The practise of animal experimentation has been the mainstay of medical and biological research since the early 1800s even though it has brought about not one major breakthrough in medical science. And yet, every medical student, in order to pass his or her exam and advance in their chosen career must quote the results of animal experiments.

How can respect for life, compassion and empathy be taught to and nurtured in our doctors through a practise which necessitates the ignorance of pain, suffering, anxiety terror and death, as is the case with the training process of US doctors who regularly dissect live animals as part of their training? The answer is simple: It can't.

The animal experimenters are the cornerstone of the highly corrupt and manipulative pharmaceutical industry. These are a pseudo-scientific fraternity who earn vast amounts of money for their employers by performing unbelievably barbaric experiments which can be used to (falsely) substantiate claims that their drugs are safe for human use. Dr. James D. Gallagher, Director of Research of Lederle Laboratories in the Journal of the American Medical Association, March 14, 1964 stated:

'Animal studies are done for legal reasons and not for scientific reasons. The predictive value for such studies for man is meaningless - which means our research may be meaningless.'

There is no British or European law which states that new drugs, chemicals or cosmetics must be tested on animals. However, animal testing ensures that vivisectors get the results they want in order to sell their dangerous chemicals to an unwary public. In numerous legal trials of drug companies who have caused fatalities and injuries, the most effective defence which has been used time and again is that: 'All of the usual and required testing had been done to establish the safety of the drug in question'. A standpoint which most legal authorities are not qualified to dispute. Indeed, the 'experts' upon whom they call for advice in such matters are invariably members of other drug companies or drug sponsored agencies and therefore the animal testing fraternity.

Animal experiments have been cited in many court battles over drugs damages claims and have been used both to defend the idea that such disasters were unforeseen because adequate testing had been employed, but have also been successfully used, as in the Thalidomide case in December 1970, to admonish the drug company (in this case Chemie Grunenthal) who testified that animal tests could never be conclusive for humans.

The very idea that a test or operation done on an animal will show results which are directly translatable to humans is plainly ridiculous. As has been stated by some of the greatest and most influential physicians in medical history: the anatomy, physiology and psychology of animals is entirely different to our own in many ways, and this difference is further exaggerated in the case of animals bred for and/or housed in laboratories. This can be plainly illustrated in many ways; here are just a few:

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• The LD 50 (Lethal Dose 50%) test, which is the standard toxicity technique used to establish how much of a chemical toxin is required to kill half of a number of animals. These animals are specifically bred to be exactly identical in every way, i.e. genetically and physically they are the same size and weight. And yet, an equivalent dose of a toxin, in equal quantity and strength will succeed in killing merely half of the batch whilst leaving half to suffer varying degrees of disablement. These results are then haphazardly translated to give the figure for safe and fatal levels for humans. There are 12 different methods which determine statistically the safety of chemicals for humans from animal experiments. These may disagree by up to a factor of four.
• It is accepted that animal tests are successful in identifying cancer-causing agents in only 37% of cases. This means, in effect, that the results of the tests are more times wrong than right and are significantly statistically worse than tossing a coin.
• As stated by Hans Ruesch in The Naked Empress or the Great Medical Fraud:

  'Two grams of scopolamine kill a human being, but dogs and cats can stand hundred times higher dosages. A single Aminata phalloides mushroom can wipe out a whole human family, but is health food for the rabbit, one of the favourite laboratory animals. A porcupine can eat one lump without discomfort as much opium as a human addict smokes in two weeks, and wash it down with as much prussic acid to poison a regiment of soldiers. The sheep can swallow enormous quantities of arsenic, once the murderer's favourite poison. Morphine, which calms and anaesthetises man, causes maniacal excitement in cats and mice. On the other hand our sweet almond can kill foxes, our common parsley is poisonous to parrots, and our revered penicillin strikes another favourite laboratory animal dead - the guinea pig.'

It is fortunate for many that penicillin was never tested on guinea pigs at the outset where it would have immediately been discarded as dangerous. And if you want to prove that vitamin C is useless, withhold it from the diet of dogs - which produce vitamin C in the gut. Moreover, the whole discipline of surgery and post surgical recovery was hindered for hundreds of years after the Greek Galen (Second Century AD) showed through animal experimentation that the principle laid down by Hippocrates (Fifth century BC) was incorrect - that hygiene and a good diet (as well as establishing the simple fact that nature heals) was essential to good health and medicine. Galen maintained this standpoint, which seems bizarre by today's standards, because animals did not readily succumb to infections following childbirth and surgical procedures. Galen's animal experiments caused a rejection of Hippocratic values and a reduction in surgical asepsis. This destructive attitude was supported by the Catholic Church and was only substantially reversed in the 1800s following the discovery of the germ and how cleanliness and sterilisation could prevent bacterial infection.

Vivisectors often claim credit for many advances in medicine which have been brought about by non-vivisection methods. Frequently, they will quote animal experiments which show the same results without also disclosing the pioneering previous non-animal discovery. One example of this is the case of vaccinations. Whilst it is certainly true that many diseases which have decimated mankind for centuries, such as polio, smallpox, whooping cough, tuberculosis, diphtheria and tetanus have seen a dramatic decline over the last century or so, it is not because of the introduction of vaccinations. Figures show that such diseases were long in decline before the introduction of vaccinations and that the rate of fall was severely impeded once they were introduced. Advances in hygiene, sanitation, nutrition and wealth status are the obvious reasons for the improvement of the world's health overall. Vaccinations are responsible for causing many of the diseases they are supposed to cure as well as compromising the immune systems of the vulnerable, especially babies who are statistically more likely to suffer Sudden Infant Death Syndrome within weeks of having their initial standard vaccinations.

The vivisectionists are master manipulators. They invest huge amounts of money in massive PR organisations such as the Research Defence Society in the UK. Furthermore, they have infiltrated many areas of the Anti-Vivisection (AV) movement and have created much confusion in the minds of the public as to the truth behind this barbaric trade in misery. An example of this was highlighted in possibly the greatest expose of vivisection industry ever written, The Slaughter of the Innocent by Hans Ruesch.

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