For immediate release: Friday 19 August 2005

VIVISECTION STATISTICS MISS THE BIG PICTURE

CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND:

The NZ Anti-Vivisection Society (NZAVS) says that the official statistics on animal experiments in New Zealand "miss the big picture".

The Annual Report of the National Animal Ethics Advisory Committee only mentions the number of animals used in experiments performed within New Zealand. According to NZAVS, this is insignificant compared with the animal experiments performed overseas that are demanded by New Zealand regulators.

NZAVS Director Phil Clayton says, "the New Zealand authorities demand results of animal experiments, which are usually performed overseas, in a futile effort to 'prove' safety or efficacy of hazardous substances, and other items such as food additives or pharmaceuticals. These animal experiments are not included in the official statistics because the vivisection does not happen to take place within New Zealand."

"These overseas test results are as inapplicable to the human situation as the vivisection that takes place within New Zealand. They are carried out for legal reasons rather than scientific or safety reasons", he said.

Mr Clayton says that because of the "scientific fraud of vivisection", NZAVS is not advocating the inclusion of overseas animal experiments in the statistics, but for New Zealand regulators "to abolish the use of methods such as vivisection, which do not produce results relevant to the human circumstance".

For further comment please contact:

Phil Clayton
Director, New Zealand Anti-Vivisection Society Incorporated
Phone: (03) 379-0093
E-mail: nzavs@nzavs.org.nz

Note to Editors:
The New Zealand Anti-Vivisection Society Incorporated was founded in 1978 by Bette Overell, and during the 1980s and 1990s organised spectacular marches through the streets of Wellington and other NZ cities each year, in support of our Petitions to Abolish the LD50 Test (1984), and to Abolish Vivisection (1989). The latter Petition achieving over 100,000 signatures. NZAVS campaigns for the abolition of vivisection on the grounds that it is medical and scientific fraud. That, due to differences in reactions between species, there can be no extrapolation of results between species.

ENDS