Animal Testing

Here are a few doctors who do not agree that "Vivisection is a safer alternative to human testing.'

Species difference makes it impossible for medicine for one species to be based on any other species or variety of species. Humans and animals only get the same diseases 1.16% of the time. Humans now have 30,000 diseases yet about 60 million animals are killed in medical 'research' each year. Why is nothing cured? How did we get 30,000 diseases? The hundreds of thousands of artificial substances that we consume or come into contact with pass a fraudulent test, ie they are tested on other species of animals, this protects the financial health of the drug/chem co's via legal protection at the expense of our physical health and that of the environment.

Imagine this... a cat is sick with a feline (cat) disease. We want to help the cat. It is suggested that we observe the sick cat. This gets no funding. It is then suggested that we observe the population of cats to find why some get this disease and others do not and to then eliminate the cause. This also gets no funding. Then it is suggested that we get other animals which do not and cannot get this disease, we artificially induce symptoms in these healthy animals (eg dog, mouse human) and then try to 'cure' them. This is called an 'animal model' and it has no correlation to the real disease so the 'cure' does not work. This is why despite billions of dollars and millions of animals killed no human diseases are being cured despite constant claims of breakthroughs

"The reason why I am against animal research is because it doesn't work, it has no scientific value and every good scientist knows that."

- Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, M.D., 1986, Head of the Licensing Board for the State of Illinios, paediatrician & gynaecologist for 30 years, medical columnist & best-selling author, recipient of numerous awards for excellence in medicine.

"Since there is no way to defend the use of animal model systems in plain English or with scientific facts, they resort to double-talk in technical jargon...The virtue of animal model systems to those in hot pursuit of the federal dollars is that they can be used to prove anything - no matter how foolish, or false, or dangerous this might be. There is such a wide variation in the results of animal model systems that there is always some system which will 'prove' a point....The moral is that animal model systems not only kill animals, they also kill humans. There is no good factual evidence to show that the use of animals in cancer research has led to the prevention or cure of a single human cancer."

- Dr. D.J. Bross, Ph.D., 1982, former director of the largest cancer research institute in the world, the Sloan-Kettering Institute, then Director of Biostatics, Roswell Memorial Institute, Buffalo, NY.

"Practically all animal experiments are untenable on a statistical scientific basis, for they possess no scientific validity or reliability. They merely perform an alibi for pharmaceutical companies, who hope to protect themselves thereby."

- Herbert Stiller, M.D. & Margot Stiller, M.D., 1976.

"Like every member of my profession, I was brought up in the belief that almost every important fact in physiology had been obtained by vivisection and that many of our most valued means of saving life and diminishing suffering had resulted from experiments on the lower animals. I now know that nothing of the sort is true concerning the art of surgery: and not only do I not believe that vivisection has helped the surgeon one bit, but I know that it has often led him astray."

- Prof. Lawson Tait, M.D., 1899, Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (F.R.C.S.), Edinburgh & England. Hailed as the most distinguished surgeon of his day, the originator of many of surgery's modern techniques, and recipient of numerous awards for medical excellence.

"Experiments have never been the means for discovery; and a survey of what has been attempted of late years in physiology will prove that the opening of living animals has done more to perpetuate error than to confirm the just views taken from the study of anatomy and natural motions."

- Sir Charles Bell, M.D., 1824, F.R.C.S., discoverer of "Bell's Law" on motor and sensory nerves.

"Atrocious medical experiments are being done on children, mostly physically and handicapped ones, and on aborted foetuses, given or sold to laboratories for experimental purposes. This is a logical development of the practice of vivisection. It is our urgent task to accelerate its inevitable downfall."

- Prof. Pietro Croce, M.D., 1988, internationally renowned researcher, former vivisector.

"Vivisection is barbaric, useless, and a hindrance to scientific progress. I learned how to operate from other surgeons. It's the only way, and every good surgeon knows that."

- Dr. Werner Hartinger, 1988, surgeon of thirty years, President of German League of Doctors Against Vivisection (GLDAV).

"Normally, animal experiments not only fail to contribute to the safety of medications, but they even have the opposite effect."

- Prof. Dr. Kurt Fickentscher, 1980, of the Pharmacological Institute of the University of Bonn, Germany.

"Experiments on animals lead inevitably to experiments on people...As if an animal experiment could ever predict the same result on a person. And as if an experiment on one human being could enable us to foresee the reactions of another human being, whose biology and metabolism are different, whose blood pressure is different, whose lifestyle and age and nourishment and sensitivity and genes and everything else are different...We recognise that each single organism, whether human or animal, has its very own reactions...Today's orthodox medicine and suppressive surgery don't understand the purpose of disease and therefore don't know how to treat it. A real doctor's experience derives from his natural intuition coupled with his observation at the sickbed, but never from invasive, violent experiments on people, and much less on animals. Instead of vital hygiene, which aims at preservation or reconstruction of health by natural means and shuns all use of degrading, destructive chemicals, today's medical students are only taught to manipulate poisons and mutilate bodies. We demand that this be changed."

- Prof. Andre Passebecq, M.D., N.D., D.Psyc., 1989, Faculty of Medicine of Paris, then President of the International League of Doctors Against Vivisection (ILDAV).

"Giving cancer to laboratory animals has not and will not help us to understand the disease or to treat those persons suffering from it."

- Dr. A. Sabin, 1986, developer of the oral polio vaccine.

"Everyone should know that most cancer research is largely a fraud, and that the major cancer research organisations are derelict in their duties to the people who support them."

- Linus Pauling, PhD, 1986, two time Nobel Prize Winner.

"Not only are the studies themselves often lacking even face value, but they also drain badly needed funds away from patient care needs."

- Dr. Neal Barnard, M.D., 1987, President of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), Washington.

"All our current knowledge of medicine and surgery derives from observations of man following especially the anatomical-clinical method introduced by Virchow: symptoms of the patient while alive and the alterations found in the dead body. These observations have led us to discover the connection between smoking and cancer, between diet and arteriosclerosis, between alcohol and cirrhosis, and so on. Even the RH factor was not discovered on the macasus rhesus. The observations of Banting and Best on diabetes, attributed to experiments on dogs, were already well-known. Every discovery derives from observations on humans, which are subsequently duplicated in animals, and whenever the findings happen to concur, their discovery is attributed to animal experimentation. Everything we know today in medicine derives from observations made on human beings. The ancient Romans and Greeks gained most of their knowledge from epidemiological studies of people. The same goes for surgery. Surgery can't be learned on animals. Animals are anatomically completely different from man, their reactivity is completely different, their structure and resistance are completely different. In fact, exercises on animals are misleading. The surgeon who works a lot on animals loses the sensibility necessary for operating on humans."

- Prof. Bruno Fedi, M.D., 1986, Director of the City Hospital of Terni, Italy, anatomist, pathologist, specialist in urology, gynaecology and cancerology.

"My own conviction is that the study of human physiology by way of experimenting on animals is the most grotesque and fantastic error ever committed in the whole range of human intellectual activity."

- Dr. G.F. Walker, 1933.

"Why am I against vivisection? The most important reason is because it's bad science, producing a lot of misleading and confusing data which pose hazards to human health. It's also a waste of taxpayer's dollars to take healthy animals and artificially and violently induce diseases in them that they normally wouldn't get, or which occur in different form, when we already have the sick people who can be studied while they're being treated."

- Dr. Roy Kupsinel, M.D., 1988, medical magazine editor, USA.

"It is well known that animal effects are often totally different from the effects on people. This applies to substances in medical use as well as substances such as 245y and dioxin."

- A.L. Cowan, M.D., 1985, Acting Medical Officer of Health, New Plymouth, N. Z.

"The growing opposition to vivisection is understandable both on ethical and biological counts. However, a certain scientistic culture says they serve to save human lives. But reality is quite the opposite. Let's take the case of pesticides. These dangerous products, used in agriculture, are classified according to their acute toxicity, graduated with the Lethal Dose 50% tests on animals. This represents not only a useless sacrifice of animals, but it's an alibi that enables the chemical industry to sell products which are classified as harmless or almost harmless, but are in reality very harmful in the long run, even if taken in small doses. Many pesticides classified as belonging to the fourth category, meaning they can be sold and used freely, have turned out to be carcinogenic or mutagenic or capable of harming the fetus. Also in this case, animal tests are not only ambiguous, but they serve to put on the market products of which any carcinogenic effect will be ascertained only when used by human beings - the real guinea-pigs of the multinationals. And yet there are laboratory tests that can be used, which are cheaper and quicker than animal tests; in vitro tests on cell cultures, which have been proving their worth for years already. But the interests of the chemical industries which foist on us new products in all fields may not be questioned."

- Prof. Gianni Tamino, 1987, biologist at Padua University, a Congressman in the Italian Parliament.

"Animal model systems differ from their human counterparts. Conclusions drawn from animal research, when applied to human beings, are likely to delay progress, mislead, and do harm to the patient. Vivisection, or animal experimentation, should be abolished."

- Dr. Moneim Fadali, M.D., 1987, F.A.C.S., Diplomat American Board of Surgery and American Board of Thoracic Surgery, UCLA faculty, Royal College of Surgeons of Cardiology, Canada.

"Experiments on animals do not only mean torture and death for the animals, they also mean the killing of people. Vivisection is a double-edged sword."

- Major R.F.E. Austin, M.D., 1927, Royal College of Surgeons, Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians.

Cawadias (1953) has said that "The history of medicine has shown that, whenever medicine has strayed from clinical observation, the result has been chaos, stagnation and disaster."

(British Medical Journal, October 8 1955, p.867.)

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The above quotes were taken from the book 1000 Doctors (& many more) Against Vivisection, (Ed. Hans Ruesch), CIVIS, 1989.

For further information or to purchase the book contact Hans Ruesch Foundation/CIVIS - POB 152, via Motta 51, CH-6900 Massagno/Lugano, Switzerland

German researchers Drs H and M Stiller, "In praxis, all animal experiments are scientifically indefensible, as they lack any scientific validity and reliability in regard to humans. They only serve as an alibi for the drug manufacturers, who hope to protect themselves thereby". Peter Tatchell, "Animal Research Is Bad Science", 2001.

Nobel Prize winner Sir Ernst Boris Chain, under oath at a hearing investigating the Thalidomide tragedy, said, "No animal experiment with a medicament, even if it is carried out on several animal species including primates under all conceivable conditions, can give any guarantee that the medicament tested in this way will behave in the same way in humans; because in many respects the human is not the same as the animal". Tony Page, Vivisection Unveiled, Jon Carpenter Publishing, 1997, p. 103.

Thalidomide only causes birth defects in 3 of the 63 species it was finally tested on.

www.caare.org.UK

Well firstly animal testing is the not the most helpful thing people can do to find the cure for any disease (perhaps not, but you offer no viable alternative).

* === Here are a few substitution methods: human cell and tissue culture, computer simulations, epidemiological and clinical studies, DNA microchips (that simulate the human metabolism for drugs), IRM scanners.. see the film at Safer Medicines link for more info. === === === * === Real scientific methods must replace animal testing. Animal testing is not only irrelevant for humans but very dangerous. There can be dreadful side effects to our animal tested medicine (4th cause of death in modern countries, just after cancer, heart attacks and strokes) and health research is wasting money and time on animals. (For 50 years they've been 'very close' to finding a cure for cancer...) ===

yes and also they should probably be testing it on plants, or something that is not going to be missed on our planet, plants are a lot less important, but still we do need them so test them on bacteria, such as chicken pox (plant cells are fundamentally different from animal cells and so would be of little or no use, chicken pox is caused by a virus) or other harmful bacteria or germs, bacteria are single celled organisms with no nucleus and transcribe DNA very differently from animals so would be of little or no use) yes stop animal testing it's not fair what we do to them. Also even after it's tested on animals they still test it on humans anyway because our DNA is so different we react very differently Example when was the last time you met a diabetic plant, virus or bacterium? Such models would not exist, however we can breed diabetic mice or induce diabetes in mice.

* === You can test on whatever you like but the ONLY model for a human is a human. No species can be a model for another because of fundamental differences (metabolism, way of life, hormones, immunity...) ===

This is a complex question as you use the word "should". "Should" implies a moral imperative in the same way as the word "ought". Some people are happy with animal testing as it is, others would prefer no animal testing at all.

* === For human safety and for animals' respect: We MUST abolish animal testing ===

Some would argue that at present animal testing is a necessary part of drug testing. A new drug cannot ethically be tested on humans in case of detrimental effects which are not understood from preliminary trials such as cell cultures. The cells available which can be cultured are a subset of cancer cells and so do not always respond in the same ways as cells in the human body. By trialling drugs on animal models and then on people, scientists get a more accurate view on the drugs' efficiency and dosing rates. Most people would argue that animal trials should be well designed so as to yield useful information and cause the least suffering possible.

* === 92% of the drugs that were tested and validated safe on animals get chucked out during the clinical trials on human volunteers, sometimes because of the inefficiency but more generally because of the side effects. On the 8% left, those that reach you, another half of the drugs will be pulled back. Next time you get some medicine, read the side effects list and think... who's the real guinea pig? === Some would argue that animals should not be used in drug testing under any circumstances. Animals are not always good models of human biochemistry or physiology. The best animals to use in such research are higher primates as their anatomy and physiology is closest to our own. However, there is some debate as to whether higher primates should be granted rights such as autonomy which are usually reserved for humans due to their intelligence. Both sides would argue that there is a need for greater understanding of the human as an organism and that science should strive to create better non-living models on which drugs could be tested. These models could for example be computer simulations or tissue cultures of non-cancerous cells. However, as yet not enough is known about the function of the organism as a whole or cells by themselves to allow this to happen.

* === Please take a look at the links down below. Technology exists and does need more funding and promotion. Please tell people about this!

===

Its use may have saved human lives.

1. More than 100 million animals are poisoned, burned, crippled, and abused in other ways in U.S. labs each year.
2. No experiment is illegal, no matter how cruel, irrelevant to human health, redundant, or painful.
3. 95% percent of animals used for experiments are excluded from the only federal law offering any sort of protection.
4. Even when valid alternatives to animals are available, the law doesn't require that they be used.
5. 92% of experimental drugs that are safe and effective in animals fail in human clinical trials because they don't work or are dangerous.

Animal testing is one of the most horrifying ways to test products, you can go on to to the Peta website and help the animals, or just see what their about.

Animal testing. Most people dislike it because of the bad publicity it gets thanks to organisations like PETA. The fact is that without it, many of us wouldn't be alive today, neither would some of our pets. Animal testing has saved so many lives by playing a massive part in creating cures or vaccines for athsma, diabeties, cancer, TB, malaria and so on. Virtually every medical advance (and vetinary) has beeen due to animal testing and the sad thing is that people ignore that, wondering casually why the government hasn't banned it yet. It seems like common sense to dislike animal testing to a person if all that they have heard is what animal right protesters say. However these groups often skate over any positive thing about testing, for instance did you know that cosmetic (make-up) testing is illegal in the UK, the Netherlands and Belguim? That primates only make up 0.001% of animals tested on, and cats and dogs are only 0.5%? That laboritorys are checked on at least 12 times randomly throughout the year to make sure that the high standards of animal care are being kept? Or that animal care standards in labs are often better than shelters, pet stores of farms? Very few people know these things, but once you find out the complete truth, there is no reson to be against animal testing.

93% of animals in tests are under the influence of painkillers/aneasthetics, the rest of the time there is no need for them to be! This means that animals are not "tortured" during supposedly "cruel" tests, but that the tests are done very humanely and if the animal is likely to die at the end of a test it is killed as quickly as possible whilst still under the effects of painkillers/aneasthetics. So the tests are not "cruel".

Another favourite on animal rights protestors (who don't get me wrong, tend to be very nice, good intentioned people), is to say that animal testing doesn't work because of the difference in our bodies and animals bodies. This is true to some extent, we ARE different to animals, but the tests DO work because we also share some similarities with them. So where similarities occur, scientists test safely.

An additional argument against animal testing is that it is unessasary due to technology that can take it's place for a lower budget. What you need to think when you hear this is; Scientists get stress everyday from animal rights groups, if there was an alternative which was cheaper, would they use it? The answer of course is YES! But, unfortunatly, just as you can't lick your elbow, technology isn't that great yet. We live in a world where we expect it to be, but we can't have everything. There are computer methods that can immitate an animals reaction to a drug, but this isn't often reliable and quite frankly would be dangerous if relied on solely to develop and test medicines. Thanks to these machines however, the number of animals in tests has decreased by half in the past 40 years. But it will be a long time before machinery will be able to replace the use of animals in tests completely.

ANIMAL TESTING IS RIGHT AND WRONG

which country has made animal testing illegal?

well the answer is: UK we don't alow it in UK but companies have been very clever and tested their products abroud then sent them over to UK.

if you are very passionate about animals what do you think about this? they will ot listen but many animals are harmed by going through with this and it wasn't even the animals's faltes. is it their falte they can't talk English or German or etc. parrots are exeptional(they copy you ) but we the people have to speak for them- for those who can not talk. because they need our help. now lets all pul in and help them.

the rest of the EU wil join the UK in illegalness next year so that's good(2009) but i think that there still will be illegallness people who wil not take no for an answer. but together we can stop this from happening to our friends in cages.

to animals. we love you! by neira(14)

H2O is what we are. so help because water helped us

Yes.

In the US, under the Animal Welfare Act and the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, any procedure can be performed on an animal if it can be argued that it is scientifically justified.

Research facilities are obliged to consider alternatives, ensure the experiments are not unnecessarily repetitive and that adequate pain relief is given (if it will not interfere with the study).