For Life On Earth’s primary role is to expose the human medical cost of the claimed scientific merits of vivisection, and our evidence is illustrated by the leading medical Board in this field: Americans and Europeans for Medical Advancement (AFMA/EFMA).
Preeminent primatologist Dr Jane Goodall wrote the forward for the first science book published by the medical experts who illustrate our evidence; the book is titled Sacred Cows and Golden Geese, the Human Cost of Experiments on Animals. And Britain’s primatologist and television wildlife presenter Dr Charlotte Uhlenbroek represents the ethical position on behalf of primates at For Life On Earth.
Soko-Tierschutz and the BUAV have recently published a courageous and very shocking undercover investigation into fundamental or basic research conducted on primates, providing a powerful contribution to society’s understanding of what such horrific experiments mean for very sensitive non-human primates. Although it is of course of paramount importance to expose the intense suffering experienced by laboratory primates, such research is sold to society and funded as a scientific endeavor for human medicine. So society at large is often duped into making the false claim that such experiments help humans. Thankfully we have at our disposal today highly qualified scientific expertise to absolutely expose these experiments as damaging human patients. No more data is necessary to prove this: no further comparison studies between animal and non-animal methods are needed – the evidence is absolutely IN.
Because the primate experiments filmed in this undercover expose are for basic, otherwise known as fundamental, research they are not not ‘goal orientated’ by definition. A leading peer reviewed science paper on such basic research is written by two of the Board members who illustrate our Parliamentary EDMs, their paper is titled Is the use of sentient animals in basic research justifiable? Greek MD and Greek DVM. This paper highlights a turning point statistic from Crowley, which comments on conclusions drawn by a study published in 2003 in the American Journal of Medicine. This study quantified the translation rate of basic research, hyped as ‘highly promising, into actual human applications. The study searched all the articles published in the following journals between 1979 and 1983, that’s a total of 25,000 articles published in: Nature, Cell, Science, The Journal of Biological Chemistry the Journal of Clinical Investigation and The Journal of Experimental Medicine.
Crowley concluded:
Of the 25,000 searched only one – that’s 0.004% – led to the development of a clinically useful class of drugs (angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors) in the 30 years following their publication of the basic research finding.
And that clinically useful class of drug was as a result of a non-animal basic research experiment.
Undercover cruelty exposes are vital, but in order to end this we need to fully appreciate it as still funded under ‘scientific endeavor’. That is why FLOE draw upon the leading qualified medical Board who have a track record of success – having defeated a primate lab at Cambridge University on ‘national interest, human medical and scientific grounds’ – they are able to address this effectively and immediately on our behalf. The human medical cost of basic research is catastrophic. Vast sums of money – which could otherwise be re-directed along useful research paths – are being wasted on cruel experiments that current science shows have never applied to humans.
We include another excerpt from Is the use of sentient animals in basic research justifiable? below, which outlines the non-animal methods available today for basic research so we can study how life’s processes work without harming animals. We strongly recommend our readers please put aside time to read this paper in its entirety, which is accessible to the layman or non-scientist, here
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Whenever we question the efficacy of using sentient animals in basic research we are met with the inevitable question “How will we do basic research without using sentient animals?” Were this question not posed so seriously we would suspect cynicism. But he questioner is serious so we will very briefly outline other methods available for basic research.
The time honoured study of chemistry has led to breakthroughs without which today we would still be practising circa the 19th century. Basic research in engineering and the physical sciences has historically led to advances in technology.
In Vitro research using human tissue.
Bacteria viruses and fungi can be studied in order to discover basic cellular and genetic properties. Research using non-sentient less complex organisms like Drosophila have given us the entire field of evo devo. As we mentioned, other organisams that could be studied include E. coli, C elegans, Brassica rapa, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Phage Phi-X 174, Dictyostelium discoideum. This is a very partial list.
Autopsies could be funded as non goal orientated research as autopsies have historically led to many unsought discoveries and facts about the human body. New knowledge is still being generated by autopsies. [130,131].
The fields of mathematical and computer modeling offer ways to study complex systems but need funding.
Basic research using human cells.
Another important but oft overlooked are of study is evolutionary biology. More emphasis needs to be placed on the study of evolution, the place of evolution in disease, and the implications of evolution for disease research and treatment.
The above is a very partial list. Eliminating the use of sentient animals in basic research would not lead to a dearth of basic research that needs funding. Ceasing to fund basic research using sentient animals would not help the NIH increase their application-funded to application-received ratio.
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For more on how animal experimenters use basic research to “cheat about human cures” in order to to secure grants, please listen to the recent talk given by Dr Andre Menache:
AVC Scientific Consultant Dr Andre Menache Speaks at the London Vegan Festival from AVC on Vimeo.
References
130 Blosser SA, Zimmerman HE, Stauffer JL: Do autopsies of critically ill patients reveal important findings that were clinically undetected? Crit Care Med 1998 26: 1332 -1336
132 Perkins GD, McAuley DF, Davies F, Gao F: Discrepancies between clinical and postmortem diagnoses in critically ill patients: an observational study. Crit Care 2003, 7:R129-132