CIVIS Bulletin Nr 1, 1983  (page eight)

 

 

LETTERS (continued)

 

Dear Hans Ruesch, tomorrow is my last day as a hired hand for this organization (United Humanitarians, Phoenix, AR). I will remain as board chairman and be available for advice and volunteer help. I finally got around to finish reading Naked Empress. WOW! No wonder you have been banned in the USA. You are the most dangerous foe the vivisectors have today. I don't know how anyone with a milligram of intelligence could read that book - and Slaughter of the Innocent - and not demand the total abolition of vivisection. I am reviewing it in our next issue of The National Humanitarian. Cordially. - Larry Andrews, Phoenix, Arizona

 

(In 1973, two Britons, Ronnie Lee living in Luton, and Cliff Goodman from Northampton, were sentenced to three years in prison for causing heavy damages to laboratories. Originally, their group called themselves the Band of Mercy. We publish extracts from letters Cliff Goodman addressed to Hans Ruesch):

 

"Many of the Band of Mercy raid involved setting fire to property such as vehicles used for transporting animals, and offices remote from breeding rooms…The name was changed to Animal Liberation Front during the time that Ronnie and I were in prison. I am pleased to say that raids were still being carried out whilst we were in prison.

 

"Thanks to Slaughter there is now at last a change in the attitudes of anti-vivisectionists. The trend now is to campaign against all animal experiments and not just those carried out for so-called non-medical purposes.

 

"I know from feed back that I have received that Slaughter is regarded by vivisectors and those involved in various aspects of the animal experimentation industry as 'a dangerous publication' in that it makes the British public question not only animal experiments for so-called non-medical purposes but for the so-called medical purposes as well. I know from personal experience where the book has done just that.

 

"Like you, I object to the AV societies promoting funds for alternatives. I firmly believe that viable alternatives already exist, although in some cases the alternative is simply NOT to carry out a procedure using live animals: the point here being that the tests were not really necessary anyway. I was interested in your comments regarding AV societies in European countries being infiltrated by vivisectist interests - how very true." - Cliff Goodman

 

Dear Mr Ruesch, I am president of The Defenders of Animals in Newfoundland, Canada, and we are presently conducting an aggressive and very effective campaign against vivisection. In my opinion, Slaughter of the Innocent is, undoubtedly, the strongest weapon that any anti-vivisection society could possibly posses. It is without question the greatest single contribution of all time to the fight against vivisection. Problems of distribution must be overcome. - Yours sincerely, John D. Grubb, St. John's, Newfoundland.

 

Dear Hans Ruesch, I got to see an amazing passage in the end of 1982 Bulletin of United Action for Animals, a New York organization whose energy and drive I greatly admire. It says: "The standard justification for ALL animal experimentation except for some but not all veterinary research, has always been to benefit human health and to save human lives. Who ever heard of an animal experimenter who didn't make that claim? And who ever heard of anyone challenging him?" (Emphasis supplied.)

 

Now is it possible that UAA never heard of your Slaughter of the Innocent, and your more recent Naked Empress? They represent the most devastating challenge to the claims of the vivisectors. - Knut Onsager, Palm Beach

 

Reply: Dear Knut Onsager, Eleanor Seiling, who is the mainspring of UAA's drive and energy that you admire, just as I do, was among the first people who received complimentary copies of both books before publication. An Arab proverb says you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Your letter and also private conversations I had with her seem to indicate that she never bothered to read those books. This seems confirmed by a letter of hers that appeared in 'Agenda' recently (Oct 1983): "Belatedly, we perceive the problem that has caused such divisiveness and dissension within the laboratory animal welfare movement for over a century. That problem is the virtual absence of factual, documented information on what is being done to animals during experimentation in the research laboratories. Animal welfare societies often include lay people who do not always read the research journals."

 

It seems to me that Eleanor Seiling is among those who don't read what they ought to read. She spent years of energy and a great deal of AVs' moneys trying to get a bill approved she had worked on with a staff of expensive Washington lawyers: a very commendable bill, that would have cut in half the federal funds given yearly to vivisectors - the other half would have to be used for any other kind of research not involving animals. It wasn't only the fully expected defection of the major "humane" societies like the HSUS et al to cause the project's downfall. It had no chance of succeeding because its backers refused, or lacked the competence, to point out the uselessness and counter productiveness of animal based research, so its opponents had easy sailing. The legislators were faced with the eternal, no-hope choice between "human wellbeing" on one side, and lofty "ethics on behalf of the animals" on the other. The old "dogs-or-babies" bromide. What chance does a dog stand? - H. R.

 

From Irving Kornblum, Counsellor at Law, New York, to Hans Ruesch:  Dear Sir, I have been consulted by Patricia Curtis whose article entitled "New Debate Over Experimenting with Animals" was published in the magazine section of the NY Times of December 31, 1978. Ms Curtis has discussed with me her desire to commence a libel suit against you and your publisher for impugning her integrity as a writer in a book entitled Naked Empress or The Great Medical Fraud, specifically on pages 131-133 wherein you have characterized her as having been commissioned by the National Society for Medical Research to write said article and for a particular purpose. This accusation is entirely unfounded and a retraction thereof is demanded. -  Very truly yours, Irving Kornblum

 

Dear Hans Ruesch: I proposed that article to the NY Times Magazine, and the editors at the time said okay, write it. They did not censor my article. Many people in the animal rights community felt that the article helped the cause of laboratory animals. - Patricia Curtis

 

Reply: Dear Patricia Curtis, I am always thankful when my readers point out to me some error or inaccuracy in my writing, giving me a chance to set things straight. So I gladly admit that since I was no eye-witness to any agreement between you and the National Society for Medical Research, I cannot prove that your article was commissioned by the NSMR or some similar agency anymore than you can disprove it, and I'll be happy to delete the incriminated passage from the next edition of Naked Empress, adding, however, some clarifications.

 

To wit: There were good reasons why I assumed that your article had been commissioned by the NSMR or some similar agency interested in the increased use of laboratory animals.

 

One reason is that just as my Slaughter of the Innocent was being published by Bantam Books, a number of better known writers than you - including a staff writer of the NY Times - submitted to various NY Times and Time Magazine editors well documented articles that proved scientifically the counter productiveness of vivisection, and all were rejected. But your wishy-washy article, glaringly free of medical criticism, received a big play.

 

The second reason is that from my view your article needn't have sounded any different had it been commissioned by the NSMR. It contained all the cliches so dear to the experimental community, while carefully eschewing the mass of objections a writer could raise in view of the disastrous effects of animal experimentation on human health that have come to light in recent years. Yes, I think the NSMR should have complimented you on your article rather than criticizing it in their bulletin, as you say they did. Let's get down to specifics:

 

Right off the bat, your article evokes the myth of the tenderhearted, humane, animal-loving vivisector. Feeling lonely because his family is asleep, the vivisector - always called "the professor" - takes comfort from his beloved house pet. And I quote you:

 

"The little dog leaped up ecstatically. The professor stroked her affectionately. She flopped on her back as he tickled her chest and belly. Sabrina's exuberant joy at his return never failed to cheer him." (Good old vivisector! The next day, in the laboratory, he "felt a stab" in his tender heart on seeing a badly frightened female dog that "bore an amazing resemblance to Sabrina.")

 

Then you put in a solid plug for vivisection: "Strongly opposing curtailment of animal experimentation are groups such as the National Society for Medical Research, which insists that any such reduction would jeopardize public safety and scientific progress."

 

Public safety and scientific progress my foot, Patricia Curtis! You're deliberately deceiving your readers by allowing them to believe that the NSMR is composed of selfless scientists concerned with the public welfare, as the name implies, rather than of dirty-fingered animal dealers who would see their business jeopardized by any curtailment of animal experimentation! In fact the grandiose sounding NSMR was established just to serve as a huckster for the rats of Charles River's Breeding Laboratories, Inc., and to promote the procurement and use of laboratory animals. It has meanwhile branched out, adding another agency for carrying on that business, to be freer for "political action" (bribery of politicians) and "glorification of animal models" (planting in the media sly stories similar to yours). Since you admit in your letter that your article was not censored, and also that you know everything about the vivisection scene, it was you who withheld from millions of Americans this all important disclosure.

 

Then you dish out the scientific swill: "There is no question that many important medical discoveries, from polio vaccine to the physiology of the stress response, have indeed been made through the use of animals." Straight out of the NSMR catechism!

 

There is no question? There's plenty. As for polio, you can find some of the answers in Naked Empress, pp 79-81, adding to the mass of information contained in Slaughter, including the evidence that the animal derived vaccine has damaged and killed so many people that it has been largely replaced by the vaccine derived from the human diploid cells system developed by Prof Hayflick of Stanford, Cal. As to the physiology of the stress response, it has remained nothing but an eternally repetitive, stupid exercise for which not millions, but billions of mice and cats have been smashed in the Noble-Collip drum - an amusing exercise for the experimenters maybe, but of no practical value, except furnishing a pretext for the development of more dangerous drugs that have meanwhile been abandoned. Further:

 

"Scientists are beginning to ask themselves some hard ethical questions." The word "ethical" strictly toes the line of the Vivisection Syndicate (see Naked Empress, p 39), which has nothing to fear from it, because they can always counter that their ethics are of a "higher" order, concerned with human beings rather than with dogs. The truth that Patricia conceals is that lots of intelligent doctors have long started asking hard MEDICAL questions about animal experimentation - and come to the conclusion that it has retarded medical progress and gravely damaged mankind, producing a wave of therapeutic disasters (Thalidomide, DES, Clioquinol, and thousand others) that did not exist before the phony "safety tests" on animals were introduced as an alibi for the drug manufacturers and for the benefit of the animal breeders. So much so that modern medicine is generally regarded as the main source of disease today.

 

But I admit that if you had said all of that, your article would never have been accepted by that watchdog of the Drug Trust that is the NY Times and associates.

 

Let's not withhold your letter's grand finale from our readers. You tell me: "It's your kind of irresponsible journalism, with its flaming histrionics and outrageous and unprovable statements, that make it still difficult for other writers to get articles on the subject into the mass readership. You are part of the problem, Hans Ruesch. Your kind of writing simply prolongs the mass suffering of laboratory animals."

 

Now you listen to me, Patricia Curtis: Naked Empress clearly illustrates who and what has prevented up to lately all articles on the subject except your sly kind from entering the mass media. Your assertions are already disproved by the closing letters that appear in this Bulletin. As to my statements concerning the massive damage caused to human health by an animal-based pseudo-research, far from being unprovable as you claim, they have all been amply proved and documented, and lie printed and available. It is my feeling that the genie is out of the bottle, and that not even the NY Times can lure it back in again. Whether you and the NSMR like it or not. - H.R.

 

Dear Hans, I am excerpting a passage from the AV Magazine of the July 1983 issue of the American Anti-Vivisection Society of Jenkintown, PA, which I am sure will be of interest to you:

 

"New Woman magazine claims a readership of six million. The June 1983 issue contained an article titled 'Any Dunce Can Cut Up Animals', excerpted from the book Slaughter of the Innocent by Hans Ruesch. Many of New Woman's readers were thus exposed to the realities of vivisection for the first time. Shocked and angered, they contacted the organizations listed at the end of the article, requesting more information and asking what they could do to help. As one of those mentioned, the American Anti-Vivisection Society has been deluged with inquiries. The response generated by this article strengthens Mr Ruesch's claim that publication and sales of the book by his former publisher were sabotaged. The anger and dismay of those responding to the article also make it quite plain that the public has been brainwashed into trustingly accepting the pronouncements of the research establishment."

 

More power to Slaughter of the Innocent! - Yours, Bina

 

On June 14, 1983 the Associate Editor of 'New Woman' wrote to the author of the above-mentioned article: Dear Mr Ruesch, we have had the most incredible response from this article. The hundreds of letters cannot be reprinted in the Letters to the Editor column as lack of space precludes it. But I have selected quite a pile and sent them, along with the article, to President Reagan…every friend helps. Finally, thanks for a great book. - Wendy Danforth Associate Editor/Publisher.

 

Dear New Woman, I have always wondered about the people who write about an article's changing their life…I never read anything to really change my life…until my guts were wrenched from their cavity by your article on animal abuse, "Any Dunce Can Cut Up Animals." The inconceivable horrors experienced by these innocent victims…

 

Many people are protesting the death penalty for someone who, knowing exactly what he was doing, killed in cold blood. Yet, no one fights for the rights of these animals who have done nothing wrong. How dare these people carry on these experiments under the name of medical research? It makes me wonder if I have ever contributed to an organization that secretly allows this "research" to be done.

 

I know that I will never be the same after reading this article. I wish that it wouldn't have had to be written, but I want to thank you for letting us know what is going on, so that maybe, just maybe, we can get together and stop this nightmare. - Martina Stough, Maplesville, AL

 

Reply: Dear Martina, you have probably contributed massively during all your life to the phony science that passes for medical research and is based on the torture of animals - who cannot give valid information because they react differently from us, as any dunce should know. But there is money in it! - H.R.

 

Dear New Woman, what a debt the three anti-vivisection societies owe you for publishing "Any Dunce Can Cut Up Live Animals." The letters we are receiving from your readers, without exception, express shock, and a sincere desire to do something about the cruelty of vivisection. You have helped us immeasurably in our uphill task, by lending 'New Woman''s prestigious support to the plea for kindness to our fellow creatures. For our own Society, and I am sure we also speak for the others, our heartfelt thanks. - William A Cave, President American Anti-Vivisection Society, Jenkintown, PA

 

Reply: Okay Mr Cave and Allied Societies! Now that the genie is out of the bottle, help it fly, stop dragging your feet in the millenarian quagmire of philosophical "ethics" which keep our cause forever confined to society journals that nobody reads, and go national - informing the American people at large of the MEDICAL counter productiveness of animal experimentation, and of the criminal forces that keep up the swindle.  Cordially yours, Hans Ruesch

 

 

A personal Message from Hans Ruesch to all Anti-Vivisectionists of English language:

 

For more than five years I have given out free information about vivisection and AV societies, as I had promised to do on page 420 of Slaughter. That was in 1978. Since then, the organized opposition to my anti-vivisection publications has been growing practicalIy worldwide, for reasons that will be plain to anybody who has read attentively the present Bulletin. The suppression of my books by the ruling Powers has persuaded me of the absolute necessity to expand and intensify my information activity, and this can no longer be done satisfactorily on my own limited means. It so happens that books on vivisection are not of the bestseller variety, and don’t get sold to the movies. That’s one - just one - reason why general publishers won’t take them on. I am therefore now asking for public support of the Buchverlag CIVIS Publications that I founded just in order to keep in print works about vivisection and the medical fraud that have been suppressed, to advertise them through the general press and through a series of brochures like this one or flyers like VIVISECTION…IS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY, which has already been circulated worldwide. Single samples will be sent free of charge to anyone requesting them. Contributions to mailing and printing costs are more than welcome, but not indispensable. I don’t know whether I can count on all of you, but all of you can count on me. For the sake of the animals and of the few people that are worthy of them, I am, Yours Sincerely, Hans Ruesch

 

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