TOBY'S CORNER

Date: November 22 , 1998

Animal testing: A sadistical scandal

Vivisection, the custom to execute animals in experiments has its origin in the religious prohibition to cut human bodies open. When the religious leaders finally removed this prohibition it was already two late: the vivisection had already been established firmly in medical mechanisms and educational establishments.

In the USA every year 60 to 100 million animals have to die in research laboratories. Most of them are rats and mice, which are specially bred by companies which sell them to the laboratories. The largest experimental animal breeder in the U.S. is the company "Charles River Breeding Laboratories" (CRBL) in Massachusetts.

Dogs and cats are likewise used in attempts. They come from breeders such as CRBL or from organized animal catchers. Unfortunately the vivisectors use more and more pigs and rats because they believe that the people do not excite themselves over the agonies of a pig or rat in the measure, they would do with a dog or a rabbit, even if they suffer the same way.

The national health authority in the USA is the world largest financer of bioassays. It spends annually 7 billion dollars of the people’s taxes, from which about 5 billion dollars flow into studies at which animals are involved. The taxes are spent on painful experiments, which include military mechanisms, such as wound-experiments, attempts with radioactive contamination, studies to the effect of chemical weapons and other mutilating procedures.

Private institutions and companies invest likewise into the vivisection industry. Many manufacturers of household products and cosmetics still pump their products into animal stomachs, rub their bright-shaved skin in with it, lubricate them into their eyes and force them to inhale spray doses of their products. Charity organizations like the American Cancer Company use their donations from private citizens in order to promote such animal experiments.

Experiments on cows, sheep, pigs, chickens and turkeys are executed, in order to find ways to improve agriculture, so that cows give more milk and sheep produce more wool and that all animals produce more descendant and so they become fleshier.

There are actually many reasons, against vivisection to express, for example: the fact that among rats, rabbits, dogs, pigs and humans enormous physiological differences exist. A study from the year 1989 for the determination of the cacinogenesis of fluoride showed this clearly. About 520 rats and 520 mice got a daily dose of this mineral during one period of two years. Not even one mouse was influenced by the fluoride, but the rats suffered health damage, including cancer in the mouth and the bones. Since test data will not even transfer accurately from a mouse to a rat, there is no doubt that they are also not transferable to other species especially to humans!
In many cases the attempts hurt not only the animals and waste a lot of money, but also hurt and kill humans. The medicaments Thalidomide (contergan), Zomax and DES were tested all together at animals and found safe, but had however quite devastating consequences for the humans, who used them.

I think you can clearly see my opinion about animal testing in the former paragraphs. I am totally against animal testing. Humans become, like all other animals ill and can die. We will never become immortal. We can heal most cases of the three most common illnesses causing by death, heart problems, cancer, and strokes, by eating less fat and more vegetarian, no smoking and no excessive drinking of alcohol. These easy changes in our lifestyle could help to prevent from arthritis, diabetes and a long list of other illnesses. Other illnesses and accidents we have not learned to heal yet, must not be tested on other animals. There is no moral justification to keep animals in captivity, treat them with electro shocks, pump them up with chemicals or cut them open, only because we are mortal and we are afraid of dying.