CIVIS Foundation Report 1, April 1988

 

 

TEN YEARS OF SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENT

 

On April 3, 1988, SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENT became ten years old, and in this comparatively short time the message the book carried has cut a widening swath in the anti-vivisection movement, which had been in the doldrums practically since its inception.

 

SLAUGHTER, as the book will henceforth be referred to in this Report, was by no means the first full-length work on vivisection. Considering various European titles, it may well have been the hundreth.  But it was the first that propounded uncompromising abolition of this aberrant practice on medical grounds, apart from and beyond the obvious ethical reasons that have all been satisfactorily, though most unsuccessfully, dealt with for a matter of centuries by eminent philosophers and humanitarians, from the old Asian religious leaders to Pythagoras to Leonardo da Vinci to Schopenhauer to G.B. Shaw to Ghandi to Albert Schweitzer. Incidentally, all men whom the vivisectionist community considers "imbeciles".

 

SLAUGHTER was also the first book on vivisection that appeared, however briefly, under important imprints: originally, in 1976, in Europe's largest publishing empire, Italy's Rizzoli, then as a Bantam Book Original, America's biggest publisher.

 

Some of the attempts to suppress SLAUGHTER and its sequel, NAKED EMPRESS OR THE GREAT MEDICAL FRAUD, have been reported in other CIVIS publications and in the Preface to SLAUGHTER'S current edition. They have all failed. SLAUGHTER is now in its fourth printing both in Italy and Germany. The English version, published under three different imprints (Bantam, Futura, Civitas), is in its fifth printing. A Finnish and a Spanish translation are appearing shortly.

 

INFLUENCE OF "SLAUGHTER"

 

SLAUGHTER and its sequel, EMPRESS, have turned a cohort of formerly uninformed persons or resigned anti-vivisectionists into militant abolitionists, who have spawned a crop of outspoken, new leagues that attack vivisection on medical grounds - in France, USA, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, Finland, Israel, Bahamas, Australia, New Zealand, Japan.

 

In Switzerland, the two books prompted journalist Franz Weber to launch in 1980 a popular initiative for the abolition of vivisection on medical grounds, which, although launched on a shoe-string, eventually sent nearly half a million Yes-voters to the polls, in a country that is a Citadel of the pharmaceutical industry. To defeat them with a 2: 1 majority of No-voters, SwitzerIand's Big Three (Ciba-Geigy, Hoffmann-La Roche, Sandoz), who are the true rulers of our alleged democracy and practical owners of its government and media, were obliged to spend uncounted millions of Swiss francs and to enlist the support of its government officials, from the highest to the lowest, and of the largest animal welfare organizations, which also on that occasion stood revealed as taking not the animals' but the industry's welfare to heart.

 

In Italy, in 1984, the books caused Congressman Filippo Fiandrotti to table a motion calling for a three-year moratorium on all animal experiments, which was accepted with a majority of 60 votes in a full House - first political victory anywhere in favor of abolition even though the success remained a platonic one, as explained in our Bulletin Nr. 2.

 

In California, they inspired Javier Burgos, who had already been induced by SLAUGHTER to found SUPRESS (Students United Protesting Research On Sentient Subjects), to produce in 1986 his magnificent documentary, Hidden Crimes,  which is shaking the foundations of that old superstition that is vivisection in the minds of a growing number of people.

 

In Ireland, a double-page article including an interview with CIVIS representative Joy Palmer in the Irish Sunday World of July 1st, 1984, and excerpts from SLAUGHTER and EMPRESS, instigated Councillor Eddie O'Doherty of Carrickon-Suir, Tipperary, to table immediately a motion in his local council for a ban on all animal experimentation, which was carried unanimously and then endorsed by all local councils in the Republic; and two years later he succeeded in making Ireland the first country in the world to give trade union backing to the abolition of vivisection based on scientific considerations.

 

But not the least of the two books' achievements was that their publication unexpectedly revealed what the main impediment to any advance of the abolitionist idea had been all those years: it was the watch-dog presence of the infiltrated, old-established, deeply-entrenched A V societies, whose heads only pay lip-service to the cause, but carefully conceal the medical counter-productivity of vivisection from the public, while begging support for their "alternative" kitties. They seem to have the same vested interest in vivisection as the vivisection establishment itself: notably in Great Britain - the first nation to legalize vivisection as far back as 1876.

 

Those organisations' role is to lure the humane citizens and animal welfarists into their ranks with false promises, and then to paralyse and confuse them with false information derived from their "Technical Advisors", recruited from among former laboratory personnel and other pseudo-scientists.

 

While BUAV, Britain's oldest and richest A V society, ridiculed from the start SLAUGHTER 's abolitionist stance and tried to discredit its documented reports, and the other British societies ignored it, more and more honest and intelligent doctors came out courageously declaring their solidarity with the views expressed in SLAUGHTER, as summarized in our CIVIS principles.

 

FOUNDATION OF ILDAV: AN HISTORIC EVENT?

 

The growing sympathy and encouragement from medical people finally led our Community of Swiss Anti-vivisectionists, CIVIS and ATRA, to organize in 1987 the first International Symposium of Physicians Against Vivisection, and the enthusiasm it engendered was such that we decided on the spot to launch an International League of Doctors Against Vivisection, the first ever.

 

Dr Werner Hartlinger, surgeon in West Germany, accepted the responsibility to be the President of this new organisation.  Prof. Pietro Croce of Italy is its Vice-President, Hans Ruesch, whose works inspired it, was nominated Honorary President, and Milly Schar-Manzoli, Founder and President of ATRA, with CIVIS Switzerland's only major abolitionist league, took over the burden of becoming Its General Secretary.

 

ILDAV is unique in that its members are composed only of physicians, surgeons, pharmacists, veterinarians and scientists in the medical fields. All of you who read this Report can help ILDAV to gather strength and grow by persuading medically qualified sympathizers to join.  All they have to do is to write us a brief note stating "I adhere to ILDAV", or "I am in accord with the CIVIS principles", or words to that effect. How about starting with your own family doctor? If he is intelligent and a humanitarian, he should be happy to join. If not, we respectfully suggest that you look for another doctor.

 

ILDAV'S GROWTH

 

ILDAV's first Symposium was held in November of 1987 at the University of Padua, Italy's traditional medical citadel, where William Harvey worked. The following event is scheduled for this coming April 15, 16, 17 in Woudschoten, near Amsterdam, Holland. The next will take place this coming fall in Geneva, Switzerland. Thus newborn ILDAV is growing. It doubtlessly represents the greatest hope yet for early attainment of our goal: the total abolition of all animal experimentation.

 

ILDAV has already 68 members. They include such personalities as Dr Robert S. Mendelsohn of Chicago, Dr Moneim A. Fadali, the distinguished cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon of Los Angeles, Professor Giulio Tarro of Naples university, Italy, mentioned in SLAUGHTER as a former research partner of Dr Albert Sabin, and the Dean of Surgery at the University of Naples, Professor Ferdinando de Leo, to name but a few.

 

It would also take too long to list all the qualifications of the ILDAV members, but, more importantly, any newcomer to ILDAV automatically gains scientific distinction, whereas medical people who cling to the old-fashioned belief, or pretend to believe, that animal experimentation can benefit human medicine, compromise their scientific credibility. This is our considered opinion.  And not only ours.

 

 

 

MEET PROFESSOR PIETRO CROCE M.D.

 

Prof. Pietro Croce, M.D, 67, is a luminary of medical science and research. Born in Dalmatia, he graduated at the University of Pisa, Italy. His curriculum includes: Fulbright Scholarship. Research Department of the National Jewish Hospital of Colorado University in Denver. Research Department of Toledo, Ohio. Scholarship Ciudad Sanatorial of Tarrasa in Barcelona, Spain. Between 1952 and 1982, head of the laboratory of microbiological-pathological anatomy and chemo-clinical analyses at the Hospital L. Sacco of Milan, Italy. He is a member of the College of American Pathologists and author of many medical books, papers and articles. Currently he is active in a laboratory at Vicenza, Northern Italy, doing medical analyses.

 

Like so many other physicians and medical researchers before him, Professor Croce one day also came to realize that the much-vaunted animal experimentation he had been conducting for years was not only valueless but damaging to medical science and practice. Unlike most of his colleagues defying pressures from above, the risk of professional retaliation, and the necessity of having to retract publicly everything he had for a long time taught and believed in - he one day abruptly decided to forswear all work on animals and started conducting a courageous, outspoken war against this senseless old practice, by writing articles, publishing books and participating in conferences and debates in Italy and abroad on the subject.

 

In 1987, reporter Laura Cherubini looked him up in his home in Vicenza, Northern Italy, where he lives with his Swiss wife and their I5 year old son, and interviewed him for Amici Miei, a Rome-based monthly. Here is a summary of the interview which appeared in the magazine's February 1988 issue.

 

Professor, when did you start experimenting on animals?

 

Almost longer ago than I can remember, since I did my first experiments when I was a student. As I progressed in my career, abreast of my professional reputation and prestige, I did more and more animal experimentation. And I don't feel at all guilty about it. I did what I had been taught. I was absolutely convinced of the scientific validity of vivisection; a conviction that has been forced on me during my university studies and has conditioned me for many years thereafter. So I now define myself  "a criminal victim". I was the victim of a stupidity that had been imposed upon me. But I think it's more interesting to explain how I came to discover the truth. At a certain moment of my life, while meditating about what I was doing, I realized its uselessness. Actually, one doesn't have to be a genius to understand that vivisection is an aberration, a foolish practice which leads medicine astray. And this in turn means causing millions of human victims. Let's keep in mind that we are all victims of toxic drugs, of wrong medical notions and illusions.

 

Do you mean to say that there is no true correlation between the animal and the human organism?

 

Not only that. There is no correlation even between man and man. Without speaking of racial differences, although they are important, the human species is divided in four major blood groups, each one very different from the others. If there are such differences among human beings, humans are even far more different from animals. Certain apparent similarities are unimportant biologically. I keep being amazed by the incomprehension of those researchers who hope to find an animal that is similar to a human being, a model for us. The experimenters started with frogs - which belong to a different species - and progressed to mice, then to rabbits, from rabbits to cats, from cats to dogs, always deluding themselves that by climbing the zoological ladder they moved closer to the human species. Until today every vivisector's ultimate wish is to experiment on monkeys, because, with an incredible biological ignorance, he considers them close to human beings ,just owing to their appearance or because they are able to walk more or less erect. But the researchers don't stop at monkeys. Paradoxically, they themselves prove me right: by experimenting more and more on people, they admit that the results of their animal research is not reliable, it means nothing.

 

So you think that vivisection is useless or even harmful for man?

 

Totally useless, and potentially harmful. Research can't be built on fallacious bases. The answer we obtain from animal experiments is never reliable, in spite of occasional coincidences. That's why vivisection must be abolished.

 

Do you think it is possible to avoid the infliction of pain in the kind of experiments that are being conducted in laboratories today?

 

It is not possible. And I am sorry to say that the vivisectors who conduct cruel experiments are right - from their point of view, of course - when they don't even try to spare sufferances. In fact, if they did try, it would be useless to do the kind of experiments in which the animal has to survive. Sometimes the experiments consist in ascertaining the vital limitation of an organism from which, say, the pancreas has been extirpated. That's why the vivisector never respects the law, and very often the same animal is used again and again, even though the law expressly forbids it. It's a veritable hell.

 

What is now your relationship with the animals and how did you consider it when you used to practice vivisection?

 

I have always respected the animals but this attitude has never influenced my conduct. The moment one aggresses an animal with scientific logic, a barrier interposes itself between one's conscience and one's profession. The job poses certain demands and so it must be done. Actually, a sort of schizophrenic state is created. Any relationship one may have with a personal pet does not influence the relationship with the laboratory animal. The conviction that one is operating for the benefit of mankind is such that one's own sensibility is blotted out. This is the result of years of conditioning.

 

Has there been a particular episode in your life that has caused you to realize the uselessness and harmfulness of vivisection?

 

No. My discourse is exclusively scientific, based on the observation of the results. I have never been interested in animal protection or animal rights. I approve of those movements but I don't participate. The fact that I can be fond of our house pet has nothing to do with my professional choice, which I have reached out of purely scientific considerations.