Members who have invested in and read, 'Animal Research Takes Lives - Humans and Animals Both Suffer', are aware that as part of a well-planned global campaign to combat the new abolitionist movement (which resulted in the NZ production, in 1990, of the booklet Animal Research Saves Lives), the chemi-medi-vivi industries in Great Britain are attempting to stem students' nationwide rejection of the vivisection principle by systematically blanket-bombing, through representatives from the industries' ranks, school pupils, their teachers and their parents, with pro-vivisection propaganda. These ambassadors from the shrines of profit are visiting places of learning to address their prey on the value and sanctity of the vivisection method. The move is further intensified by the recent addition to the battery of propaganda, of videos which glorify the moral and scientific authenticity of creating disease in animals under the deceitful camouflage of a quest for health.

The Body responsible for the British echelon of the war against the up-and-coming abolitionist movement is the Research for Health Charities Group, which consists of an affiliation of The Wellcome Trust, The Imperial Cancer Research Fund, The Cancer Research Campaign, the British Heart Foundation, The Cystic Fibrosis Research Trust, the Multiple Sclerosis Society, the Muscular Dystrophy Group and Action Research. This could be likened to an affiliation of prostitutes protecting and promoting their livelihood, which is perhaps an unfair analogy, as unlike vivisection which is downright fraud, the world's oldest profession could put up an honest claim for authenticity.

Vivisectors Advertise their Craft

"The role of Animal Research in developing new drugs is the subject of a new video from the association of the British Pharmaceutical industry. The video for use in schools, is aimed at students aged between 12 and 16."
- Nursing Times 10/3/93 - Courtesy Cynthia O'Neill, U.K.

The Insidious Spread of Vivisection through the International Brotherhood

The Chairman of the Health Charities Group is also the Director of The Wellcome Trust, which has recently awarded grants to the following vivisectors at Otago Medical School:

Associate Professor J. Harris
For:

"Defining the cellular origins of skeletal muscles, by attempting to characterise the development of various populations of cells which contribute to muscle development... For these projects we will use rats, mice and rabbits... the results to be applied to human muscle disease and neuromuscular disorders, eg muscular dystrophy."

Drs Duxson and Sheard
To:

"Finance studies of nerve cell and muscle fibre interactions during embryogenesis, using as animal models, Wistar rats and guinea-pigs, which are killed for the required tissue."

Both grants, the vivisectors inform us, are "approved by the University's Ethics Committee in the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals" . One of the Committees whose single claim to respectability comes from the approval of, and the inclusion on them, of representatives of the RNZSPCA, that righteous body which claimed in its Submission on NZAVS Petition to Abolish Vivisection 1989 that "it seeks no change to the law on vivisection in New Zealand" . (Interestingly as this article is being prepared we have learned that the RSPCA in Sydney is supplying kitten bodies to the University for dissection [AAHR newsletter, No. 53, June '93]... Which will be no surprise to readers of Mobilise!.)

In an investigation carried out by NZAVS representative Vivienne Sands of Taupo, glaring discrepancies in the vivisectors' rationale are revealed. First though we repeat the words of Prof. P. Croce, who, after a long career in medical research concluded: (Vivisection or Science - a choice to make.): "The proposition is made: Let us take the animal as the experimental model for the human being. But here at once comes the first objection: Which animal? There are millions of species of animals on the earth. So which should we use? The mouse? The dog? And why not the rhinoceros or the warthog?" We therefore ask why the Otago researchers chose rats, mice and rabbits upon which to experiment for cures for "human muscle disease and neuromuscular disorders, eg muscular dystrophy". And why they selected the Wistar rat and the guinea-pig to use as "animal models"... The answer is found in the Encyclopedia Britannica which reads:

"The Wistar rat, or rattus norvegious is found almost universally, it is therefore cheap, readily available and highly expendable . Not surprisingly it is the 'standard model' for many experiments, including metabolism, reproduction, diabetes, respiratory infections, hypothermia and toxicity."

Strangely missing is the most important element the reliability and authenticity of extrapolating results from rat experiments to the human circumstance... that focus is solely on the price, convenience and availability the rat represents to the vivisector. In 'Animal Research Takes Lives - Humans and Animals Both Suffer' at page 26 a graph provided by Dr Roy Kupsinel explains the 22 major differences between rodents and human beings , which clearly makes any attempts at extrapolation impossible. We also remember the words of the Drs Beaconsfield, who, after a lifetime study concluded:

"If a drug is tested on five thousand rats or mice it is not necessarily safe for humans"

And think of the National Cancer Institute Advisory Board which said

"we have been using the wrong system"

that in future they would:

"test potential cancer-fighting drugs on real human cancer cells, grown in laboratories and not on mice".

(Continued next page)