Animal Awareness / Animal Experimentation

Animal Experimentation / Vivisection

Non-human animals are tortured by vivisectors to "test" various products and medical research for the use of humans. Is it ever necessary? NO. Why does it continue? Follow the money trail. It's all about who is profiting, not who is saving human lives.

What is Vivisection ?

Vivisection is the dissection or practice of cutting into or otherwise injuring living animals, especially for the purpose of scientific research. Is it ever necessary? NO. The animal model is not accurate and actually has held back medical science by consistently providing faulty and unreliable data. Extensive research has brought to light the fact that there has never been even one medical advancement that has ever come from testing on an animal. Animal experimentation has only after-the-fact "validated" the previous tests, but animal models have meaningfully contributed to very few, if any, medical advancements. ¹

Not only is the animal model not providing medical advancement, but good cures are potentially being lost, as was almost the case with penicillin. In 1929 when Alexander Fleming first tested penicillin on rabbits, it was shown to be ineffective and was almost disregarded as being useless to humans. Later, he administered penicillin to a dying patient who had nothing left to loose. The patient lived and the discovery of penicillin remains an important part of modern medicine. Reactions of other animals to penicillin vary drastically. It causes limb malformations in the offspring of rats and kills both guinea pigs and hamsters. Fleming stated, "How fortunate we didn't have these animal tests in the 1940s, for penicillin would probably never been granted a license, and possibly the whole field of antibiotics might never have been realized." ²

One Student's Perspective

Video footage from inside Carolina Biological, one of the world's largest biological supply companies, displays the true atrocity and utter cruelty of dissection: animals are harassed, injured, and killed by jeering and insensitive employees. Many animals that are forced into the gas chambers come out alive; cats are seen moving while on the embalming table; live crabs and rats are painfully injected with formaldehyde; an employee is seen drowning a rabbit for fun. Horrific and unspeakable atrocities are committed in the name of science and education at the expense of innocent lives. The only lesson that dissection teaches students is the concept of regarding animals' lives as disposable classroom objects. Respect for all life is a chief principle that should be taught in life science classes. ³ Click here for the full report.

What Animals Are Tortured for Vivisection ?

The most commonly used non-human animals tortured for vivisection are birds, mice, and rats, which are used for 80-90% of vivisection. ⁴ Many other animals are also tortured for vivisection, such as: monkeys (and other non-human primates), rabbits, dogs, cats, guinea pigs, hamsters, pigs, frogs, horses, and farm animals.

Though most animals tested on in labs are birds, mice, and rats, they are not protected at all under the Animal Welfare Act ⁴ due to a political and controversial redefining of the word animal, resulting in their exclusion from any protection.

[NOTE: Other animals NOT protected under the Animal Welfare Act are animals used for food or fiber including livestock, chickens, horses and sheep. ⁵ In other words, well over 10 billion animals yearly (in the U.S. alone) are not covered under the Animal Welfare Act. Estimates are closer to 13-15 billion animals yearly (just in the U.S.) have no protection at all... and this horrifying annual number doesn't even include aquatic animals.]

Where Do The Animals Come From ?

Vivisected animals lead a life of pain and sadness when they become a prisoner of vivisection. These animals are torn from their families, bought from the "entertainment business" due to being viewed as disposable or are reproduced specifically for vivisection by breeders. Also, they are often stray animals taken from the streets they roam, litters purchased from unsuspecting people, as well as animals obtained through "free to good home" ads.

"Life" for Animals of Vivisection

Life for animals imprisoned in labs entails daily abuse. Animals are typically caged in small, uncomfortable cells. Then, the unimaginable is done to these animals: injected with HIV & AIDS, chemicals poured into their eyes, forced to ingest lethal doses of substances through a tube into their stomach or through a hole cut into their throats, burned, organs removed, cancer & ulcers induced or implanted, or sliced open for student use, usually with no pain killers. The list goes on and on. These animals are continually experimented on until they are no longer of use and then they are put to death. A small number of animals are rescued from this torment, but most live out their life suffering from confinement, lack of socialization, and the excruciating pain of the vivisection.

Excuses for Vivisection

Vivisectionists and companies or organizations that employ vivisectionists, such as the government, give various excuses for conducting these experiments on live animals. For example, companies who manufacture cosmetics and household products claim to need to test products on non-human animals to be sure the products are safe for human animals. Some organizations claim to need non-human animals to find cures for human diseases. Little does the public know that these are not necessary tests, there are alternatives to vivisection, which produce better, faster, and more accurate results that are also much cheaper than animal experimentation.

The only reason that animal experimentation still exists is purely financial. Animal experimentation is a consistent source of funding that researchers do not want to let go of, even if it means less productive research toward finding cures for human health. Recent studies have been done by American's for Medical Advancement (AFMA) that traces the funding dollars. They found, "...a medical-research system corrupt by lobbying groups, opportunistic scientists, irresponsible drug companies, unlearned public officials, and clogged bureaucracies, all profiting off the animal model's golden eggs." ⁶ When AFMA refers to animal research being a golden egg, it is due to the fact that it is similar to the goose who laid a golden egg; it is an unlimited source of money.

Who Pays for Vivisection ?

You do!!! When you purchase products or support charities that test on animals. You are paying for the vivisection that was performed to produce those products or paying a charity to fund vivisection with your donation. Who else are you giving money to that will be used for vivisection? The government. We all pay for the government with our taxes. When you vote for government officials, you are voting for people who will make laws. Those lawmakers are voting on whether you will be paying for vivisection or not, how much or how little.

Alternatives to Vivisection

There are many ways to conduct reliable tests without torturing animals. These alternatives are more dependable and trustworthy than tests conducted on animals. Reliance on the faulty research that vivisection produces has resulted in human illness and death. Alternatives to animal tests are often less expensive, less time consuming and the results are easier to decipher. Some of these tests are listed by PETA in their Facts for Activists Notebook: "...cell cultures, tissue cultures, corneas from eye banks, and sophisticated computer and mathematical models. Companies can also formulate products using ingredients already determined to be safe by the FDA." Too often consumerism pushes companies to continually produce "new and improved" products each year. Though these new and improved products are only slightly different, they require new animal tests.

For a comprehensive list of alternatives to animal experimentation for medical research and a thorough discussion of their benefits to human health, take a look at the research of American's for Medical Advancement (AFMA). Then, if the fact that alternative's produce better results still doesn't make you realize that using animals in research is not effective, maybe you'd like to know about 50 Deadly Consequences of Lab Animal Experiments.

Who Else Knows That Using the Animal Model in Medical Research is Harmful to Humans ?

Scientists, doctors, researchers, and anyone else who is keeping up with the information in the latest scientific peer-reviewed journals. That is the main reason why the public does not know. Deciphering the scientific data can be overwhelming to those not in the medical field, but it is common knowledge within the medical and scientific community that reliance on the animal model in research is not useful and is only done because the public has so much faith in it, though completely unfounded.

Dr. Jane Goodall, PhD: "I have a growing conviction that many animal data are not only obtained unethically, at huge cost in animal suffering, but are also unscientific, misleading, wasteful (in terms of dollars and effort) and may be actually harmful to humans." "Animal experimentation is unethical and cruel. It hurts animals, it is expensive, and it is so often detrimental to the very species it professes to be helping - our own." ⁷

Dr. Ray Greek, MD and Dr. Jean Swingle Greek, DVM: "We (human and non-human animals) differ on a cellular and molecular level, and, importantly, that is where disease occurs." ⁸ "We were finding, through scientific research, that extrapolating data from animals to humans is either misleading, unnecessary, dangerous, or all three." ⁹

Dr. M. Beddow Bayly: "...medical authorities who set out to support and defend the practice of experimenting on living animals so far to distort historical facts as to create the impression in the mind of the public that every single medical diagnosis and treatment had depended for its discovery and application on vivisection... Happily, even the briefest perusal of the available evidence shows falsity of these claims and provides historical proof of the supreme value of clinical observation..." ¹⁰

What Can I Do ?

This is something you have control of! You can save animals from needless torture every single time that you go to the store and buy household products. Only buy products that are not tested on animals. Only support charities that do not test on animals. Look for the cruelty-free leaping bunny emblem on the products you are purchasing. And, remember to look for the Humane Charity Seal when choosing charities to give donations.

Also, living a healthy lifestyle with good nutrition, exercise, and low stress will drastically help animals in an important way. If you don't get sick, then you won't need to be treated with the drugs or surgery techniques that were tested on animals.

Go online to PETA.org and print a list of companies and charities that do not test on animals. Other valuable web sites are Humane Seal, Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine, and CureDisease.com for further information.

You also have a say in what our government pays for. Educate yourself on political issues regarding animals and vivisection. Write letters to your senators and representative. You can find these legislators by visiting www.vote-smart.org. You can also view The Humane Score Card on the HSUS website to find out how your elected officials are voting on animal issues. If you like how they are voting let them know. If you disagree with the way they are voting, write them a letter, give them a call, or schedule a visit. These people are working for you! Make sure they are doing a good job for you and for the animals.

References

¹ C. Ray Greek, MD and Jean Swingle Greek, DVM, "Sacred Cows and Golden Geese: The Human Cost of Experimentation on Animals," The Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd, 2000, pp. 17-19.

² CureDisease.com, http://www.curedisease.com/FAQ.html.

³ People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), "Classroom Cut-Ups." This video can be seen at: http://www.petatv.com/viv.html

⁴ PETA reference to Orlans, F. Barbara, "Data on Animal Experimentation in the United States: What They Do and Do Not Show," Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 37, 2. Winter 1994.

⁵ Animal Welfare Act, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Section 2(g), online pdf, 2002, p. 5.

⁶ CureDisease.com and "Sacred Cows and Golden Geese," p. 19.

⁷ "Sacred Cows and Golden Geese," p. 11.

⁸ ibid, p. 16.

⁹ ibid, p. 17.

¹⁰ ibid, p. 18.