From The Writings of Vasu Murti

"Animal Testing is a Dangerous Game"

A Roman Catholic priest, Msgr. LeRoy McWilliams, testified in October 1962 in favor of legislation to reduce the sufferings of laboratory animals. He told congressional representatives: "The first book of the Bible tell us that God created the animals, so they have the same Father as we do. God’s Fatherhood extends to our ‘lesser brethren.’ All animals belong to God; He alone is their absolute owner. In our relations with them, we must emulate the divine attributes, the highest of which is mercy. God, their Father and Creator, loves them tenderly. He lends them to us and adjures us to use them as He Himself would do." Msgr. McWilliams issued a letter to all seventeen thousand Catholic pastors in the United States, calling upon them to understand "what Christianity imposes on humans as their clear obligation to animals."

A growing number of Christian theologians, clergy and activists are beginning to take a stand in favor of animal rights. In a pamphlet entitled "Christian Considerations on Laboratory Animals," Reverend Marc Wessels notes that in laboratories animals cease to be persons and become "tools of research." Reverend Wessels cites William French of Loyola University as having made the same observation at a gathering of Christian ethicists at Duke University—a conference entitled "Good News for Animals?" In 1992, presidential candidate Jerry Brown said, "The millions of animals used in scientific experiments should be replaced by other methods."

"We all want to see through life's mystery
"The quest for knowledge is a natural activity
"But science be careful -- science be kind
"We can't go on pretending to be blind

"Animal testing is a dangerous game
"All systems are different -- we're not the same

"No more torture! The animals are free
"The same with messing around with atomic energy
"Hey hey doctor - reincarnation
"Would you like to come back as a laboratory rat?

"If we want to avoid this endless human riot
"Why don't we start by changing our diet?
"Life is for living -- the animals agree
"If they were meant to be eaten
"They'd be growing on trees

"So no more torture of our furry friends
"In the name of food or scientific ends
"The pressure is on -- be anti-vivisection!"

--Nina Hagen & Lene Lovich, "Don't Kill the Animals" (1987)

Less than two percent of human illnesses (1.16%) are ever seen in animals. According to the former scientific executive of Huntingdon Life Sciences, animal tests and human results agree "5%-25% of the time." Among the hundreds of techniques available instead of animal experiments, cell culture toxicology methods give accuracy rates of 80-85%. The two most common illnesses in the Western world are lung cancer from smoking and heart disease. Neither can be reproduced in lab animals. 92% of drugs passed by animal tests immediately fail when first tried on humans because they’re useless, dangerous or both.

A 2004 survey of doctors in the UK showed that 83% wanted an independent scientific evaluation of whether animal experiments had relevance to human patients. Less than one in four (21%) had more confidence in animal tests than in non-animal methods. Rats are 37% effective in identifying what causes cancer to humans – less use than guessing. The experimenters said: “we would have been better off to have tossed a coin." Rodents are the animals almost always used in cancer research. Rodents never get carcinomas, the human form of cancer, which affects membranes (e.g. lung cancer). Their sarcomas affect bone and connective tissue: the two are completely different.

The results from animal tests are routinely altered radically by diet, light, noise, temperature, lab staff and bedding. Bedding differences caused cancer rates of over ninety percent and almost zero in the same strain of mice at different labs. Sex differences among lab animals can cause contradictory results. This does not correspond with humans. 75% of side effects identified in animals never occur. Over half of all side effects cannot be detected in lab animals. Vioxx was shown to protect the heart of mice, dogs, monkeys and other lab animals. It was linked to heart attacks and strokes in up to 139,000 humans. Genetically modified animals are not like humans. The mdx mouse is supposed to have muscular dystrophy, but the muscles regenerate with no treatment. GM animal the CF-mouse never gets fluid infections in the lungs – the cause of death for 95% of human cystic fibrosis patients.

In the United States, 106,000 deaths a year are attributed to reactions to medical drugs. Each year 2.1 million Americans are hospitalized by medical treatment. In the UK an estimated 72,000 people are killed or severely disabled every year by unexpected reactions to drugs. All these drugs have passed animal tests. In the UK's House Of Lords questions have been asked regarding why unexpected reactions to drugs (which passed animal tests) kill more people than cancer. A German doctors' congress concluded that six percent of fatal illnesses and 25% of organic illness are caused by medicines. All were animal tested.

According to a thorough study, 88% of stillbirths are caused by drugs which passed animal tests. 61% of birth defects were found to have the same cause. 72% of drugs which cause human birth defects are safe in pregnant monkeys. 78% of fetus-damaging chemicals can be detected by one non-animal test. Thousands of safe products cause birth defects in lab animals – including several vitamins, vegetable oils, oxygen and drinking waters. Of more than a thousand substances dangerous in lab animals, over 97% are safe in humans.

One of the most common lifesaving operations (for ectopic pregnancies) was delayed forty years by vivisection (animal experimentation). The great Dr. Hadwen noted: "had animal experiments been relied upon... humanity would have been robbed of this great blessing of anaesthesia." Aspirin fails animal tests, as do digitalis (a heart drug), cancer drugs, insulin (which causes animal birth defects), penicillin and other safe medicines. They would be banned if vivisection were believed. Blood transfusions were delayed two hundred years by animal studies. The polio vaccine was delayed forty years by monkey tests. Thirty HIV vaccines, 33 spinal cord damage drugs, and over seven hundred treatments for stroke have been developed in animals. None work in humans.

Despite Nobel prizes going to vivisectors, only 45% say animal experiments are crucial. The Director of the UK Research Defence Society, (which exists only to defend vivisection) was asked if medical progress could have been made without animal use. His written reply was "I am sure it could be."

Go on to: Animal Victims / Human Victims: Reports from Police Case Files
Return to: Articles
Return to: The Writings of Vasu Murti