The following extract from Italy's Prof. Pietro Croce, explains why vivisection experiments on humans do not produce useful results either. Prof. Croce was an animal researcher for almost 30 years,He, like many before and after him, quit animal research when he finally concluded that it is unscientific, misleading, retards medical progress and is a huge waste of resources.
Prof. Croce now campaigns, along with many other scientists and doctors, for the abolition of vivisection (on both animals and people) for scientific and medical reasons. He risked a lot to get this information out to people. His credentials appear further below.
While animal rights slogans are often represented in the media, and easily countered by the drug lobby propaganda, the views of these scientists are only very rarely allowed media access. This is because they pose a huge threat to the pharmaceutical, chemical, oil, tobacco and other industries that rely on bogus animal tests to make their products look "safe". The media relies very heavily on these industries for advertising revenue.
The information below is merely theoretical. For facts and figures and more detailed arguments see the web-sites mentioned below.
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*** The Difference between Vivisectionist Experimentation and Clinical Research.***
Prof. Croce:
"As a member of the Italian anti-vivisection league, L.A.V.
(Lega Antivivisezione), I share with Doctors in Britain Against Animal
Experiments the same basic principle of "Scientific Antivivisectionism": the principle which states that "no animal species is an experimental model of any other animal species": a principle that becomes axiomatic when human medicine is involved....
...In view of the aforementioned statement that
experimentation "inter-species"(between species) is always deceptive, the reverse, experimentation "intra speciem" (within the species), in theory (but only in theory!), should be considered scientifically correct. In fact, cat might be considered the appropriate experimental model for the species "cat", dog might be considered the appropriate experimental model for the species "dog". . . and humans for the species "human". But actually we should modify this statement by saying that cat is the best available model for the species, cat; dog of the species dog; man the best available (which doesn't mean "the perfect") experimental model of the species "man".
*** Difference between metabolism of "healthy volunteers" & sick patients ***
Let us examine why I stated "not a 'perfect model'". For two reasons:
First, for a scientific consideration. The volunteer is by definition,
"healthy" (we say, indeed, "healthy volunteers"), and that means that his metabolism, his reactions to stimuli, on the whole are not abnormal. On the contrary, in medical practice we treat people whose metabolism is not only altered, but is also altered differently, in the different pathologies.
Second, let us come to ethical considerations. What does "healthy
volunteer" mean? In reality, the so-called "healthy-volunteers" can be
divided into two categories: To the first category belong some gullible, naive persons who, allured by able pursuaders, agree to selling for money a quality --health-- that all civilised legislations consider as an individual, inalienable right.
QUESTION: If the experiment should cause an immediate or
delayed damage to the so-called "volunteer", who is going to be considered penally responsible? And, on the economic level, who should bear the expenses to cure the offended? Perhaps the community? And why the community?
To the second category of the so-called "volunteers" belong
some who justify the risk, deliberately accepted, by referring to religious or philanthropic motivations. But actually, in most instances we are dealing with subjects with a tendency to paranoia, in which the act of sublimation conceals mental disorders ranging from a morbid desire for protagonism to real delirium of auto-destruction. Society should reject the apparently generous offer of these people and should rather re-educate them in the physiological egoism and self-respect, which are the essential premises for the conservation of the individual and the species.
Third: the term "volunteer" in most instances is a euphemism.
As a matter of fact, the so-called "volunteers" are very often prisoners, indigent students, the handicapped, residents in old folks' homes, starving people and innocent children of the Third World.
*** The unreliability of vivisectionist experiments on humans eg. WW2 Nazis
Another problem, a very conclusive one from a pragmatic point of view, is the problem of RELIABILITY OF EXPERIMENTS PERFORMED ON HUMANS. One fact only I want to recall to your memory: no one, not a single one, of the experiments carried out in the Nazi extermination camps has ever been utilised in the following years.
QUESTION: "Why Not?"
ANSWER: Because in the Nazi camps, the experiments were carried
out with the vivisectionist mentality and methods; with that same cruelty, uselessness, stupidity, sadism which guide the hands of those who experiment on animals. Experimentation intra speciem (within the species) is acceptable only in a form of clinical experimentation, which is a method diametrically divergent from what we call vivisection-experimentation.
Clinical experimentation is indeed indispensable for the
marketing of any new chemical product as well as for the testing of new surgical procedures. But it must be submitted to very strict rules:
First, the new drug should be tested on patients affected by the same
disease against which the drug is supposed to be active.
Second, the new drug (or the new surgical procedure) should be tested only on condition that there is a reasonable chance of helping that person. Repeat: "that person", not the community in general.
Third, the new drug (or surgical procedure) should be tested only on
condition that there are no other validated drugs (or procedures) available at that moment.
Fourth, and most important, the researcher should forget all he has learned from experimentation on animals, and he should approach the problem completely free from, misleading prejudices.
What does this mean? It means that we must destroy the
vivisectionist culture from its very foundations...."
*** Prof. Croce was an animal researcher for nearly three decades. His
curriculum includes: Fulbright Scholarship, Research Department of Toledo, Ohio. Scholarship Ciudad Sanatorial of Tarrasa in Barcelona, Spain. Between 1952 and 1982, head of the laboratory of microbiological-pathological anatomy and analyses and chemo-clinical analyses at the Hospital L.Sacco of Milan, Italy, Member of the College of American Pathologists. He is author of the book "Vivisection or Science? A choice to make" which is aimed towards the biologically educated reader.
The above was excerpted from an article "THE USE OF HEALTHY VOLUNTEERS FOR AIDS RESEARCH." by Prof. Croce. It appeared in the Doctors In Britain Against Animal Experiments (DBAE) Newsletter May/June 1994. Prof. Croce is the Honorary President of DBAE.
DBAE is now known as the Doctors and Lawyers for Responsible Medicine (DLRM). Their web-site can be found via the Campaign Against Fraudulent Medical Research (CAFMR) web-site: www.pnc.com.au/~cafmr
You will also find articles by members of DLRM and by other scientists, doctors and laypersons at the web-site of Guardians - a group exposing vivisection www.werple.net.au/~antiviv
Guardians and CAFMR only deal with medical and scientific information.
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