CIVIS Answers Questions on Vivisection (Part One)

 

 

Written by Hans Ruesch, translated by Dr Tony Page, UKAVIS Publications 1998

 

Foreword

 

IN COMMEMORATION OF 20 YEARS OF HANS RUESCH'S "SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENT" IN ENGLISH

 

Nature's inner workings are always mysterious. Once in a while, in every century, certain great individuals emerge onto the world scene who are destined to challenge and change the prevailing culture, to enhance and enoble it. Individuals of this type may be scientists or artists (more usually the latter) - but they always leave behind one great work which, inspiringly, will outlive their physical lives and resonate forth into the centuries that follow. SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENT, by Hans Ruesch. is, I believe, one such work.

 

Born of a rare blend of high intelligence, sound but unstuffy scholarship, a strong capacity for pity and empathy, allied to a striking literary skill, SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENT constitutes the 20th century's single most powerful indictment of "vivisection" - the experimentation with and upon living animals. No other book on the subject before or since - not even by the anti-vivisection pioneering giant, Dr Walter Hadwen - has succeeded quite so brilliantly in combining passion with insight, compassion with bitter, trenchant humour, knowledge with humanity. Woven into the verbal fabric of Hans Ruesch's masterly SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENT are some of life's wisest lessons, lessons from which human-kind has foolishly chosen to avert its gaze for far too long. Not only is vivisection a savage assault upon the animals it so pointlessly decimates and desecrates then uncaringly discards, but it is equally guilty of the slaughter of humanity (in every sense of the term) as a consequence of its cruel inapplicability to meaningful human medical research. There is no more compelling, heart-rendingly sincere cry for vivisection to stop than that sung out by SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENT.

 

It is 20 years since SLAUGHTER first appeared in Hans Ruesch's own English version in 1978 (this remarkable Swiss polyglot writer and researcher had originally published it in Italian two years before). To mark the 20th anniversary of that event, UKAVIS is delighted to be able to publish for the first time in the UK Hans Ruesch's much simplified presentation of the basic arguments found in SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENT in the hope that this will inspire the reader to want to purchase and read the full 446-page SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENT itself.

 

If you care about animals, as much as you care about your health, and if you care about the truth - there can scarcely be any book more important to read than SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENT. But first turn over the page and study this mini-presentation of vivisection's uselessness and dangers. It is a foretaste of the powerful and unforgettable message awaiting you in SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENT - a timeless classic of idealistic humanity and unimpeachable truth.

 

On the occasion of the 20th year of vigorous life of SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENT in the English language, we at UKAVIS salute both the work and its unique, irrepressible and irreplaceable author, Hans Ruesch.

 

 

Commonly asked questions

 

Q: Would you prefer that humans were experimented on, rather than animals?

 

A: Far from it. On the contrary, we wish human experimentation to cease. Experiments on humans arc constantly being performed, and precisely because animal experiments are inconclusive. Any claimed need for animal experiments would thus be invalid.

 

Q: How, then, are we to develop new drugs?

 

A: Your question assumes that we actually need ever more new drugs and that animal tests can give us accurate information about their effects. Both assumptions are false.

 

Q: Are you saying, then, that we do not need any more new drugs?

 

A: Only the pharmaceutical industry needs more and more drugs to replace those whose uselessness and dangers can no longer be hushed up. The vast majority of the 205,000 medicaments and their combinations, which have so far been developed, have already been withdrawn. Animal experiments led the naive researchers to the wrong conclusions.

 

Q: How many drugs do we actually need?

 

A: The World Health Organisation (WHO) has published a list of around only 250 essential drugs. Even this modest number is ten times higher than that specified by the medical commission of Chile's President Allende, who was himself a doctor. There simply are not enough illnesses for the more than 60,000 medicines which are today on the market in Germany, for instance, or for the 6,000 or so in Switzerland, although again and again new illnesses are created by these new medicines.

 

Q: Is it possible to establish the efficacy of a medicament without doing animal experiments?

 

A: In point of fact, most of the few medicines which have provable therapeutic value were never tested out on animals at all. They are of plant origin and were known as early as antiquity, when, very sensibly, people did not test them out on animals.

 

Q: Haven't these useful medicines also been taken up by the pharmaceutical industry?

 

A: A few, it is true; but in quite the wrong manner. In order to mass-produce them (that is to say, in order to make money as quickly as possible), the drugs industry has synthesised these healing agents - attempted to reproduce them artificially - but with the usual devastating results.

 

Q: Can you give more information on this?

 

A: Rauwolfia serpentina is a native Indian herb of the apocynaceae family which has been used for centuries and contains various therapeutically important alkaloids, including the blood-pressure lowering reserpine and the heart-regulating ajmaline. In its natural state this medicinal herb contains numerous trace elements and salts, which make it easily assimilable, in addition to the usual "vital" substances which chemical analysis simply cannot lay hold of and thus not reproduce. Then the businessmen of the laboratories set about isolating reserpine, creating it synthetically and prescribing it in its pure form, until 20 or more years ago it became clear that this artificially produced preparation - i.e. the chemical imitation of the valuable natural product - causes breast cancer and severe depression in humans - conditions which years of animal tests had been unable to predict and which are not caused by the natural plant.

 

Q: But supposing for a moment that we had to test out a new medicine, shouldn't we first try it out on animals?

 

A: Certainly not. All the numerous drug disasters of the last few decades only occurred because of reliance on the results of animal experiments. Before the massive introduction of animal experiments there were no drug catastrophes.

 

Q: Cannot animal tests tell us, for instance, whether a new drug will cause birth defects?

 

A: Not at all. They only lead us astray, as happened in the Thalidomide case, which was only the first and best known example, but by no means the only one of its kind. Thalidomide was, on the basis of animal experiments, specifically and expressly recommended for pregnant women. Since then animal testing has much increased, under the pretext of avoiding further tragedies, but unfortunately the very opposite result has been achieved: malformed babies have enormously increased (for more details, see Hans Ruesch's SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENT, chapter entitled "10,000 Little Monsters"). Conversely, if aspirin had first been tried out on animals, this most frequently used and (relatively) most harmless of medicaments of the 20th century would probably never have got onto the market, as it spells death for many animal species. Thus animal experiments can also block the possible use by us of valuable medications.

 

Q: So you regard research using animals as erroneous?

 

A: Thousands of medical experts not subservient to the pharmaceutical industry will confirm this view most emphatically. But they are not allowed a voice by the venal media, who are in the pay of the chemical industry, and the mass media only ever disseminate the untruths that come from the industry's spokespersons.

 

Q: Why, then, do the Health Authorities require animal experiments?

 

A: The so-called Health Authorities employ medical pseudo-experts who are forced on them by the chemical industry. Animal experiments only serve an alibi function. Whenever a new drug disaster strikes, the manufacturers can exculpate themselves by insisting that they had conscientiously carried out the "statutory safety tests". But they fail to disclose that it was they themselves who demanded that these misleading and deceptive tests be enshrined in law.

 

Q: Do you mean to say that these tests do not guarantee public safety?

 

A: Worse than that - drugs tested in this manner have caused a whole host of new, previously unknown illnesses.

 

Q: For example?

 

A: Subacute myelo-optic neuropathy (SMON for short) is a completely new and severe disease of the nervous system which has led to paralysis, blindness and even death in tens of thousands of human beings. It was caused by medications containing the chemical, clioquinol (developed in Basle), and this drug was spread around the whole world under false pretences. It was established in a court of law that clioquinol possesses no therapeutic value whatsoever. So deadly "side-effects" without any benefits - except, of course, for the manufacturers.

 

Q: Another example?

 

A: Stilboestrol, a synthetic hormone tested on animals for decades and specially recommended for pregnant women to prevent miscarriages, was later proven to cause cancer in those women's children, particularly their young girls (for details, see SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENT, chapters entitled, "Cancer-causing Drugs", "The Stilboestrol Case" and "Sorcerer's Apprentices"). These are only a couple of examples (out of many). The American FDA, a kind of medicine police, recently admitted that in any given year around one and a half million Americans have to be hospitalised because of the adverse effects of medicines. And once in hospital, as is well known, their health is frequently damaged further by wrong therapies, which can even kill them.

 

Q: Is this true of Europe too?

 

A: Of course. And above all in those countries where the propaganda of the chemical industry and the doctors, in collaboration with the state authorities, have succeeded in palming off "official" medicine onto the superstitious public as a kind of new religion. This is the case here too.

 

Q: Do you mean to say that people are being deliberately misled?

 

A: Precisely that. In the interests of the chemical industry. Jobs are more important to governments than the people's health. That is why as early as infancy the population is made dependent on medicines. The parents help along with this too. Of course they were themselves brought up in this way. A congress of specialist German doctors for internal medicine in Wiesbaden, Germany confirmed in 1977 that 6% of all illnesses resulting in death and 25% of all organic diseases are caused by medicines. Moreover, 61% of all deformities at birth and 88% of all still-births are caused by drugs. According to Professor Hoff and many other health experts, therapy damage is today the most frequent cause of illness.

 

Q: How about in Switzerland?

 

A: How could it be any different in a land dominated by the chemical industry? In Switzerland there are, in percentage terms, just as many instances of harmful therapy and just as many venal politicians, opinion-formers in the media and journalists as in other industrialised nations. That is why CIVIS has set itself the task of publishing and disseminating sources of information like the present one.

 

Q: Is the war against cancer, heart disease or high blood pressure possible without animal research?

 

A: Although millions of animals are sacrificed each year in research on cancer and circulation ailments, these illnesses are constantly increasing. Their causes are well known and could be avoided by preventative measures, which are in fact the only valid approach and do not cause dangerous side-effects. But of course there is no money to be made out of prevention. So people are wrongly persuaded that they don't need to make any personal effort or sacrifices to stay healthy - all they need do is swallow pills, which the philanthropic pharmaceutical industry puts at their disposal. The tax-payer picks up the tab.

 

Q: Hasn't diabetes been cured through animal experiments?

 

A: Diabetes is one of those illnesses which are best avoided by preventative measures,

namely a suitable diet. The long-term use of animal-derived insulin (a catastrophically harmful approach) leads to blindness, circulatory and other problems and early death, as well as encouraging the insulin-user to neglect the appropriate diet. What is more, long-term insulin use leads to the total atrophy of the already malfunctioning pancreas gland. No wonder that since the introduction of insulin, diabetes has not decreased but increased enormously. Now can we speak of success here?

 

Q: Wasn't penicillin discovered by animal experimentation?

 

A: Penicillin was discovered by pure chance and would probably not have been employed as a medicine, according to statements by its co-discoverers, had it been first tested as intended on guinea-pigs - since penicillin is fatal to guinea-pigs. But at the time there were no guinea-pigs available in their laboratory, so mice were used instead and they weren't killed by it.

 

Q: But is it not true at least that the correct dosage had to be tested out on animals?

 

A: How can that be true when some animals can tolerate 100 times more or less of a given substance than human beings? In any case, to this day there is still no universally "correct" dosage of penicillin. Some people are extremely allergic to penicillin and can be severely harmed by it, while it remains ineffective in others. Moreover, more and more doctors are agreed these days that penicillin has caused more harm than good.

 

Q: How is that possible?

 

A: The thoughtless, massive over-prescription of penicillin, using it even as a preventative medicine, has over time led to the development of particularly resistant strains of bacteria which are immune to all penicillin treatments. The same applies to other antibiotics produced after penicillin and its antibiotic offspring began to lose their efficacy. It is one of the achievements of modem medicine that it has succeeded in creating ever-weaker human beings, and ever-stronger strains of bacteria. "Antibiotic", by the way, means "hostile to life". And it is no secret that all these wonder drugs have only worked wonders for the bank balances of their manufacturers (for details, see SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENT, chapter entitled "The Pushers").

 

Q: What types of non-animal methods of research exist?

 

A: The most important is intelligent clinical observation, which has solved so many major medical problems in the past. Further, one can use human cell/tissue/organ cultures, painlessly available from biopsies, aborted foetuses, umbilical cords, placentas, etc. They all produce more reliable results, precisely because they are of human and not animal origin. Also, computer technology is now highly developed in this field. Computers can be used not only for diagnosis and data analysis, but also in areas of the testing of medicinal preparations, conditioned reflexes, kidney function, heart disease and growth studies (for details, see SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENT, chapter on "Alternative Methods"). These methods are not only more reliable, but also more economic than animal experiments.

 

Q: Then why are they not more widely used?

 

A: Mainly because our teachers have not been adequately trained. They are still living in the last century. The use of progressive research methods needs to be learned; it requires hard study and at least average intelligence - whereas any idiot can cut up or poison animals and report what he sees. Whether such experiments have any validity for human medical research is of no interest to these gentlemen. Clearly, there is no obstinacy greater than that of academics mired in their set ways. But in addition, over the last few decades a gigantic industry has developed around animal research: manufacturers of restraining devices, cages and torture instruments, as well as animal breeders, all of whom together constitute a most powerful lobby who influence the media and the politicians.