Getting away with Murder: Whatever happened to ‘above all, do no harm’?
Posted by thomaspainescorner on April 28, 2009
Graphic: Time To Turn The Tables by ~m7
By Jason Miller
4/27/09
“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. Irwin D.J. Bross, Ph.D., 1982, former head of research design and analysis of the largest cancer research institute in the world, the Sloan-Kettering Institute
Vivisection, the anachronistic practice of condemning nonhuman animals to the sterility, isolation, and confinement of laboratory cages and subjecting them to cutting, poking, sticking, burning, poisoning, and addicting, bears a much closer resemblance to medieval torture than to 21st century scientific research. Fittingly, vivisection’s history is rooted in medieval religious edicts that forbade the dissection of human cadavers.[1] And anthropocentrism is so deeply inculcated into our psyches that despite living in an “enlightened” age, we continue with our collective barbarism based on a church doctrine that held that rotting human corpses were more sacred than living, breathing sentient beings.
Like the primitive religious dogma that spawned it, vivisection is a relic of the past that has out-lived its usefulness, if it ever had any. From an animal liberationist’s standpoint there are no moral justifications for performing experiments on nonhuman animals, but even when considered from an intelligent hardened speciesist’s perspective, vivisection is a detrimental practice, for it is a tremendous waste of time, money and effort, and it is more of a threat to human health than it is a safeguard.
Because of the many significant anatomical, physiological, genetic, and behavioral differences between species, tests performed on nonhuman animals are only 5% to 25% accurate in terms of predicting the impact the tested drug or treatment will have on humans[2] and a 1994 study that appeared in the SCRIP report determined that only 6 of 114 substances that were toxic to humans were also toxic to nonhuman animals.[3] Nonhuman animals are extremely poor correlates for people.
According to Pro Anima of France, over a million people die prematurely in the EU each year from toxic substances introduced into their food or environment that were animal tested and deemed safe.[4]
Millions of nonhuman animals are tortured and murdered every year to ensure our “safety” when we take prescription drugs. Just how safe are we? Consider that adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are the fourth leading cause of death, 15% of hospital admissions are related to ADRs, prescription drugs kill over 100,000 people every year (more than street drugs), and ADRs cost us over $130 billion in medical expenses every year.[5]
In December of 2003, Dr. Allen Roses, worldwide vice-president of genetics for GlaxoSmithKline, the UK’s largest pharmaceutical manufacturer, admitted the severe limitations of the prescription drugs for which so many nonhuman animals are sacrificed when he stated, “The vast majority of drugs – more than 90 per cent – only work in 30 or 50 per cent of the people,” Dr Roses said. “I wouldn’t say that most drugs don’t work. I would say that most drugs work in 30 to 50 per cent of people. Drugs out there on the market work, but they don’t work in everybody.”[6]
For a host of other examples (too numerous to cite in this essay) that reveal the antiquated and crude nature of the results derived from vivisection, see the 2007 report called “Do No Harm” that was prepared by the AD-AV Society of British Columbia in September of 2007.[7]
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the most barbaric of them all?
I abhor vivisection with my whole soul. All the scientific discoveries stained with innocent blood I count as of no consequence.
––Gandhi
So why, in defiance of conscience and logic, does such a heinous and grossly ineffective research method predominate and persist? Look no further than money, the lifeblood of our pitiless, narcissistic culture of death.
Were the vivisection subjects human, angry mobs bearing torches and pitch-forks would storm the corporate and scholastic castle gates, putting the modern day Frankenstein labs out of business. But since vivisection’s victims are “mere” nonhuman animals, corporations and universities persist in inflicting unimaginable suffering on millions of sentient beings every year.[8] In doing so, they enjoy relative approval or indifference from most of the general public, and both endorsement and protection from a deeply corrupt legal system and from law enforcement entities that “protect and serve” corporations and private property above all. And when the distressingly scarce moral outrage does boil over and manifest itself as a direct action against the property of vivisectors, the FBI declares the perpetrators “domestic terrorists” and pursues them accordingly.[9]
Gandhi was right to “abhor vivisection with all [his] soul.” It is one of many extraordinarily ruthless activities that our capitalist, speciesist “civilization” encourages, enables, and, in some ways, demands. Our prevailing and predominating social, cultural, economic, and political beliefs, mechanisms, customs, traditions, and myths inform and drive our collective alienation from, hatred towards, and fear of nature, nonhuman animals, and ultimately, ourselves and each other.
It’s true, as many argue, that capitalism wasn’t the progenitor of oppression and exploitation. It is merely the latest (and most effective) means by which humanity legitimizes and implements them. With the dawn of “civilization” about 10,000 years ago, we humans began fetishizing our intellectual prowess and tenaciously clinging to the delusion that we are superior beings with the right to dominate the Earth and its other inhabitants. Rather than following anything close to a straight and narrow moral path with respect to our nonhuman animal brethren, delusions of grandeur and a pathological self-centeredness have left the human species stumbling about like a drunken sailor, kicking, stabbing, crushing, using, abusing, and eating virtually any other sentient being unfortunate enough to find itself in our path.
Money is the root of this evil
Our species lost its way long ago and vivisection is a symptom of the diseased way in which we interact with the world around us. Thanks to the twin socioeconomic foundations of speciesism and capitalism, vivisectors, their patrons, and their beneficiaries are, in many instances, psychologically, legally, and socially “justified,” and their despicable efforts are highly lucrative, thus ensuring the malignant persistence of vivisection.
Despite exciting breakthroughs in genetics and other areas of science, and the rapid development of technologies that make vivisection antiquated and obsolete, it persists, not because it brings “truth,” but rather because it is highly profitable up and down throughout the long chain of “research.” There is tremendous peer-pressure and academic inertia to continue confining and torturing other sentient beings without their consent for several reasons, but aside from the facts that vivisection is a deeply entrenched orthodoxy which is handed down from one generation of researchers to the next and that nonhuman animal research is easily published (no small incentive to practice it in the ‘publish or perish’ environments of universities), vivisection generates and protects income.
While many vivisectors and their supporters assert that nonhuman animal research is a noble endeavor that has saved millions of human animal lives over the years, the reality is that vivisection is an undeniably cruel practice that produces abysmal results.
Vanity trumps empathy: David Jentsch, a notorious vivisector, is obviously more concerned with his next eyebrow wax than with the pain he inflicts upon the vervet monkeys he torments.
Yet, vivisection continues to be highly regarded and heavily promoted within the mainstream medical and scientific communities, as many universities have come to depend mightily upon the multi-million dollar grants they receive to fund nonhuman animal research, even that which is frivolous or redundant. Take UCLA for example. At the time of this writing, it is widely known that one of their despicable vivisectors, David Jentsch, addicts vervet monkeys to PCP and methamphetamines, an obviously perverse thing to do to another sentient being. Yet Jentsch and UCLA are pressing on, even in the face of militant direct action undertaken by groups like the Animal Brigade and the Justice Department.
For a more detailed examination of the graft that propels universities to continue torturing nonhuman animals, read “Granting Wishes: The Truth Behind Why We Vivisect Animals”[10] by Michael Budkie, the director of Stop Animal Exploitation NOW.
Big Pharma, one of the largest supporters and beneficiaries of nonhuman animal research, uses its significant influence—an influence derived from deep pockets and even deeper incestuous relationships with legislators, government regulators, peer-reviewed medical journals, publicly funded institutions, and doctors[11]—to sustain the lie that it would be impossible to innovate and market new prescription drugs without vivisection. Poison Pill, a book by Tom Nesi, provides an industry insider’s deconstruction of how Merck was able to bring Vioxx, a drug that has potentially killed tens of thousands of people, to market.[12] To these leviathan pharmaceutical corporations, vivisection’s barbarity and inefficacy are irrelevant. To ensure the uninterrupted flow of their immense profits, they need scientists to torture and murder nonhuman animals to accelerate the drug approval process, to give consumers the illusion of safety, and to shield themselves from tort liability.[13]
And let’s not forget the host of ancillary business entities that exploit nonhuman animals via vivisection to generate their sacrosanct profits. These include companies that breed (or capture) and sell nonhuman animal research subjects to vivsectors,[14] companies that perform vivisection as a form of outsourcing,[15] cage manufacturers, scientific equipment makers, and many others. There are droves of people who are more than happy to enable the intense suffering of sentient being so they can reap their profits.
Excrement by any other name would smell as foul….
Like most corrupt and malevolent industries (i.e. agribusiness and tobacco), the animal research complex has its own corporate-financed front groups to peddle its propaganda to the public, extolling its alleged virtues and justifying its miserable existence. Americans for Medical Progress is one such group. Their website states:
“Americans for Medical Progress (AMP) protects society’s investment in research by nurturing public understanding of and support for the humane, necessary and valuable use of animals in medicine. Threats by animal rights extremists hurt medical progress. AMP provides accurate and incisive information to foster a balanced public debate on the animal research issue, ensuring that among the voices heard are those whose lives have been touched by research and those who work in the field. Through various specialty publications, outreach initiatives and the media, AMP informs the public of the facts of animal-based research. AMP also distributes timely and relevant news, information and analysis about animal rights extremism to the research community through its news service. AMP is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity supported by the nation’s top universities, private research facilities, research-related businesses, scientific and professional societies, as well as by foundation grants.”
Abbott Laboratories, AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Wyeth, and GlaxoSmithKline have representatives on AMP’s board of directors to protect the interests of Big Pharma. Charles River Laboratories, the vivisection industry’s number one supplier of nonhuman animals for testing, has been described as the “General Motors of the laboratory animal industry.” According to SourceWatch, nearly all of the corporations and universities on the board of AMP have been under fire for serious animal welfare violations.[16]
AMP also supports the allegedly grassroots group, Speaking of Research, which held a rally supporting vivisection at UCLA on April 22, 2009. In that nauseating spectacle the unapologetic monkey-torturer, David Jentsch, and industry shill Tom Holder, the “founder” of Speaking of Research and a “founding member” of Pro-Test in the UK, whipped a crowd of adoring sycophants into a frenzy with a chant calling for animal testing.
Speaking of Research’s website states that they are a “campus-oriented group that seeks to provide university students and faculty with accurate information and resources about the importance of animal research in medical science.”
It goes on to state:
“Inspired by the successful British student movement “Pro-test” (www.pro-test.org.uk), Speaking of Research aims to change the tide of the controversial animal rights debate by encouraging students and scientists to speak out in favor of the lifesaving research developed with animals.
Pro-test’s experiences have shown that an informed public will rally together against animal rights extremism and come out to support scientists in their use of animals in lifesaving biomedical research. Recent polls in the UK suggest that public support for animal research for medical purposes has reached nearly 90%. Consequently animal rights groups have seen a decline in support, leading to a decline in extremist actions. Speaking of Research seeks to mobilize American universities to make the same stand against animal rights extremists and the misinformation they spread. We aim to encourage students and scientists to raise their heads above the parapet in open support of scientists and their research.
Speaking of Research aims to challenge animal rights dominance of the issue by participating in talks and debates on campuses across the country and by utilizing web-based communications tools to organize a network that can provide encouragement, information and support to all who care about medical progress.”
AMP and Speaking of Research are both well-funded marketing machines that are quite adept at putting lipstick on a pig. And why wouldn’t they be? They represent vivisectors of all stripes, including those who test cosmetics.
Above all, do no harm?
“I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race. The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further.”
—Mark Twain
As deeply reviled as the Nazis are by most people, those who master-minded the Holocaust were products of the nonhuman animal exploitation industries, as they derived many of their “extermination” techniques from slaughterhouses and farming.[17] And when the Nazi doctors were tried at Nuremberg for human vivisection, they stated that they learned their techniques on nonhuman animals. Nazism is perhaps the most extreme example, but there is abundant empirical evidence to reasonably conclude that “man’s inhumanity to man,” which has plagued us since the dawn of civilization, is informed and driven by “man’s inhumanity to animal.”
Conceptualizing sentient beings who are subjects of a life as mere objects (cute, cuddly, and furry objects though they may be) reduces them to property status. While they may not admit it, even to themselves, those who support or engage in vivisection view nonhuman animals as mere possessions, resources, and commodities. In the prevailing institutions and paradigm of speciesist capitalism the “owners” of animals have the “right” to oppress and exploit them to the extent that it’s necessary to derive the maximum profit and benefit. In this depraved and insane system, living beings are viewed by society at large and the legal system as possessions to do with as they see fit. And those, like Rod Coronado,[18] who act to alleviate their suffering by freeing them or dealing their tormentors a financial blow are hunted down and imprisoned.
The truth of the matter is that no matter what attitudes, institutions, systems, laws, mandates, or justifications we cultivate or erect, we human beings have no right to intentionally inflict suffering upon other sentient beings, particularly through vivisection, much of which is ostensibly performed to achieve medical advancements. What happened to, “Above all, do no harm”?
Eventually, we must excise the metastasizing cancer of speciesist capitalism before it reduces the Earth to a dismal dystopia, or worse, eradicates most or all sentient life on the planet. And as we proceed toward that goal, we can aggressively treat vivisection, one of our diseased civilization’s worst symptoms.
And as we do so, consider that, “Drs. Ray and Jean Greek, and others, have pointed out that the theory of evolution and molecular biology predict that animal models will be very poor models of human disease. In light of modern scientific thought and the mass of empirical data, the burden of proof lies with those who claim the animal model is productive.”[19]
As we human animals overcome the deeply indoctrinated lies that we are the master species and that the pursuit of money is our raison d’etre, we will realize that we don’t need to enslave nonhuman animals, subject them to horrific suffering, or murder them. We have multiple other means by which we can advance our medical and scientific knowledge, including epidemiology, clinical testing, autopsies, biopsies, genetics, post-marketing drug research, computer modeling, tissue cultures, microdosing on human animals, personalized medicine, and nanotechnology.[20]
Vivisection is primitive, brutal, ineffective, and unconscionable. It puts human animals at risk and inflicts unfathomable degrees of unnecessary suffering on our nonhuman animal brethren. There are many ways to advance our medical and scientific knowledge that don’t involve tormenting or killing other sentient beings. Money is about the only thing vivisection has going for it. Which explains why those of us who oppose it will have to fight so hard to put an end to such an abomination.
Jason Miller is a relentless anti-capitalist, vegan straight edge, animal liberationist, and press officer for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office. He is also the senior editor and founder of Thomas Paine’s Corner.
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References:
[1] http://www.mercyforanimals.org/vivisection.asp
[2] http://www.shac.net/science/intro.html
[3] http://www.animalaid.org.uk/h/n/CAMPAIGNS/experiments/ALL/730//
[4] http://www.animalaid.org.uk/images/pdf/vivisection.pdf
[5] http://www.navs.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ain_sci_drugdev
[7] http://www.bcconversationonhealth.ca/media/AD-AV_Submission.pdf
[8] http://www.mercyforanimals.org/vivisection.asp
[9] http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/24/schuster.column/index.html
[10] http://www.all-creatures.org/saen/articles-wishes.html
[11] http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020805/newman20020725
[12] http://www.tomnesi.org/press.htm
[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_River_Laboratories
[15] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Covance_Laboratories
[16] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Americans_for_Medical_Progress
[17] http://www.all-creatures.org/book/r-eterntreb.html
[18] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Coronado
[19] http://www.navs.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ain_sci_science_future
[20] ibid
Lynn Sawyer said
Pro-test in the UK are very quiet. After their 15 minutes of fame they slid into obscurity and only did 3 demos. If they were “successful” Tom Holder would not have had time to spend 6 months in the US. The animal rights movement marched on Saturday numbering 2000 in spite of draconian limits on peaceful protest. Depspite doors being kicked in all over the UK we have not and will never be silenced. Pro-test were nowhere to be seen and apart from a website appear to be defunct, they do not have our stamina.
Aragorn23 said
Is that really what David Jentsch looks like? He’s a spectacularly creepy looking fellow.
In fact, if he is made into the public face of the pro-vivisection lobby, half the work is already done!
Denis Alexander said
Wait! You are anti-goverment, anti-science, anti-capitalist, anti-human and yet you use the internet and your computer to use propagate your (flawed) ideas? At least Kaczynski was sekf-consistent in his views and ended up moving to the middle of nowhere. Maybe you and the rest of the ALF should consider a nice cabin in Montana, that will surely get you closer to Nature… Pro-Test @ UCLA has changed the game with a single demonstration. Scientists are not going to take it any more — enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQPoBRh00IA and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6GqfZDnqAg
Freedom Therry Jackson said
and you are a inhumane, speciecistic disgrace::::::YOU WILL NEVER EVER FIND A CURE::::MARK MY WORDS!!!!
thomaspainescorner said
Hi Denis,
Actually, I’m neither a Luddite nor an anarcho-primitivist, though I find many of Zerzan’s and Jensen’s critiques of our “civilization” to be insightful and useful. Kaczynski and other intensely anti-civ types usually maintain an indifference toward animal liberation, so to conflate the two positions (anarcho primitivism and veganism/animal liberationism) makes no sense.
Am I anti-capitalist? Definitely. But I’m not “anti-science.” I’m anti-dogmatic science and anti-”bad science,” which would include vivisection– for the numerous reasons I stated in my essay. In general, and this is a gross over-simplification, but it would be more accurate to say that I’m anti-greed, anti-narcissism, anti-exploitation, and anti-oppression. And none of the social, political, or cultural components or constructs I oppose preclude me from using the Internet or a computer in anyway. Even if the Internet and computers were, and they’re not, the “master’s tools,” I could and would still use them to do my part to tear down the master’s house.
With respect to single demonstrations and the game changing, relax, Denis. This is a marathon. Not a sprint. My fellow anti-vivisectionists, vegans, and animal liberationists have both tremendous amounts of stamina and moral righteousness on our side. We’ll prevail on behalf of nonhuman animals. Whether you like it or not.
By the way, what’s a supporter of animal torture and murderer doing slithering around my site? Don’t you have some kittens to drown or some puppies to strangle?
Jason Miller
Freedom Therry Jackson said
AMEN!
Lynn Sawyer said
Thanks Denis that was great fun. If you want to see proper demos visit http://www.shac.net and get a copy of Time Action 4. At least whilst you are out in the sunshine and posting on TPC you are not torturing innocent beings. Noted on Indymedia that SHAC Chile had a big march with 500 people. A note of advise obesity causes heart disease, cancer, diabetes etc maybe you could prolong the lives of your comrades by getting them to lose some weight, many of them were a bit tubby after all. Veganism works quite well but I suppose does not make as much dosh as dishing out anti obesity pills.
Getting away with Murder: Whatever happened to ‘above all, do no harm’? by Jason Miller « Dandelion Salad said
[...] Thomas Paine’s Corner Getting away with Murder: Whatever happened to ‘above all, do no harm’? [...]
SE said
Nice to see the opening quote from the late great Dr Irwin Bross, also author of numerous books & articles including “Scientific Fraud vs. Scientific Truth: The Establishment is the Enemy of the Enterprise”.
Dr Bross also posted some great comments re an article on animal research in the BMJ some years ago:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/324/7331/236/a
Re: Comments on the debate so far 30 March 2002
Irwin D. Bross,
President
Biomedical Metatechnology Inc. NY USA
Re: Re: Comments on the debate so far
Editor,
William DH Carey identifies himself as a Clinical Pharmacologist and enters the animal research argument with the usual arrogance of a medical specialist whose authority is not to be questioned by a non-specialist:
“How then can the non-specialist disentangle all those scientific and medical arguments to arrive at a decision as to whether animal studies are required? The answer is that the non-specialist cannot. The task of understanding the issues is difficult, which is why one needs to be suitably trained and to acquire appropriate experience to understand fully the issues involved.”
But where should one go to get the training that would enable one to “understand fully the issues involved”? Must one be a Clinical Pharmacologist doing animal testing to get this training? This happens to be a very narrow specialty; it cannot encompass the very wide range of expertise needed to “fully understand these issues”. The relevant specialties span the range from those at the molecular level (e.g., biochemistry and genetics) to those that study diseases in large human populations (.e.g, epidemiology and biostatistics)–with a large number of specialties in between! Carey might not like admit it, but there simply is no specialist who FULLY understands these issues. To pretend otherwise, is really scientific fraud.
Consider Carey’s own example:
“Ms Robinson wrote: the late German surgeon Werner Hartinger declared: “There is no sound basis for animal testing…It has no scientific basis because the results of vivisection have no value whatsoever until they are reproduced in man. The metabolic breakdown is completely different between man and other species. Man is the only effective yardstick.”
Scientifically, Hartinger has made a strong point–one which has been been greatly strengthened by recent advances in genetics. Metabolic processes are often completely differ from one human to another and this is the main reason for deadly side effects of new drugs. Carey brushes the point off by saying that Mr Hartinger was a surgeon–not someone involved in drug development:. “He has, like AV, not understood why animal studies are done. I’’m afraid even professors can be wrong, especially when talking in fields which are not their own. A very risky thing to do”. Carey is quite right–this IS risky. .But it is exactly what Carey has done.
Carey does not seem to realize that he is in an extreme conflict of interest situation here–this issue directly effects his own livelihood. Courts discount testimony given in conflict of interest situations–and the public should do this too.
Carey asks: Why are animal studies done?
He ignores an answer that is obvious to an experienced research professional: Animal research is one of the easiest ways for a specialist who is incapable of doing genuine medical research to make money, enhance his status, and gain the perks of biomedical research.
As anyone who has actually lived in the present, fiercely competitive, biomedical environment should know: The most powerful driving force in this environment is neither science nor medicine–it is money. It is no crime to want to make money, however, it is a crime to take money under false pretenses.
Is Carey guilty of this? Here is what he himself says: “Let me restate: ANIMAL STUDIES DO NOT PROVE THAT DRUGS ARE SAFE AND EFFECTIVE IN HUMANS; NOR ARE THEY DESIGNED TO DO THAT SINCE CLEARLY THEY CANNOT…. Therefore the intelligent non-specialist will ask: If that is the case, why are animal experiments used in drug development. I will explain again. To determine whether a drug is safe and effective in humans beings, it must studied in human beings. Those are Phase 1, 2 and 3 studies. A pharmaceutical company will base their decision to market a drug on the results of those human studies. Likewise, the regulatory bodies will only give approval for marketing a drug once they have studied the results of those human studies.”
What Carey is describing here has little to do with science or medicine–it is the complex bureaucratic process of drug testing. It was created by lawyers who neither understand nor care about the science or medicine. Whether this is merely a bureaucratic ritual or not, laws do require that animal tests be done. Hence, for drug companies and animal researchers these rituals are the “keys to the kingdom” because they may open the door to big drug profits.
The crux of Carey’s argument is this: “I repeat the point I made in a previous posting: animal studies are needed to provide enough valid data to allow doctors to give cautiously new chemicals to humans. This animal studies do, which is why it is done with excellent safety records.” The trouble with this argument is that the safety record for drug testing is not “excellent”, massive factual evidence suggests that a more accurate description would be “a system in failure”. These facts clearly show that neither animal testing nor clinical trials nor the combination of the two have produced “excellent safety records”.
During the past few years in the U.S., the FDA has approved more than a dozen new drugs for marketing that it subsequently had to withdraw because of horrendous side effects –in some instances after causing hundred of new deaths. Also in the public record are the dozens of class action lawsuits involving serious injuries and deaths from FDA-approved new drugs. Details of this horror stories can be found at various websites. What is very clear is that false and misleading claims for animal testing and clinical trials “in the name of science” made by medical specialists are responsible for thousands of human deaths and massive human suffering.
For anyone who would like an early warning about the deadly new drugs going on the market (or off the market), I would recommend getting on this listing: veracare@rcn.com
Irwin D. Bross, Ph..D.
President
Biomedical Metatechnology Inc.
Buffoon said
Hi,
I saw this on Dandelion Salad and was wondering if anyone had thoughts as to why this is an issue with so many leftist but abortion (tax payer funded) is so eagerly sought.
For the record, I am not advocating any cruelty to animals although I do find the benefits of animal testing to be somewhat “worth it.”
SE said
There is alarming evidence that animal experiments provide results that, when applied to humans, can prove misleading or fatal. These tests exhaust precious research funding, waste valuable time, produce in effective solutions, and delay progress toward human cures.
Medicines & therapies are essential but their safety should be improved by replacing misleading animal tests, with superior techniques based on human biology.
Until governments stop requiring ‘proof of safety’ in animals and allowing drug companies to use such ‘proof’ as a legal defence when their drugs kill people, we will continue to suffer serious and fatal drug reactions that could have been avoided.
Sophisticated human biology-based tests need to be compared with the animal tests currently required by law. Animal tests have never been validated.
Buffoon said
Hm, thanks for the info, I just don’t get why the same folks that scream in agony over a monkey or cow being “experimented” on or simply eaten are the same crowd that gets violent when you mention the words “pro-choice.”
Luis said
Congratulations for that forceful article.
It´s clear to me that capitalism is a great problem, but not sure the only problem. Maybe it’s a symptom rather than a cause, a symptom of moral degradation.
P.D: I would like to know where I can find that sentence of Mark Twain. Do yo have the source text? Thanks!
Lynn Sawyer said
Re abortion I think that animal rights people have differing views, mine is that I am ethically opposed to abortion (except for medical reasons for mother or baby) BUT until we have a society where women can have children without being judged, where those with disablities are part of society, where there is universal health care for all at the point of need, where contraception is readily available to all who need it, then pragmatism for me and the right to choose whether or not to become a parent is where I stand on the issue. Furthermore regarding the spectre of population growth and the fact that babies born today will pay the price of our selfishness at destroying their world, it might be actually kinder to abort. Having said that I know of many women who have either been coerced by their families into aborting or have regretted a rash decision to abort which is something else to take into consideration. Each case is unique.
Where abortion is not available women die in horrific circumstances as in their desparation they turn to the back street abortionist and risk death through haemorrhage, infection, etc.
My question would be to anti abortionists is why are you so concerned with an embryo which is not capable of independant life and may not be sentient (though I think we must err on the side of caution) when many of you eat the corpses of victims murdered for no other reason than taste? Certainly at later stages the fetus is obviously sentient, when of course this happens we do not know, but it is not likely to be in the first days of conception prior to the central nervous system and brain developing, why the fuss when beings who can feel pain are being skinned alive, tortured, ridiculed and killed? I would certainly place for example my concern for a puppy way above an embryo the first which certainly can suffer, the second which is very unlikely to and as it is in someone elses body way beyond my help anyway without abusing the person who is pregnant.
When millions of people are starving, have no access to shelter or basic health care and animals are being killed in their billions and the Earth is dying abortion is not a priority in my list of concerns. I also think that anti abortionists remind us as a society that we should not be flippant about abortion and that abortion does entail the ending of a life which may feel pain during the process. The patriachal grap and misogyny displayed by some anti abortionists does make me question the agenda of those individuals concern for the fetus or controlling women?
Buffoon said
I understand your points Lynn… you did however leave out the fact that as a society we may need to consider cutting off the flow of sexual messages sent via reality MTV television and “telling” our kids, it’s okay, the gub’ment will “get rid of it” for ya…
Make sense?
Elinor Israel said
The more I learn about the cruelties that animals endure in research labs the more I hate people in general.
Lynn Sawyer said
I agree absolutely Buffoon. Those horrible catwalk things for young girls with makeup on give me the creeps as do “toys” glorifying pole dancing and enforce body fascism and insecurity in children. Making money out of sexualising children is perverse. I also agree that anyone who wishes to have an abortion should be given all the facts so that she can make an informed choice for example that there is no going back and that there are physical and emotional consequences which may arise as a result.It should also be made clear that abortion is not a form of contraception, a life is ended after all even if that life is utterly dependant on the woman concerned.
Buffoon said
Thanks for the chat
Lynn Sawyer said
No problem
Jele245 said
Great post! We need more people to see the truth.
Check out my video on cosemtic animal testing… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSwR70Xtaug
R. C. said
David Jentsch happens to be my professor at UCLA for behavior neuroscience. He is a good man with very good intentions. How else would research proceed if not for doing research on animals?