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Manufacturers carry out (or engage contract poisoners to carry out) such "tests" in order to protect themselves should they be tangled in legal proceedings. It enables them to claim in courts of law that they are blameless, having carried out "the required tests" or "extensive tests". However, evidence accumulated during intensive investigations prove that the so-called "test" does not fulfil its intent, but is used as an alibi . An alibi which in spite of criticism and opposition by experts in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, toxicological laboratories, poisons units and even regulatory bodies, is upheld by governments as a means of getting a "tested" stamp on a product prior to marketing.
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LD50: relevant comments made in Parliament at the second reading of the Animal Protection Amendment Bill: 13 December 1983
(a) Mr R. Maxwell (then Opposition, Waitakere)
Mr Maxwell in opposing the LD50 unfortunately concluded his address with the words... "We do not want numbers that include rats and mice and so on..."
NZAVS Comment
The NZAVS which powers the move against the LD50 is deeply concerned about the numbers of rats and mice used in the LD50 - or any other experiment.
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(b) Dr I.J. Shearer (then Minister of Science and Technology)
Dr Shearer stated that "because neither the SPCA or the recent Committee Hearing produced 'evidence' of LD50 in New Zealand the procedure is not carried out in this country". Dr Shearer used the same hypocritical argument on a nationwide election tv talk-back programme on 29 June 1984.
NZAVS Comment
Dr Shearer in his capacity as Minister of Science was well aware that there being no mandate in New Zealand for laboratories to produce records of experiments the "evidence" did not exist because it did not have to exist. NZAVS points out that nominees from Dr Shearer's (then) Ministry of Science are active on the Pesticides Board and elsewhere in this paper the Board's LD50 demands are clearly outlined. Further, the writer of this paper, who is the principal petitioner of the LD50 petition to Parliament attended the Hearing to which Dr Shearer referred. This Hearing was designed for the purpose of speaking on papers specific to the amendment to the Animal Protection Act 1960 and the participants were instructed to confine their comments to the relevant amendment. The giving of evidence" on the LD50 "test" was not relevant to the amendment therefore the writer of this paper did not contribute to the discussion - which was out of order.
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(c) Dr I.J. Shearer
Criticised as "plain and blatant nonsense" Natalie Taylor's definition of a vivisector. (Miss Taylor, when asked at the Hearing to define a vivisector replied "one who uses a live animal as a tool of research".)
NZAVS Comment
That this totally valid statement incensed Dr Shearer to the extent of repeating it to the House of Representatives reveals the abysmal lack of understanding or knowledge generally held by politicians of the practices they are so quick to condone and promote.
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