In Their Own Words

 

 

There have always been those in the medical and scientific community who have spoken out against vivisection, often going against the grain and in doing so risking careers, ridicule from peers, loss of prestige, etc. Throughout this century brave and courageous doctors and scientists have spoken out against the reliance of animal experimentation in regards to human health, knowing only too well that such a practice will lead medicine astray and eventually cause harm to human health.

 

In countries as scattered as Germany, the USA, Israel, Holland, Italy and many others, including the UK with Doctors and Lawyers for Responsible Medicine, there have, over the past couple of decades, groups of those in the medical profession joining together to speak out against animal experimentation, always and above all else out of interest of human health, regardless of what their moral feelings towards animals might be.

 

In fact, Swiss medical historian Hans Ruesch collected one thousand such statements of opposition to vivisection from medical professionals in his book 1000 Doctors (and many more) Against Vivisection. It would be easy to put up numerous pages here  reproducing those quotes, but probably more telling are those quotes made by vivisectors themselves, or at least vivisectionists, denouncing the practice of vivisection which they themselves know only too well is misleading, useless, and producing nothing but a mountain of data the relevance of which to human health is meaningless. All emphasis is ours.

 

The following quotes (all made by supporters of vivisection) are from Dr Tony Page's book, Vivisection Unveiled, available from the BAVA and highly recommended, and where full references can be found.

 

"...there is no doubt that pain and distress occurs (sic) in laboratory animals"  - RDS News, October 1996 (RDS - Research Defence Society, Britain's pro-vivisection lobby).

 

"The response of these simulated cutaneous disorders to drugs can be misleading, and data obtained from such experimental models (ie animals) are never unqualifiedly applicable to man". (Drs Katz and Poulsen, from 'Absorbtion of Drugs Through the Skin' in Concepts in Biochemical Pharmacology pt 1, 1971))

 

Vivisector Dr Alexis Carrel stated in regards to mice and rats that they have "...only very remote analogies with man". (Man the Unknown, by Dr Alexis Carrel, 1961), whilst in 1996 vivisector Prosessor Ed Masoro confirmed regarding rat experiments "...there is no reason to believe that what is true for rats will necessarily be true for human beings". (Daily Mail 29.1.96)

 

Professor Floyd R Domer, a vivisector at Tulane University during the 1970s, wrote a revealing book on the use of animals in pharmacological analysis: "It is not uncommon for an investigator to find that he is unable to reproduce results which have been reported from another laboratory". (Animal Experiments in Pharmacological Analysis, 1971)  It is well known that identical experiments, done on the same types of animal, can have wildly varying outcomes as a result of small differences such as the type of bedding, cage size, the time of day they are performed, etc.

 

In the journal Laboratory Animals, (Vol 26, nr 3, July 1992), it is reported in connection of the number of animal deaths due to problems with anaesthetics that: "...we (ie the vivisectors) are over-anaesthetizing laboratory animals, and...are guilty of insufficient physiological monitoring, and that this is having a detrimental effect on the well-being of the animals, and possibly the validity of the experimental results which are obtained."

 

Again, vivisector Professor Domer on animal testing: "Differences in the metabolism of compounds by each species makes this type of extrapolation a hazardous procedure".

 

And: "This has resulted in a vast amount of information being generated at a very large expense. The nagging problem which continues to confront scientists, industry and the government is that there does not appear to be any good evidence that this increase in (animal experimental) work and expense in the development of new compounds has resulted in an appreciable decrease in the potential hazards for the population at large".

 

In other words, despite the colossal expenditure in animal life and money, there is no evidence that this has provided the public with any safeguard from the toxic effects of drugs, pesticides, and a thousand and one other chemicals. With prescribed drugs said to be the 3rd/4th biggest cause of death, it would appear that the opposite would appear to be the case.

 

"...the extrapolative relevance of the mouse sex difference to human remains to be established". And with regards to copper: male rats are more susceptible to copper poisoning than females, who are immune to it. "To what extent these findings are relevant to the human situation is unknown". Dr Edward J Calabrese of the University of Massachusetts (Toxic Susceptibility: Male/Female Differences, 1985. Again, the vivisector admits that his research may or may not be relevant to humans.

 

"Since no animal tumour is closely related to a cancer in human beings, an agent which is active in the laboratory may well prove useless clinically". (The Lancet, 15 April 1972).

 

"The standard carcinogen tests that use rodents are an obsolescent relic of the ignorance of past decades". (Science, 21 September 1990)

 

A Vivisectors' Conference

 

Approaching the 1980s there was a major conference held in the USA, the purpose of which was to take stock of what progress had been made in trying to decide what substances cause cancer in humans. The conference was opened by Dr Frederick Coulston: "A key issue today, at least in the United States, is the prediction of chemical carcingenesis from animal data to man. We've all struggled with the problem over the years and there is as yet no real answer, it seems to me. The real answer in the field of analysis will be human experience..."

 

In other words, here we have a vivisector admitting that the vivisector struggles in transferring animal data to humans until the human experience has validated, or otherwise, the animal tests, by which time, of course, the animal results are irrelevant anyway.

 

Knowing that perhaps such candid remarks might not go down too well in the public arena, Dr Coulston tells his colleagues that  "I assure you that there is no press in this room and there is no press release to be made from this meeting so you're free to say almost anything you wish with the understanding that you can delete anything you've said later, if you so desire".

 

Dr Coulston went on to say "What he (the toxicologist-vivisector) can't tell is whether the chemical is going to cause, and this is the hangup of the toxicologist". Remember that this is the basis of the USA's 'War on Cancer', which has achieved nothing other than the creation of a multi-billion dollar, self-serving industry. Meanwhile, the morgues fill up with the human victims of animal-based "cancer research".

 

The next vivisector to address the conference is Dr Philippe Shubik, who brings up the question of animal experiments relating to the risks of cancer from smoking: "Clearly, we still do not have a good animal model for the most important and well-established hazard to man".

 

And in 1995 vivisector Dr Tony Chu of London's Hammersmith Hospital admitted that whether animal data regarding coal tar and cancer have any relevance for humans is unknown: "If you paint these products (ie coal tar shampoos) onto mice in the sort of concentrations that are absorbed in humans who are using the shampoos, then you can induce skin cancers. But how this relates to the human system, nobody actually knows". (Dr Tony Chu, BBC Radio 4, 7 July 1995)

 

Back to our vivisectors conference, and again Dr Shubik: "Here again, it seems to me, we have a discrephency between animal data and human data. There are these extremely low levels that Dr Maltoni has reported as producing tumours in animals, and from anything that one sees of the human data it would appear that only men exposed to very large doses have, so far, developed cancer".

 

And speaking of asbestos Dr Shubik says: "There is absolutely no question that there is more and more asbestos around all the time...Clearly right now our animal models are totally and absolutely inadequate to answer all the obvious questions before us".

 

The risks to human health from both smoking and asbestos are of course well established, from clinical observation, but for decades animal research provided dangerously misleading information on the health implications of these two human carcinogens. In the mid 1960s the New York Academy of Sciences stated the following on the risks of asbestos: "...a large literature on experimental studies has failed to furnish any definite evidence for induction of malignant tumours in animals exposed to various varieties and preparations of asbestos by inhilation or intratracheal injection".

 

Again, back to our vivisectors' conference, and vivisectionist Dr H F Kraybill tells of the dangers of the vivisection method of testing:  " The most toxic compounds are..most likely to escape detection as potential carcinogens due to overdosing..The most alarming feature in these dose selections is that the MTD (maximum tolerated dose) is, in no way, related to potential environmental or industrial exposure in man. In one case, the dose indicated for a life-time study in the rodent calculated to a total requirement exceeding in pounds the annual production by a manufacturer."

 

And: "For example, response data from one laboratory sometimes cannot be duplicated elsewhere because of a different strain of the same species, variance in environmental conditions such as type and composition of diet, biorefractories (contaminants) in the water, pollutants in the air, animal care and/or husbandry, and others. The question then arises: which experimental findings and which reports are authentic and recognised as a basis for an informed decision?"

 

And: "These variations in response, needless to state, perplex the investigator. In the non-professional's mind, reading about these variations must conjure up some doubts as to the authenticity of the work or the significance of the findings".

 

Could there be more of an understatement?! But Dr Kraybill continues: "For one to analise, statistically, toxicity data obtained from experimental studies in animals where large doses of a chemical were given, and then predict what percentage of humans may adversely affected by a challenge at a lower dose is not valid, biochemically or pharmacologically".

 

(the results of animal tests) "...are very difficult, if not impossible, to extrapolate for human safety evaluation". (vivisector Ralph Gingell)

 

Two more vivisectors speaking at this conference had this to say: "...to what extent the extrapolation to man of data obtained from experimental models (ie animals) is valid, is a question still requiring final resolution". (Dr  Ulrich Mohr), and "We're accumulating a vast number of facts, but we are making very little progress..."

 

But there is found some evidence as to the true reason for the vivisector's continuation down this road in the statement by Sir John Maddox, a former editor of Nature, who stated: "Is there a danger, in molecular biology, that the accumulation of data will get so far ahead of its assimilation into a conceptual framework that the data will eventually prove an encumbrance? Part of the trouble is that excitement of the chase leaves little time for reflection. And there are grants for producing data, but hardly any for standing back in contemplation". (Nature, 1988, 335:11)

 

And as the vivisector, Dr Philippe Shubik, puts it towards the end of the conference: "Well, I think we've achieved our major objective, because I did hear Ernst say, 'If I am right', and that leaves an opening for a series of people to do additional experiments. The chief objective here is to keep us all employed, and to make sure we do interesting experiments so that we can come back to these nice places".

 

Summing up the congress and adding to the question of whether it is possible to extrapolate from animal data to human beings, Dr David Clayson displays an amazing degree of honesty: "...when we come to extrapolate across the species boundaries from our experimental animals to man...(w)hat we're doing at the moment is politically expedient, but don't let's pretend we're doing something scientific..." ,

 

Dr Coulston clearly shares the views of Dr Clayson: "...that the mouse or the rat or the hamster predicts for man, and we have no basis for this prediction", and "The real help we need is to try to understand what we're doing...relating our animal experimentation to the human experience. The toxicologist is limited, he's very limited, in the interpretation of animal data to man", and that "In general, we go from dogs and rats and put the additive out in the general population and just hope for the best. It is a dreadful mistake to do this, and I've always thought this way".

 

The vivisector, Dr Irving J Selikoff, likewise finds it necessary at the end of the conference to ask the key question: "Does the animal model have any relevance to human disease? If not, we're wasting a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of good scientists, and a lot of space at the NIH (National Institute of Health)".

 

Dr Coulston sums up: "It's tough enough to prove efficacy (ie of chemicals and drugs), let alone proving safety. What I'm trying to say is, that we should resolve the problem by asking ourselves, 'Is the rodent or the hamster predicting something to man? ' and then  spend our time trying to find that out...Let's do the metabolism studies which tell us whether these animals are truly handling the chemical like man. We've heard no discussion of that in this meeting, by the way. But that's what happens when toxicologists get together. I'm simply trying to say this is all guess, and as David Clayson said, we shouldn't put too much faith in it; yet I don't know how to do it better".

 

More Insights

 

"Whether experimental tumour systems are valid models for therapeutic modalities for human cancer, or indeed whether specific therapeutic modalities shown to be effective in one animal tumour system can be applied to another system, is debatable", vivisectors Dr J Fidler and Dr Raffaella in 1985.  

 

"In retrospect, it is obvious that many of the clinical trials were based on assumed extrapolation from promising animal models, even though it was clear that extrapolation from one animal model to another, let alone from animal model to human disease, was frequently not possible". (John W Kreider and Gerald L Bartlee, 'Is There a Host Response to Metastasis?')

 

"One thing we can say is that the preclinical 'in vivo' (ie animal) ascites models do not correlate well with clinical (ie human) therapeutic activity. I think that's one thing we can set aside and go on..."  Dr James E Talmadge, and "We are not even sure which experiments we can do to prove there is a correlation between preclinical (ie animal) and clinical (ie human) models".

 

Vivisector M J Halsey: "One of the most dramatic examples of misleading evidence from animal data is provided by the studies on fluroxene. After more than a decade of apparently safe clinical use, the agent was demonstrated to be lethal if given in long or repeat exposures in the dog, cat and rabbit, mice and rats. If these particular experiments had been carried out 20 years earlier, the agent would never have been released".   

 

Clearly even a vivisector is only too aware that such is the misleading nature of animal experiments, that the discovery of beneficial medical tools is little more than hit and miss. Just as we have had countless deadly toxins palmed off onto us as "safe" after extensive animal tests, we must likewise assume that equally countless benefical therapies have eluded us due to the same twisted method of  "research".

 

"The human species is different from all other species". - vivisector Prof Jonh Martin, on Channel 4s 'Frontline' programme, 6 September 1995.

 

Mark Matfield, of the RDS, should perhaps have chosen his words more carefully when in a letter to an enquirer he correctly commented that animal experiments "do not tell us exactly what goes on in the human system".

 

Sir Ernst Boris Chain, Nobel Prize winner and co-discoverer of the anti-bacterial effects of penecillin, stated under oath before a court of law investigating the Thalidomide tragedy: "No animal experiment with a medicament, even if it is carried out on several animal species including primates under all conceivable conditions, can give any guarantee that the medicament tested in this way will behave the same in humans, because in many respects the human is not the same as the animal". (The court records of 2 February 1970, quoted by Dr W Hartinger in CIVIS Foundation Report number 11)

 

Yet another member of the RDS, Prof Clive Page, writing in a medical journal on the 'airways hyperresponsiveness' (AHR) in the asthmatic patient states: "Established clinically efficacious anti-asthmatic drugs...will often attenuate this acute AHR, although novel therapeutic agents which demonstrate this same property in animals may not necessarily show clinical value in man", and "In conclusion, at present there is no ideal animal model of chronic asthma and such a seemingly complex disorder may be impossible to mimic (ie in animals)". (Heart of the Matter, BBC TV, 6 July 1995)

 

We have already seen that small differences in laboratory conditions can vary the outcome of experiments, and this is acknowledged - this time in differences of strains of the same species of animal  - in the pro-vivisection publication, Croner's Substances Hazardous to Health, February 1987, on the LD50 poisoning test: "Many problems exist with this method, including the fact that all animals, even within a species (eg different strains of rats), have variable metabolic pathways and different susceptibility to the effects of the same chemical. Therefore, different laboratories working with the same breed of animal produce different LD50 results"., and later on "Despite the fact that animal tests often form the basis for legislative control measures it is important to remember, that humans do not necessarily respond the same way as animals".

 

Clearly it is not just the anti-vivisectionist who knows that animal testing is meaningless, and whilst on the subject of the LD50 test let us quote Philip Rogers, who in 1977 as Managing Director of Hazelton Laboratories (a vivisection establishment), had this to say: "The LD50 is a crude measure of toxicology. There is really little scientific justification for the test because reproducibility is not good, it can vary from day to day, and the results are dependent on the animal strain used".

 

A few years earlier the late Prof Gerhard Zbinden, toxicology expert with the World Health Organisation, stated "Most adverse reactions which occur in man cannot be demonstrated, anticipated or avoided by the routine subacute and chronic (animal) toxicity experiment."  

 

Even Dr Ralph Heywood, past scientific director of the Huntingdon Research Centre, another vivisection establishment, admitted in 1989: "...the best guess for the correlation of adverse reactions in man and animal toxicity data is somewhere between 5% and 25%". (Animal Toxicity Studies: Their Relevance to Man, 1989), that being, of course, worse than tossing a coin where you would at least be correct 50% of the time.