Since 1982 when Dr Gerhard Zbinden, a world leader in toxicology asserted that

"clinical experience shows that the LD50 determined in animals rarely bears a meaningful relation with the lethal dose in man"

there has been an overwhelming climate of scientific and public opinion calling for the abolition of the LD50 and a review of all routine animal tests.

There are now ongoing and informal meetings taking place among the international regulatory agencies. The LD50 has been declared "invalid and useless" by the experts.

Therefore the time is right and the tide is with us and the international animal rights community must now make the banning of the Inc. a major global, critical and political issue.

There are many reasons why information obtained from animals cannot be applied to the human circumstance and many reasons why animals will not and cannot be standardised like inanimate objects. The following are just a few of the factors that influence the LD50:

the temperament of the animal - the cage design (whether a grid or flat surface) - the season of the year - whether or not the animals are starved prior to being forcefed the substance (some animals are starved to a certain ratio of their body-weight) - the type of bedding (if any) - the temperature in the laboratory - the state of the weather - the type of food the animals are given - the sex, age and disposition of the animal - the body-weight of the animal - the humidity in the laboratory...

Many laboratories have varying humidity ensuring wide differences in results. In a trial one firm tested the same substance in 65 toxicological laboratories in 8 countries. The laboratories were authorised to use their own standard procedure of application with the same type animals. All gave different results. Conclusions from this trial showed the various laboratories had massive variations of humidity ensuring wide differences in results. Conclusions from this trial revealed that the LD50 method of testing could not claim to have universal or perpetual validity.

This trial was followed by another in which important experimental conditions such as caging and feeding conditions, weight and age of the animals, duration of the pre-trial fasting period and duration of observation, time and method of administration, solvents and suspension media and volume of application were standardised. One hundred laboratories in 13 countries participated in this exercise. The summing up at end of trial stated:

"There were extreme variations and considerable inter-laboratory differences."

Many substances are non-toxic. Therefore the animals survive the first insult to the stomach. Deaths in these cases is due to the excessive amount forced into them which ruptures internal organs, bursts the stomach and burns and corrodes the digestive tracts. For instance, flour, though non-toxic would split intestines and rupture internal organs if administered in vast quantities at speed... acids, cleaners, paint, paintstrippers, pesticides, insecticides, weedkillers etc would burn the lips, mouth, tongue, throat, intestines... the stomach lining would be eroded, dissolved, burned away... but the animals are not poisoned. Noise in the laboratory can affect the animal - as can the method of administration and the technical adroitness of laboratory personnel.

These animals serve as scapegoats for a bureaucratic requirement that calls for a "tested" stamp to be filled in on a bit of paper before a product can be marketed... and this phoney "alibi" is a written regulation of the New Zealand Government agencies.

In this age of modern technology, the age of the micro-chip, the age of the computer, the capabilities of which are rising and the prices of which are falling... in this age in which men are walking on the moon and manoeuvring in space -

NZAVS appeals to the politicians in New Zealand's new Government to support the anti-vivisectionist's campaign against this physically and morally obsolete procedure...

The LD50 farce: Only a total ban will do!

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