Return to Medical Research On-Line Resources
"The reason why I am against animal research is because it
doesn't work, it has no scientific value and every good scientist
knows that."
- Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, M.D., 1986, Head of the Licensing Board
for the State of Illinios, paediatrician & gynaecologist for
30 years, medical columnist & best-selling author, recipient
of numerous awards for excellence in medicine.
"Since there is no way to defend the use of animal model
systems in plain English or with scientific facts, they resort
to double-talk in technical jargon...The virtue of animal model
systems to those in hot pursuit of the federal dollars is that
they can be used to prove anything - no matter how foolish, or
false, or dangerous this might be. There is such a wide variation
in the results of animal model systems that there is always some
system which will 'prove' a point....The moral is that animal
model systems not only kill animals, they also kill humans. There
is no good factual evidence to show that the use of animals in
cancer research has led to the prevention or cure of a single
human cancer."
- Dr. D.J. Bross, Ph.D., 1982, former director of the largest
cancer research institute in the world, the Sloan-Kettering Institute,
then Director of Biostatics, Roswell Memorial Institute, Buffalo,
NY.
"Practically all animal experiments are untenable on a statistical
scientific basis, for they possess no scientific validity or reliability.
They merely perform an alibi for pharmaceutical companies, who
hope to protect themselves thereby."
- Herbert Stiller, M.D. & Margot Stiller, M.D., 1976.
"Like every member of my profession, I was brought up in
the belief that almost every important fact in physiology had
been obtained by vivisection and that many of our most valued
means of saving life and diminishing suffering had resulted from
experiments on the lower animals. I now know that nothing of the
sort is true concerning the art of surgery: and not only do I
not believe that vivisection has helped the surgeon one bit, but
I know that it has often led him astray."
- Prof. Lawson Tait, M.D., 1899, Fellow of the Royal College of
Surgeons (F.R.C.S.), Edinburgh & England. Hailed as the most
distinguished surgeon of his day, the originator of many of surgery's
modern techniques, and recipient of numerous awards for medical
excellence.
"Experiments have never been the means for discovery; and
a survey of what has been attempted of late years in physiology
will prove that the opening of living animals has done more to
perpetuate error than to confirm the just views taken from the
study of anatomy and natural motions."
- Sir Charles Bell, M.D., 1824, F.R.C.S., discoverer of "Bell's
Law" on motor and sensory nerves.
"Atrocious medical experiments are being done on children,
mostly physically and handicapped ones, and on aborted foetuses,
given or sold to laboratories for experimental purposes. This
is a logical development of the practice of vivisection. It is
our urgent task to accelerate its inevitable downfall."
- Prof. Pietro Croce, M.D., 1988, internationally renowned researcher,
former vivisector.
"Vivisection is barbaric, useless, and a hindrance to scientific
progress. I learned how to operate from other surgeons. It's the
only way, and every good surgeon knows that."
- Dr. Werner Hartinger, 1988, surgeon of thirty years, President
of German League of Doctors Against Vivisection (GLDAV).
"Normally, animal experiments not only fail to contribute
to the safety of medications, but they even have the opposite
effect."
- Prof. Dr. Kurt Fickentscher, 1980, of the Pharmacological Institute
of the University of Bonn, Germany.
"Experiments on animals lead inevitably to experiments on
people...As if an animal experiment could ever predict the same
result on a person. And as if an experiment on one human being
could enable us to foresee the reactions of another human being,
whose biology and metabolism are different, whose blood pressure
is different, whose lifestyle and age and nourishment and sensitivity
and genes and everything else are different...We recognise that
each single organism, whether human or animal, has its very own
reactions...Today's orthodox medicine and suppressive surgery
don't understand the purpose of disease and therefore don't know
how to treat it. A real doctor's experience derives from his natural
intuition coupled with his observation at the sickbed, but never
from invasive, violent experiments on people, and much less on
animals. Instead of vital hygiene, which aims at preservation
or reconstruction of health by natural means and shuns all use
of degrading, destructive chemicals, today's medical students
are only taught to manipulate poisons and mutilate bodies. We
demand that this be changed."
- Prof. Andre Passebecq, M.D., N.D., D.Psyc., 1989, Faculty of
Medicine of Paris, then President of the International League
of Doctors Against Vivisection (ILDAV).
"Giving cancer to laboratory animals has not and will not
help us to understand the disease or to treat those persons suffering
from it."
- Dr. A. Sabin, 1986, developer of the oral polio vaccine.
"Everyone should know that most cancer research is largely
a fraud, and that the major cancer research organisations are
derelict in their duties to the people who support them."
- Linus Pauling, PhD, 1986, two time Nobel Prize Winner.
"Not only are the studies themselves often lacking even face
value, but they also drain badly needed funds away from patient
care needs."
- Dr. Neal Barnard, M.D., 1987, President of the Physicians Committee
for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), Washington.
"All our current knowledge of medicine and surgery derives
from observations of man following especially the anatomical-clinical
method introduced by Virchow: symptoms of the patient while alive
and the alterations found in the dead body. These observations
have led us to discover the connection between smoking and cancer,
between diet and arteriosclerosis, between alcohol and cirrhosis,
and so on. Even the RH factor was not discovered on the macasus
rhesus. The observations of Banting and Best on diabetes, attributed
to experiments on dogs, were already well-known. Every discovery
derives from observations on humans, which are subsequently duplicated
in animals, and whenever the findings happen to concur, their
discovery is attributed to animal experimentation. Everything
we know today in medicine derives from observations made on human
beings. The ancient Romans and Greeks gained most of their knowledge
from epidemiological studies of people. The same goes for surgery.
Surgery can't be learned on animals. Animals are anatomically
completely different from man, their reactivity is completely
different, their structure and resistance are completely different.
In fact, exercises on animals are misleading. The surgeon who
works a lot on animals loses the sensibility necessary for operating
on humans."
- Prof. Bruno Fedi, M.D., 1986, Director of the City Hospital
of Terni, Italy, anatomist, pathologist, specialist in urology,
gynaecology and cancerology.
"My own conviction is that the study of human physiology
by way of experimenting on animals is the most grotesque and fantastic
error ever committed in the whole range of human intellectual
activity."
- Dr. G.F. Walker, 1933.
"Why am I against vivisection? The most important reason
is because it's bad science, producing a lot of misleading and
confusing data which pose hazards to human health. It's also a
waste of taxpayer's dollars to take healthy animals and artificially
and violently induce diseases in them that they normally wouldn't
get, or which occur in different form, when we already have the
sick people who can be studied while they're being treated."
- Dr. Roy Kupsinel, M.D., 1988, medical magazine editor, USA.
"It is well known that animal effects are often totally different
from the effects on people. This applies to substances in medical
use as well as substances such as 245y and dioxin."
- A.L. Cowan, M.D., 1985, Acting Medical Officer of Health, New
Plymouth, N. Z.
"The growing opposition to vivisection is understandable
both on ethical and biological counts. However, a certain scientistic
culture says they serve to save human lives. But reality is quite
the opposite. Let's take the case of pesticides. These dangerous
products, used in agriculture, are classified according to their
acute toxicity, graduated with the Lethal Dose 50% tests on animals.
This represents not only a useless sacrifice of animals, but it's
an alibi that enables the chemical industry to sell products which
are classified as harmless or almost harmless, but are in reality
very harmful in the long run, even if taken in small doses. Many
pesticides classified as belonging to the fourth category, meaning
they can be sold and used freely, have turned out to be carcinogenic
or mutagenic or capable of harming the fetus. Also in this case,
animal tests are not only ambiguous, but they serve to put on
the market products of which any carcinogenic effect will be ascertained
only when used by human beings - the real guinea-pigs of the multinationals.
And yet there are laboratory tests that can be used, which are
cheaper and quicker than animal tests; in vitro tests on cell
cultures, which have been proving their worth for years already.
But the interests of the chemical industries which foist on us
new products in all fields may not be questioned."
- Prof. Gianni Tamino, 1987, biologist at Padua University, a
Congressman in the Italian Parliament.
"Animal model systems differ from their human counterparts.
Conclusions drawn from animal research, when applied to human
beings, are likely to delay progress, mislead, and do harm to
the patient. Vivisection, or animal experimentation, should be
abolished."
- Dr. Moneim Fadali, M.D., 1987, F.A.C.S., Diplomat American Board
of Surgery and American Board of Thoracic Surgery, UCLA faculty,
Royal College of Surgeons of Cardiology, Canada.
"Experiments on animals do not only mean torture and death
for the animals, they also mean the killing of people. Vivisection
is a double-edged sword."
- Major R.F.E. Austin, M.D., 1927, Royal College of Surgeons,
Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians.
Cawadias (1953) has said that "The history of medicine has
shown that, whenever medicine has strayed from clinical observation,
the result has been chaos, stagnation and disaster."
(British Medical Journal, October 8 1955, p.867.)
The above quotes were taken from the book 1000 Doctors (& many more) Against Vivisection, (Ed. Hans Ruesch), CIVIS, 1989.
For further information or to purchase the book contact Hans Ruesch Foundation/CIVIS - POB 152, via Motta 51, CH-6900 Massagno/Lugano, Switzerland