A Confidence Trick Perpetuated Upon the Public: The Futility of Animal Experimentation or Vivisection

 

by Henry Turtle

 

 

“Experimentation upon living animals is gravely misleading owing to the fact that you cannot reason from an animal to a man, the differences, both anatomical and physchologically, being so great” - Walter Robert Hadwen MD (1854 - 1932), anti-vaccinationist and anti-vivisectionist medical doctor, once celebrated in this country and abroad for his uncompromising stance against vivisection, in a speech recorded in 1929. From ‘The Case Against Vivisection’ by Dr Hadwen, JP held at the British Library National Sound Archive, ref: CP 42/43 (shelf mark 1CS0019266)

 

A striking example supplied by Dr Hadwen elsewhere of the varying effects different substances have on an animal and human beings is given in the excerpt below:

 

“One of the most curious things, in that respect, which I have come across, “ added Dr Drew, “ is the case of a hedgehog, which is able to eat, without the slightest discomfort, as much opium as a Chinaman could smoke in a fortnight and wash it down with as much prussic acid as it would take to killa regiment of soldiers. It can eat arsenic as freely as it can tackle cockroaches. So it wouldn’t be of much use to us, were we guided in our use of poisonous drugs by that little creature.

 

”From ‘The Annals of the Argumentative Cluc’, Chapter XXXVIII: ‘Drugs at the Dinner Party’ by Dr Walter Hadwen, in the ‘Abolitionist’, March 1, 1918, p. 63, a story serialised (1913-18) in the periodical of an anti-vivisection society and in 1926 republished as ‘The Difficulties of Dr Deguerre’, but now out of print.

 

The claim that a substance can be reliably tested for safety on one or more kinds of animal for the benefit of human beings is false, but the falsehood is concealed as far as possible from the public for commercial reasons. As illustrated above, animals differ not only from human beings but also from one another, so hoever many different kinds of animals may be used as test subjects, no trustworthy indication of the safety of a substance or product can be given until it is used by human beings. Coincidences in results of tests can occur, but a reliance on chance cannot constitute a method and is not scientific. Animal experimentation or vivisection is thus a wrong methodology.

 

The truth about the misleading nature of tests, experiments or procedures carried out on animals to predict what may be safe can appear unexpectedly in the forms readily available to the public in different countries, despite media censorship, in newspapers, periodicals, books, films and television. Below are more examples of substances or plants being found safe for one kind of animals to eat but harmful to another kind of animal or to human beings and derive mainly from sources that believe in animal experimentation or once did so.

 

“Ponies grazing in a field of ragwort are in danger - but it’s safe for ewes.” - From the Sunday Telegraph 5th September 1999 in a letter from Malcolm Kidd, who writes: “...in its early stages of growth ragwort is not a killer of sheep. In fact, they love it..on the open fell the Swaledake ewes eat it avidly in its early stages, right down to the roots, and the sheep fells are thus kept clear of the yellow peril. People with horses, understandably worried, should buy a few old ewes to run in the paddocks. They won’t see the dreaded weed again.”

 

“...most of the food chimps in Uganda eat contains things that are toxic to human beings.” - From an article in the Times, 23 September 1999.

 

“This needs to be followed up with feeding trials with human volunteers because something that may come up safe in animals doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be safe for oeople to eat.” - Dr Michael Antoniou on the Panorama programme, ‘Frankenstein Foods’, BBC1, 17 May 1999.

 

“Unfortunately rats and mice have very remote analogies with man. It is dangerous, for example, to apply to children, whose constitution is so different, conclusions of researches made on these animals.” - From ‘Man, the Unknown’, by vivisector Dr Alexis Carrel, 1935.

 

“Being able to treat rodents with brain tumours does not necessarily translate into a treatment for people...” - From an article in New Scientist, 15 April 2000.

 

“A certain type of mice get cancer if exposed to microwaves but this is not especially relevant to humans, I suspect.” - Prof. Lord Robert Winston, on ‘Breakfast with Frost’, BBC1, 1 August 1999.

 

“It’s hard to generalize from animals to humans - to human babies.” - Neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore on ‘Newsnight’, BBC1, 31 March 2000.

 

“Gentlemen, I think you will all agree that it would be preferable to test the effectiveness of new drugs on humans rather than on animals.” - from the 1996 novel, ‘The Donor’ by Prof. Christiaan Barnard, who performed the first human heart transplant in 1967.

 

“’To extrapolate the results of the study to humans was unacceptable’, the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) has ruled in a damning judgement.” - From an article headed “Estee Lauder forced to drop ‘elixir’ advert”, Sunday Telegraph, 16 May 1999, in which it was reported that a study showeing improved recovery from chronic ultraviolet damage in albino mice exposed to a high level of ultraviolet immediately after being covered in factor 6 sunsceen was rejected by the ASA.

 

“If you want to develop drugs to treat human diseases, then the ideal subjects are, naturally enough, humans. No other animal shares all our biochemistry so we can never be sure that a drug that works on animals will work on us.” - From the editorial in ‘New Scientist’, 31 August 1996.

 

“Professor Ian Hart, an immunologist at St Thomas’s hospital, said that although the pot-bellied pigs were comparable to humans, trials on people were the best way of making significant advances. ‘There are lots of experimental models on mice. We know how to cure the mice but these do not always extrapolate to the human model’”. - From an article in the Sunday Telegraph, 19 September 1999.

 

“You said you still feel that medical progress would have been and still can be achieved without the use of animals. I am sure it could be...there is clinical research which studies healthy and sick human beings. This is the gold standard, since here we learn what really happens in humans.” - Dr Mark Matfield of the pro-vivisection Research Defence Society, in a letter of 14 July 1995 to an enquier.

 

If you believe with us that animal experimentation, clearly unpredictable in its results, and cruel and unscientific, should be abolished by law, deal directly with your MP, whose salary you pay and whose name can be found by calling House of Commons Information on 020 7219 4272. Write to your MP to demand total and immediate abolition of vivisection. MPs do not like to be troubled with this issue and no MP has yet found the courage to call for total abolition. Nevertheless, MPs need to receive letters on the vivisection issue from their constituents to remind them that the issue is not forgotten and, as most belong to political parties that support vivisection because they are under the influence of big business, they bear the greatest responsibility for its continuationand much blame for the unrest that comes with this. Your MP should reply, but in the event of an unsatisfactory response or none, write to your local press to bring the matter to the attention of others and/or to the local party constituency association and/or party leadership. Always seek to maintain pressure on your MP who has a duty to represent your views.

 

This article, taken from a leaflet, was written by the Dr Hadwen Memorial Unit, established to promote or reassert the anti-vivisection views of Dr Robert Hadwen that may have been neglected or suppressed or misrepresented or plagiarised. It is voluntary and we are unsalaried in this work. Donations are most welcome and go directly into the production of anti-vivisection information. This article is available in the form of a 4 page A5 leaflet. Thank you for your support.

 

Dr Hadwen Memorial Unit