough time to produce a booklet in response to our Petition which they titled Animal Research Saves Lives - Humans and Animals Both Benefit.  This booklet suddenly and mysteriously in November 1990 began being widely distributed through the mailing system of MAF's offices.  It was targeted to radio stations, newspapers, the media, public hospitals, doctors, colleges, veterinarians, in short, to everyone who is in a position to shape public opinion.  It was designed expressly to destroy the abolitionists' cause in New Zealand.  MAF's co-producers of the booklet in which not one of the claims is evidenced or substantiated, are:

• The Cancer Society of N.Z.
• The Medical Research Council of N.Z.
• The N.Z. Heart Foundation
  and
• The Agricultural Chemical and Animal Remedies Manufacturers Association of N.Z. (AGCARM).

The AGCARM association is, when investigated, extremely interesting, for when scrutinised it is exposed as the multinational conglomerate whose individual names include:

• Dow
  Vivisectors... producers of Debendox anti-nausea drug which resulted in malformed babies on major scale around the world.  Producers of the killer defoliant 2,4,5-T.
   

 
• Upjohn
  Vivisectors... producers of Halcion - taken off the market for causing damage, destruction and misery.  Producers of Depo-Provera, an injectable contraceptive administered without the knowledge of the patient - ruined the lives of thousands of women... 'tested' on beagle dogs... which endured long lingering death.
• Du Pont
  On April 13 1988 - patent number 4736866, the first ever allowed for a living mammal.  Du Pont's modified mouse could not be patented as 'animal' because only inventions qualified for a patent.  So the mouse became an invention and the patent was approved.
• Monsanto
  Producers of Aspartame a sweetener described as an 'imminent health hazard causing blindness, loss of memory, convulsions and Alzheimer's disease...' according to the director of the Palm Beach Institute for Medical Research.
• Boehringer Ingleheim
  Vivisectors - producers of the asthma aerosol inhaler Fenoterol... removed from the market for killing people (ironically on WDLA 1991).
• ICI
  Secret testing of dyes, paints, industrial and agricultural chemicals on over one hundred thousand animals a year.  Tests dyes and antioxidants on beagle dogs.  Administers weed-killer to monkeys - all of which die in extreme agony.
• Shell Chemicals
  Vivisectors on major scale.
• Ciba Geigy
  Vivisectors, who in one stroke killed or paralysed THIRTY THOUSAND PEOPLE in Japan alone with their diarrhoea drug - Clioquinol.  Admitted to using children (Egyptian) in field trials of chemicals.
• SmithKline Beecham
  Animal torturers of the highest order.  Poison beagle dogs to death in experiments unimaginable to sane people... Similarly rats, mice, hamsters, guinea-pigs and rabbits.

Photographs: A & D: Bruce Grenville B & C: Dominic Hammond

All the foregone co-producers of this petty, deceitful, fraudulent and evil booklet - without a single exception are linked by a vital common denominator, that being the absolute necessity of maintaining vivisection, euphemistically known as 'animal research', acceptable to, unopposed and unchallenged by the public, for vivisection is the key to their profits.

Would you trust your health to people like the Agricultural Chemical and Animal Remedies Association of Vivisectors WHO DARE TO TELL US THAT... Animal Research SAVES Lives?

Today, I have a message for our enemies.  Though we despise you for your crimes we are grateful to you for motivating us to write our book: ANIMAL RESEARCH  T A K E S  LIVES - Humans and Animals BOTH Suffer for in our book all your dirty dealings, your destruction of animal and human lives, and your filthy profits are exposed."

Select this link to view
ANIMAL RESEARCH  T A K E S  LIVES - Humans and Animals BOTH Suffer

Select this link to view
ANIMAL RESEARCH  T A K E S  LIVES - Humans and Animals BOTH Suffer