Animal Experimentation continues because it is beneficial to the huge Medical, Technology, Research, Drug Company alliance that is increasingly intervening in our lives and our health. Research is big business, so breeders, government agencies, pharmaceutical companies, universities, and others who profit generously from animal research continue to make big money by convincing the public that animal testing is necessary. Animal Experimentation is said to be necessary for the welfare and health of humans. This is simply not true! Animal-tested drugs have killed, disabled or harmed millions of people and lead to costly delays as well. Here are a few of the facts on vivisection:

• It is estimated that approximately 100 million animals worldwide are needlessly tortured and killed in animal experiments!! Animals are blinded, poisoned to death, scalded, electrocuted, paralysed, burned, maimed, driven mad, turned into drug addicts, and given diseases in animal experiments.



• We now know that more than 90 % of human diseases are caused by environmental impacts or lifestyle choices. The need for cures is largely a myth created to sustain a multi-billion dollar medical structure. Vivisection is actually a huge business, with billions of dollars involved in breeding, grants, fundraising and salaries. Those enmeshed in this industry will do everything they can to perpetuate their profits, including misleading the public about the efficacy of animal experimentation and healthy animals continue to be sacrificed.



• The Director of Research Defence Society, (which exists to defend vivisection) was asked if medical prgress could have been acheived without animal use. His written reply was "I am sure it could be".



• 95% of drugs passed by animal tests are immediately disgarded as useless or dangerous to humans.



• The chances of a cure for most major cancers has not improved over the past 30 years and more people suffer from the disease than ever before. Yet still the major part of thousands of dollars spent annually by cancer charities goes to animal-based research. So if you contribute to cancer research organizations, this is what you are really contributing to.



• We have spent billions of dollars to cure cancer in mice, but so far have failed to replicate human cancer in any animal, let alone close in on a cure.



• Human and animal testing agree only 5-25% of the time, according to Huntingdon Life Sciences.



• 88% of stillbirths are due to drugs posed to be safe in animal testing.



• According to World Health Organization out of 200,000 released mediations only 240 are labeled as essential.



• One is six patients in hospital are there because the drug they have taken had been passed safe for us on humans after animal tests.



• It was denied for decades that asbestos caused disease in humans because it didn’t in animals.



• Heart by pass surgery was put on hold for years because it didn’t work on dogs



• Polio researchers were mislead for years about how we catch the disease because they had experimented on monkeys.



• Aspirin fails animal tests, as do Digitalis (heart drug), cancer treatments, Insulin (causes animal birth defects), Penicillin and other safe medicines. They would be banned if results from animal experimentation were accurate.



• If we had relied on animal tests we would still believe that humans don’t need vitamin C, that smoking doesn’t cause cancer and alcohol doesn’t cause liver damage.



• Blood transfusions were delayed 200 years by animal studies, corneal transplants were delayed 90 years.



• Thousands of drugs passed safe in animals have been withdrawn or banned due to their effect on human health.



• Rats are 37% effective in identifying what causes cancer in humans. Flipping a coin would be more accurate.
• At least 50 drugs on the market cause cancer in lab animals. They are allowed because it is admitted that animal tests are not relevant.



• Less then 2% of human illnesses or 1.16% are ever seen in animals.



• Animal experiments can be replaced by at least 450 methods known at this time.

Doctors who are against vivisection:

• Dr. Andre Menache.........please listen to him here: Experiments in Weizmann Institute and also at: Good Science vs. Bad Science



• A great book, by Drs. Ray and Jean Geek, called "Sacred Cows and Golden Geese" dispels the myth that animal experiments have contributed to medical progress. They show that using animals to safety-test human medicines is worse than useless!



• "I have studied the question of vivisection for thirty-five years and am convinced that experiments on living animals are leading medicine further and further from the real cure of the patient. I know of no instance of animal experiment that has been necessary for the advancement of medical science; still less do I know of any animal experiment that could conceivably be necessary to save human life." -H. Fergie Woods, M.D.



• "What good does it do you to test something (a vaccine) in a monkey? You find five or six years from now that it works in the monkey, and then you test it in humans and you realize that humans behave totally differently from monkeys, so you've wasted five years." - Dr. Mark Feinberg, a leading AIDS researcher.



• "There is no doubt that the best test species for man is man. This is based on the fact that it is not possible to extrapolate animal data directly to man, due to interspecies variation in anatomy, physiology and biochemistry." - Dr MacLennan and Dr. Amos, Clinical Sciences Research Ltd., UK



• "There are, in fact, only two categories of doctors and scientists who are not opposed to vivisection: those who don't know enough about it, and those who make money from it." - Dr. Werner Hartinger, M.D., German surgeon.



• "I cannot recall a single instance where my clinical judgment was even remotely influenced by the results of a psychological study using animals as subjects or 'models.' " - Michael Klaper, M.D.



• "Not only are the studies themselves often lacking even face value, but they also drain badly needed funds away from patient care needs." - Neal D. Barnard, M.D.



• 1000 Doctors (and many more) Against Vivisection. by Hans Ruesch, editor. CIVIS, New York, 1989. A collection of statements from physicians opposing animal experimentation from 1989 back to 1824. (This is a very intesesting read......Please check out http://www.vivisectionfraud.com/ This website give information on The Hans Ruesch Center



• "We've made great progress in the past decade, and with the help of our partners we can do even more to increase the pace of developing and introducing alternative methods." William Stokes, D.V.M., director of NICEATM, the NTP office at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Please check out:50 DEADLY CONSEQUENCES OF LAB ANIMAL EXPERIMENTS to see how animal experimentation has misled researchers for centuries.....this is a great read!

Here a just a handful of drugs that were extensively tested on animals and after being approved for human use, were found to have dangerous and deadly side affects. Some were pulled from the market.:

Clioquinol, Eraldin/Practocol, Tequin, TGN 1412, Thalidomide, Zyprexa/Olanzapine. Phenactin, E-Ferol, Oraflex, Rexar, Suprofen, Zomax, Suprol, Rezulin, Selacryn, and Vioxx have been pulled from the market after killing or harming thousands and thousands of people.

Side effects of prescription medicines kill over 100,000 people a year in the US and almost as many in the UK. That is more than all illegal drugs combined!

The great breakthroughs in science that have given us all the medical advances we enjoy today have actually come from ethical, human-based research - most notably astute clinical observation, epidemiology (population studies), autopsies and in- vitro research, including the use of human tissue. Anaesthetics, antibiotics, aspirin, beta-blockers, pacemakers and many other great discoveries owe nothing to animals and everything to human ingenuity.

Another issue is the fact that drugs can injure animals but display no adverse reactions in humans. These are equally significant in revealing the inaccuracy of animal data because these tests keep potentially useful medications out of our reach. Here are some examples of how animal testing significantly reveals the differences between human data and animal data:

So, what are the non-animal methods of scientific research? Here are a few:

• In Vitro Research - this testing has been shown to produce more accurate results which correlate from the laboratory to real life. Tissue Culture - is the cultivation of the living cells outside the organism. This is done by placing the cells in a nutritional medium. In other words, pieces of living flesh can be grown and multiplied in the test tube. This includes Organ and Cell Cultures. Organ Cultures - Small pieces of tissue are cultured so as to retain the function of the organ from which they where removed. In the opinion of some biologists, organ cultures, to an even greater extent than cell cultures, have considerable potential for future development. Cell Cultures - Dispersed cells are cultured in a medium that promotes continuous growth. These can produce vast quantities of cells over the course of years. Cell cultures can be produced from normal healthy cells or from cancerous cells. Human cells can be given by a living donor who need suffer no ill effects from losing a few cells.



• Models - Simulated human anatomical features, including flesh, muscle and bone structure, make it possible now to pursue, for example, car crash studies without resorting to animals. Resusci-dog models are now used extensively in veterinary science.



• Audio Visual Guides and Aids - Film, closed circuit television and video tape can all be used as teaching aids, thus sparing thousands of animals from continued re-runs of the same experiment.



• Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry - These techniques, used in conjunction, now make possible the detection of minute quantities of substances in their journey through the body, thus allowing direct study of the action of new drugs, etc., in humans. Their toxic effects can be noted well before they become dangerous.



• Computer and Mathematical Modeling - Recently led to new treatments for breast cancer, AIDS, high blood pressure, and aided development of new prosthetics.



• Quantitative Structure Activity Relationship Analysis (QSAR). Computer technology has expanded the ability to predict the toxicity of chemicals using structural analysis. TOPKAT, a computer program with vast data on chemical activity, is able to predict the probable activity of new compounds based upon their structures.



• Epidemiology - this is the study and control of diseases within a human population. These studies have linked diet to heart disease, smoking to lung cancer, and identified all known environmental poisons and occupational diseases. These habits or substances are labeled as "dangerous" and we can avoid them.



• Genetic Engineering - Until the early 1980's, insulin was still produced from cow and pig pancreas, and then the first commercial human insulin was marketed, made by bacteria, which had been genetically programmed to produce the human version of the hormone. Now being produced of a much purer type than previously available using animals, this insulin is helping to eliminate a great portion of the harmful effects suffered by about 20% of the users of conventionally produced animal insulin.



• Technological Breakthroughs - The achievements of physicists, chemists, mathematicians, computer engineers and biotechnical engineers have long since outpaced the archaic methods of animal experimentation.
• Check out:You Tube-Animal Testing

The major reason new drugs are still tested on animals is to protect companies in court when people are injured or killed by adverse drug reactions. It's liability protection!

(Sources: http://www.askuswhy.com/drug_(4).htm; http://www.vivisectioninfo.org/humane_research.html; http://www.da4a.org/science.htm; http://www.arrc.org.au/alternatives.htm.)

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates drugs and cosmetics, has the power to require that non-animal testing alternatives be employed. Why aren't they??? The agency, however, continues to give in to industry pressure by enforcing inadequate, unreliable and cruel animal tests, and only suggesting that alternatives be considered. There is little incentive for companies to use non-animal tests without the full force of the FDA making it mandatory.

According to the UK based Safer Medicines Trust it is estimated that adverse reactions to drugs which tested safe on animals put over 1 million people into the hospital every year! Ninety-two percent of all drugs that pass animal testing fail the clinical trail phase after they prove ineffective or dangerous to human subjects! Why haven’t we moved further from the clearly ineffective and extremely cruel animal testing methods??! When a drug proves safe on animals and there’s only an 8% chance of it working on a human, consumers need to realize how immoral and obsolete vivesection is. "The medical progress of the past century is the result of technology, public health improvements, epidemiology, human clinical research, human autopsies, mathematical modeling and the mapping of the human genome, not experiments on animals" writes Kelly Overton of "People Protecting Animals".

Non-animal testing methods benefit human health, eliminate animal torture and save money....but to transition to non-animal alternatives will require an educated public willing to question companies, governments and institutions that profit off of human ignorance and animal suffering. A few things you can do as a consumer are: (1) ONLY buy products that say "NOT tested on animals or have the Leaping Bunny seal of approval. (2) Only support charities that do not support testing on animals (Humane Charities) (3) Visit Great Ape Protection Act and urge your congressman and senator to support this! (4) Write to companies to let them know why you are not buying their products. (5) Contact your elected representatives (address can be obtained by calling 800-688-9889), The US Food and Drug Administration, 5600 Fishers Ln., Rockville MD 20857 and The US Department of Health and Human Services, 200 Independence Avenue SW, Washington DC 20201. Also The US Consumer Product Safety Commission, Office of the Secretary, Washington DC 20207. Demand that they make the validation of non-animal product testing methods a high priority. (6) Inform others about the senseless cruelty of product testing using animals. Letters to the editor, classroom projects, tabling and demonstrations and even simple conversations with others will help to spread the word that animal testing is cruel and unnecessary.

Just because a drug or treatment was developed using animal research doesn't mean it couldn't have been developed *without* animal research.

Bad Medicine is a 45 minutes documentary produced by The British Anti-Vivisection Association (2007) about the history of animal testing and it's implications on human and non-human animals.

Bad Medicine is the first UK produced film exposing the full implications of basing human medicine on the practice of vivisection.

Bad Medicine exposes: The devastating toll in human lives because of animal 'safety-tested' drugs. The reasons why animal research cannot help people, and how human health is declining despite - or rather because of - the billions spent on animal research. How the cancer industry is not interested in genuine cancer treatments. The real reasons for the decline of the infectious diseases. How the media and politicians both benefit from vivisection's continuation How many within the medical profession are opposed to vivisection. That vivisection is responsible for destroying our environment. That vivisection has never been shown to be relevant to human beings.

Actor, James Cromwell explains that animal testing is cruel and counter-productive. This video takes us through just a small observation of the surface of animal testing through a number of facilities including: University of California, Riverside, Boys Town Research Center, University of North Carolina, Iams Pet Food Laboratory, to name a few.

All these tests here could have been done on human cells removed from operations or donated in test tubes, which is cheaper, 100% accurate (whereas testing on animals is extremely inaccurate, for example anesthesia that we use to knock people out actually stimulates many animals including rats, cats and horses), can be examined more carefully and most of all is more ethical.

Dr. Oz, author and cardiothoracic surgeon, health expert and host of his own show, "The Dr. Oz Show", recently did a show on May 12, 2011, exposing the secrets of drug companies. Dr. Oz and his experts discussed deadly drug interactions, the risks of taking too many prescription drugs, doctors’ accuracy rates regarding recommending prescriptions and whether or not drug companies are inventing diseases to make money.

“THE 4 THINGS DRUG COMPANIES DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW”

According to Dr. Oz, we take for granted that the drugs we’re prescribed are safe and necessary, but that might not always be the case. Americans are too dependant on drugs and yet we’re still sick.

• 1. Drug Companies Underestimate Dangerous Side Effects

•Some of the more commonly prescribed drugs right now are for weight loss, blood pressure, cholesterol, acid reflux. When Dr. Oz asked how many of the women in his audience who were on these drugs had a serious side effect from being on them, about a third of them stood.

•The drug Orlistat has been linked to severe liver disease, acute pancreatic damage and kidney stones. According to Dr. Oz, “Orlistat is found in the weight loss pills Alli & Xenical, but now the FDA is being pressured to yank it off the market.”

•There are side effects from drugs from which patients have died. The average person takes 12 prescriptions a year. The more drugs you take, the more risks you have, the greater the chance of adverse side effect from the drugs interacting with each other.

If you have to use a drug, Dr. Oz recommends using generic drugs because, among other things, they have been around a long time, so we know they’re safer.

• 2. Drug Companies Control Much of the Information Your Doctor Gets About A Drug

•According to Dr. John Abramson, author of “Overdosed America”, almost all of the prescription drug information that doctors and consumers have is coming directly or indirectly from the drug companies. He says,“It’s like they’re playing poker and they can see the cards, but they don’t have to show it to the doctors. They don’t have to show it to the consumers. They often do even show it to the authors of the articles – this is evidence that doctors can’t trust professional medical journals.”

•About 85% of clinical trials are funded by the drug industry and they own data like Coke Cola owns the recipe for Coke. Doctors don’t understand their getting a selected filtered version of the information.

•Dr. Abramson studied the FDA’s data on Vioxx and Celebrex and realized the articles in our most trusted journals that told us about Vioxx and Celebrex were wrong. They are dangerous drugs and doctors did not know it. He said he talked about it and tried to get the information out, but was called “crazy” by his colleagues and could not, so he wrote his book “Overdosed America”. Only 1/4th of all international health research gets published in professional medical journals. What gets published makes prescription drugs look good. And, everything else is conveniently left out.

• 3. You’re Often Prescribed Drugs You Don’t Need

•Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman, director of PharmedOut says that pharmaceutical companies invent specific diseases or conditions. And, it’s not only diseases that have been invented, but disease categories that have been changed. Anytime a disease category is expanded it increases the number of people who are eligible for drug treatment. Right now much of the prescribing in the United States is not rational, people are being prescribed drugs where the risks outweigh the benefits.

•According to Dr. Abramson, it is a wide spread practice in the drug industry to invent diseases. It’s called “disease mongering”, hyping up conditions that really aren’t diseases. You see these in commercials about overactive bladder, osteopenia, excessive daytime sleepiness etc. They are problems, but do they really need drugs? The drug industry’s job is to sell drugs. They get the drugs approved on the market for an indication that is truly helpful. Then they broaden the marketing so that they get a larger population of people who are candidates for taking their drug.

From now on, ask yourself this question, “What is the real symptom that I was having that the drug company is talking about? When did it start?“

• 4. Drugs Target the Symptom Not the Cause

•According to Dr. Abramson, acid reflux drugs have very powerful side effects. There is more pneumonia in people who take these reflux drugs because it kills the good bacteria in the stomach. Before proton pumps, people did pretty well with less potent antacids. We need to watch what we eat and look at the position we sleep in. Sometimes people need these acid reflux drugs occasionally, but not all the time.

•Statin Drugs- Some people with heart disease benefit from statins. They will prevent a heart attack in 1 out of 50 men within a five year period. There’s no evidence, however, to show that statins protect women who don’t have heart disease from having a heart attack.

•The real problem is not that women are taking statins unnecessarily. It’s that if women exercise regularly, eat a heathy diet, don’t smoke and only drink in moderation, they can prevent heart disease by 83%.

Dr. Oz advises that if your not going to study the drug your taking and weigh it’s risks against just making lifestyle changes, then think twice about taking it. Push doctors on these issues, because when you are taking 7 medications, you have an 80% risk of drug interaction.

"To further increase profit, drug companies invent disease and subsequently, offer a solution. Herein lies the origin of deadly health myths. Such myths include, but are surely not limited to, that of high cholesterol being the culprit of heart disease, insulin being the only treatment for diabetics and that AIDS, rather than starvation, is killing Africans. Inventing disease is not a "far out" conspiracy theory. It is a simple matter of finding ailments that naturally occur due to poor lifestyle habits and labeling them as a disease. Once "big-pharma" steals jurisdiction over the general public's common sense, they convince them of the necessity of their drugs." --Shane Ellison author of Health Myths Exposed

The Medical-Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex - Corruption in Drug Research and in Medicine





T. Colin Campbell de­clares that most ill­ness­es can be pre­vent­ed by a vegan diet. Pro­fes­sor Camp­bell speaks about the wide-rang­ing ben­e­fit.

Go Vegan Radio - Bob Linden and Pro­fes­sor T. Colin Camp­bell

Food Matters Documentary

The Institute for In Vitro Sciences, Inc. is a non-profit research and testing laboratory dedicated to the advancement of in vitro (non-animal) methods worldwide. Founded in 1997, IIVS has worked with industry, academic laboratories and government agencies to implement in vitro testing strategies that limit animal use while supplying key information for product safety and efficacy decisions.

Animal Protection Outreach Partners:

• Alternatives Research And Development
• The mission of the Alternatives Research and Development Foundation is to fund and promote the development, validation and adoption of non-animal methods in biomedical research, product testing and education.
• FRAME - Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments
• FRAME's ultimate aim is the elimination of the need to use laboratory animals in any kind of medical or scientific procedures. FRAME is dedicated to the development of new and valid methods that will replace the need for laboratory animals in medical and scientific research, education, and testing. Where the use of animals is currently necessary, FRAME supports the reduction of numbers involved to an unavoidable minimum and refinement of experimental procedures to minimise any suffering caused.
• International Foundation for Ethical Research
• The International Foundation for Ethical Research is dedicated to supporting the development and implementation of scientifically valid alternatives that refine, reduce, or replace the use of live animals in research, product testing, and classroom education. IFER is dedicated to the belief that through new technologies and diligent research, combined with personal and professional accountability, we can find scientific solutions that will create a better world for us all...without utilizing non-human animals.

People across the globe are paralysed,poisoned,born malformed and killed by the products of drug and chemical companies.How do they get them passed as "safe" & on to the market in the first place? Animal testing! Any result can be achieved through animal testing(meaning any product can be passed as "safe") because of the species difference between us all

Make a commitment to eliminate animal testing by pledging to only purchase products approved by the Leaping Bunny Program, which provides the best assurance that no new animal testing is used in any phase of product development by the company, its laboratories, or suppliers. The Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics’ (CCIC) Leaping Bunny Program administers a cruelty-free standard and the internationally recognized Leaping Bunny Logo for companies producing cosmetic, personal care, and household products.

To encourage more companies to sign on to the Leaping Bunny Program, we have launched a nation-wide pledge campaign to urge consumers to take the leap to cruelty-free products. By signing the pledge you will help to make our collective voices even stronger and drive more companies to go cruelty-free, saving animals from cruel and unnecessary testing.

John Hopkins University also manages a website ALTWEB, ( Altweb ) Which is the global clearinghouse for information on alternatives to animal testing. They discuss methods and sources available to Reduce, Refine or Replace animals used in teaching, testing and research (the 3 R’s).

Please check out both of these websites. I am both so impressed and encouraged with the work that John Hopkins University is doing, where they believe the best science is humane science.

They have a newsletter you can subscribe to @ Altweb News

Watch and discover how CAAT was formed, what "alternatives" really means, and how much progress has been made since CAAT was established in 1981 @ CAAT - 25 Years Of Human Science - Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Every single day more than 38,000 animals are used to test cosmetics, toiletries like toothpaste and shampoo, and household detergents and cleaners. The most common test is called the "Draize Test" where products are put directly into the animals’ eyes and technicians record the effects. The "Lethal Dose" test measures the amount of a product it takes to kill part of a group of animals forced to eat it. THESE TESTS ARE NOT REQUIRED BY LAW, but some companies continue to use them to protect themselves from future lawsuits.

As a consumer, you can help by avoiding their products in favor of companies that do not test on animals.