Freedom Fighter | 22.02.2006 21:00 | Animal Liberation | Oxford

An incredible event will take place in Oxford in 3 days time, Saturday 25th Feb 2006. A spectacle never before seen on the streets of Oxford, nor anywhere else. It`s an event that any normal, decent member of a civilised society would utterly condemn, yet still some sources predict that over 1,000 people will attend this event!!




WHAT IS THIS EVENT I HEAR YOU ASK!!
Quite simply, it will be a coming together of the most sick, twisted, perverted beings on this planet. These people are fanatical about torturing animals to death, so much so that they will march & rally in Oxford City Centre, in support of a project which will allow them to mutilate, burn, poison, infect & murder at will. Anyone committing such attrocities outside the confines of this deathcamp would quite rightly be arrested, convicted and imprisoned(not for long enough as the law currently stands). But because their terrorist activities will take place within this establishment, these freaks of nature will have the full support of the state!!!

SO I ASK, WHERE WILL YOU BE THIS SATURDAY???
Anyone with any morals, ethics or compassion, or indeed anyone who knows the difference between right & wrong, will be there to peacefully oppose them.

I implore you to do all in your power to get to Oxford and join the various `Stop The Lab` demonstrations being organised by SPEAK Campaigns. Don`t go for a confrontation with the sick deviants, that is probably what they want. Just go to make your voice heard, distribute leaflets that depict the truth, hold a banner or placard, stand up and be counted. Seek justice in the name of the 1,000`s of innocent animals that will suffer & die if this hellhole ever gets built.

DON`T LET THESE TERRORISTS WIN!!!

More details here  http://www.speakcampaigns.org.uk and be sure to contact the campaign for the latest plans on the day, on 0845 330 7985 or 07986 559012.

Freedom Fighter


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Comments
Hide the following 84 comments

Radio,Tv,Tabloid obedient embodyers
23.02.2006 11:43

The pro vivisectionists will turn up to furfill there visual and verbal perspective,santioned by the tv,tabloid,radio media who all funny enough, have consequential finacial interests in sustaining this "research" racket.
The letter allegedly from the ALF which purported to threaten oxford uni students which was sensationlised by channel 4 and their drone, script reading John Snow,came in great time for the "PRO TEST" group, which will get many supporters from the self importanced would be, fear induced media victims-Can anyone put 2 +2 together? Any one can pose as the ALF-either a genuine window smashing anti vivisectionist or a pro vivisectionist looking to get victim status and population sympathy.

I expect the corprate media headlines after the useless demo will be,"animal rights extremists attack and injure innocent oxford students".



Mick



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On the other hand
23.02.2006 15:56

It's about time someone took a stand against SPEAK et al. They use aggression to make sure that people are scared to stand up to them.

The irony of this article referring to those of us who support medical research as "terrorists" is hilarious; when was the last time someone who was pro-research threw a brick through someone's window as a "statement"? Or sent them a note threatening to infect them with AIDS? Or poured paint stripper on their car? Or attacked someone with a pickaxe handle?

Even if you are "anti-vivisection" (an emotive and wildly inaccurate term, incidentally), if you believe in peaceful protest and debate you should take a stand against these thugs. I tried to engage a few of them in debate at the last protest and was shouted down "Oh, you're fat so you can shut up", "You're scum" etc. great arguments, guys!

Can't wait to see how this plays out.
Rob
e-mail:  rob.barbour@gmail.com
Homepage:  http://www.myspace.com/5shr


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Terrorists hide away inside the labs doing what they do best
23.02.2006 18:59




When was the last time someone terrorised an innocent animal in a laboratory? Stunned it with heavy doses of toxin? Shoved a tube down its throat till it gagged and pumped the poison into its stomach? Threw it back in the steel cage with no anaesthetic? Took to it with a scalpel or a knife? Strapped it to a chair or table and rammed electrodes into its brain while the animal sobbed for mercy? Drained every last drop of blood out of its cut up and tortured body?

TODAY!!!

Now, if I was to do any of those things to you Rob, I'd be facing an extremely hefty prison sentence for abusing and terrorising you, to say the least.

Wake up or shut up

Always for the animals!
Reality Attack



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WHAT DOES RESEARCH MEAN? SEARCH AND RESEARCH?
23.02.2006 19:45

So Rob, calling someone who is anti animal experiments, an anti vivisectionist and calling someone who is pro animal experiments, a pro vivisectionist is wildly inaccurate, is it?
The historical and accurate term for animal experiments is-vivisection-those for, are pro vivisectionists,those against, are anti vivisectionist-but because this word has been blacked out of the english language by the opinion santioning societal conditioning media,you don't see it as accurate,you prefer(like vivisectors, who previously called themselves vivisectors but re-branded to avoid being associated with sadistic torture by the public) the noble euphemism "researcher" or "scientist" which eases like theirs .there already dead conscience.
Your a media drone mate,you see worded threats and property distruction as terrible violences while you perspect to see, the diseasing,mutilation,poisoning,electric torture through electrodes and beagle punching intimidation as "science" and "research". (Interestingly the vivisectors, oops the "scientists" accuse AR activists of being "emotive" ,i you one of them?)

In this self deceiving fictional world where it is so difficult to find an accurate lable representing real realitys,there are no slaughterhouses,just "abbatoirs" or "processing plants"-there are no Vivisection labs or animal experiment labs just "research centres"-there are no wounding and killing hunters-just "conservationists"-there are no zoo's, just "wildlife parks" and "nature centres".


Liz



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Support Medical Research?
23.02.2006 19:51

Dear Rob

There is nothing in the original post which suggests people who support medical research are terrorists. I have never met anyone who does not support medical research. If you ‘support medical research’ with vivisection you should say so specifically and not try to muddy the issue.
Myself



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The Joys of a Free Media
23.02.2006 21:04

How unsurprising is it that only in a corporate-free media space the other side can be heard.

I was growing so sick of the constant propagandist vomit that was being published.

I feel it will be amusing to see how long the Pro-Test movement lasts. I feel people with such little compassion may find they havn't got enough fire in their hearts to last this one out.

Good article my friend.

And yes I whole heartedly agree about keeping this day of action like the others. Lets show these people that we care more about the animals then some pathetic attempt to celebrate murder they call progress.
Mike



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Not helping
23.02.2006 21:45

Newswire stories like this are starting to drive me totally around the bend! Why do so many animal rights activists feel the need to resort to personal abuse and irrational accusations?

I agree with the case against vivisection, but just howling at people without actually trying to make a case is
going to help no-one. It's totally counterproductive. I know loads of animal rights activists who make very
intelligent and rational arguments...but for some reason most of what makes it onto the newswire is this
kind of ad hominem abuse.

Many of the students marching on Saturday will be doing so because they feel scared and threatened by what is
going on around the animal lab. Calling them twisted deviants isn't going to get them on your side!

Matt Sellwood
Matt S



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i think you missed the point
23.02.2006 21:46

indymedia is supposed to be as unbiased as possible.
matt



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Star Wright
23.02.2006 23:12

Refreshing to see such an article, If we care so much about humans we need to study information presented by those in opposition to vivisection, and learn and accept the truth.
Oppose the cruelty! Demand better science that can truly help humans!
Star Wright



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xxxxx
23.02.2006 23:42

animal rights movement all the way!truth be told,i couldn't be arsed to read my way through the negative comments.everyone involved in such a positive movement will sleep easy tonight,which is more than can be said for others.
peace!xxxx
proud vegan



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Pick your battles wisely
24.02.2006 00:00

I agree with Liz. While you supposed pro-viv people scream and yell about the tactics being used by anti-viv people, the abuse and torture against these innocent animals is far worse and there just isnt a close comparison, or words to even describe it. Most of you people that support the building of the lab wouldnt care if you didnt feel it was your own personal safety being threatened. You care about yourselves, period. You are not truly there, speaking out in support of the lab, you are saying only that you want to assert your rights and this cause is as good as any. When the govt steps in, and workers shroud their faces, work behind walls, have private security walk them to their cars and hide the companys identity they have become the very thing they say they are being attacked by. The true meaning of a terrorist is not someone who is defending the innocent, it is of someone who wants to force their views at any cost on people who would not normally comply, in this case being animals. The defenders of the animals are not the terrorists, they did not start the fight, they are standing up for a strong belief and have been forced to take drastic action when peaceful compromise can not be reached. It says little about humanity and morals when atrocities are allowed to happen and govts support it, defend it and condemn those with conscience.
bunny



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Campaign for humane non-animal research
24.02.2006 09:17

Hidden away inside laboratories and universities, millions of animals suffer and die every year. These are undertaken in the name of medical research, or carried out to test chemicals, household products, pesticides and food additives. Not only are these experiments barbaric in the 21st century, their results are unreliable and misleading, because they apply to the specific animal used not humans.
We should continue to campaign for humane non-animal research!
morals



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vivisection is scientific fraud
24.02.2006 09:31

“The very idea that one species could serve as a model for a different species ignores the basic principles of biology” - British Medical Journal, 18th February 2002
Not my words, very appropriate though.
How refreshing to see an article that is telling the truth.
V. Taylor



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An Open Invitation.....
24.02.2006 11:38

I find it interesting that all the PRO comments have just dried up on this topic. I wonder if they are not commited to thier cause whole heartedly. Mayby it's because they don't have hearts?

Anyway any comments that prove how wonderful Vivisection is are most welcome.

Comon guys, I mean, surely you have evidence, right?

Jools
jools



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Great article
24.02.2006 11:41

yeh damn right...we wont stop until they stop :)
Claire Binks



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Pro - Research. Pro - Science
24.02.2006 12:28

The Reason you will get very few Pro-Progress replies on this media forum is the tone of the original piece. No rational unbiased person can read it and consider it journalism.

Its not Journalism, its propeganda and hatemongering.

99% of the students and academics taking part in Saturdays protest will have NOTHING further to do with the centre being built.

They are there for one reason and one reason only. To show that the the violence, threats, obscenity and evil committed by ALF and SPEAK on a daily basis will only turn people against them.

Violence just shows these people to be the marginal extremists they are often dismissed as.

A Piece like this one just goes to reinforce that view.

The medical evidence disagrees with the Anti-viv arguement. That is enough for me.

If you want more, bare in mind that this centre will not INCREASE the amount of animal research done in oxford but will instead simply centralise it to allow for a better standard of care for the animals.

Its only a matter of time before the law changes to prevent the existance of groups glorifying terrorism like ALF.

If you want a debate with serious Oxford pro-science people, a good forum is:
 http://www.oxfordgossip.co.uk/new/forumdisplay.php?f=115

I warn you though, your arguements will be demolished.
Alex



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Alex you idiot idiot idiot
24.02.2006 15:19

Alex you are a fool beyond measure.

>>"The Reason you will get very few Pro-Progress replies on this media forum is the tone of the original piece. No rational unbiased person can read it and consider it journalism."

uhh no it's opinions. Just like the ones you are presenting.

>>"Its not Journalism, its propeganda and hatemongering. "

well what's this then?

>>"They are there for one reason and one reason only. To show that the the violence, threats, obscenity and evil committed by ALF and SPEAK on a daily basis will only turn people against them."

Oh your own word no less, duhhhhh.

I quote another thread....

It's interesting how this "PRO TEST" group are not calling themselves PRO VIVISECTION OR PRO ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION even though that would be an accurate discription of their vivisectionist postion."PRO TEST" is a serious noble euphemism which aurafully implies that the individual gendered primates and other species will be sitting down and doing an exam after signing in at the register and will not be caged,brain damaged,mutilated,electricuted or electroejaculated and physically and mentally killed by grant extorting priests of the new religion, "science".

Their vivisectionist patrons are the research defence society(profits from and represents vivisectors,animal breeders,chemical and drug industry) and other university educated vivisectionist robots and an "honest" BBC appearing MP Doctor(legal drug dealer) who's trained in the vivisectionist mentality in drug,chemical industry funded universitys and who's financial influence rely's upon dealing out adverse reacting vaccines,drugs all fraudulently passed as "safe" through the religious ritual of animal experimentation.

There's a whole history of sadistic experimentation on human beings well before hitler,by the very same noble "researchers" who previously and continue to, torment,electricute,poison,mutilate individual primates,mice,dogs and others.

These violent life hating practices can only continue through noble euphemisms like "study", "research","biomedical research".

well said! I agree.

>>"Its only a matter of time before the law changes to prevent the existance of groups glorifying terrorism like ALF."

I qoute again from further up this very page thicko....

"The true meaning of a terrorist is not someone who is defending the innocent, it is of someone who wants to force their views at any cost on people who would not normally comply, in this case being animals. The defenders of the animals are not the terrorists, they did not start the fight, they are standing up for a strong belief and have been forced to take drastic action when peaceful compromise can not be reached. It says little about humanity and morals when atrocities are allowed to happen and govts support it, defend it and condemn those with conscience."

well said! Again I agree.

>>"If you want a debate with serious Oxford pro-science people, a good forum is:
 http://www.oxfordgossip.co.uk/new/forumdisplay.php?f=115
I warn you though, your arguements will be demolished."

hey is that violent or a threat? Or are you just toying with me like when you split open monkeys heads you dick.

We are dealing with brainwashed people who can't see past thier own inbred noses and forums here. It's a rugby supporter mentality which needs to be wiped out so people can once more think for themselves.

These people are stoopid and it was sombody calling me stoopid a long time ago that made me rethink my views of the world and wise up instead of just continuing to be stoopid in spite of the acuser.

If you people don't sit up and listen when I call you stoopid, and don't think about it, and just dismiss me, then sadly you have proved me right.

jools.
jools



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pointless
24.02.2006 15:48

It seems almost pointless for pro-viv and anti-viv people to discuss this as fundamentally
they believe different things. Pro-viv people believing that humans are a higher species
and have more rights than animals and anti-viv people believing that animals should have the
right not to be killed for human benefit. There's no argument here, just fundamentally
different views. There's not going to many converts to either side.

Also I disagree that many people marching with pro-test are doing so to speak out against
violence. Mostly because there hasn't really been violence. Damage to property is not
violence yet the 2 seem to be mixed up constantly. They are a world apart.
So yeah, I won't be marching on saturday to protest at the ALFs actions but to put forward
my belief that I am fully entitled to. Most of the people I know who are pro-viv are active
in human rights campaigns, they're not evil or sadistic. They just want a better world for
humans.
stupid? No
tom



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Please clarify
24.02.2006 16:27

Hello Alex

You say
“The medical evidence disagrees with the Anti-viv arguement. That is enough for me.”

Please post some of that evidence here.

You say
“bare in mind that this centre will not INCREASE the amount of animal research done in oxford but will instead simply centralise it to allow for a better standard of care for the animals.”

Please give details of this better standard of care and how it compares to the current standard of care.

I look forward to your post.


Myself



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Vivisectionist are Pussies.
24.02.2006 16:44

Vivisection is a Lie and is Murder and Oxford and HLS and every other Animal Testing Out there in the World is a Piece of SHIT.!!! I am Patiently waiting for that one One Day when i'm going to Have The Pleasure to meet a Vivisector or one of you scumbags that Like to see animal Get Tortured and day Day i'm going to Bash YOUR Fucking head In.


For The Animals Until Every Cage is Empty.!!!


Love, Real Men Don't Hurt animals
Real Men Don't Hurt Animals.



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Do me a favour then..
24.02.2006 17:04

Next time you feel ill, or discover a lump somewhere on your body, or one of your children is running a temperature - if you feel so strongly about this movement, don't go to the doctor's. Don't go to the hospital, and don't for god's sake take ANY medicine.

Doctors don't do this for fun, and the pro-"vivisection" (inaccurate as it refers to the dissection of living organisms which is a base and unsatisfactory description of medical research) lobby do not 'not have hearts'. That's the kind of moronic comment which personifies the Animal Rights movement, in my opinion.

You can call me 'speciesist' as I won't deny it; whatever Peter bloody Singer says, I support research and until I've seen CONVINCING evidence that it is unnecessary or does not work, I will continue to support it. A rat is a pig is a boy? Not in my world.
Rob
e-mail:  rob.barbour@gmail.com
Homepage:  http://www.myspace.com/5shr


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And you are a cunt
24.02.2006 17:21

Dear 'Real men don't hurt animals'

I am Patiently waiting for that one One Day when i'm going to Have The Pleasure to meet a anti-vivisector or one of you scumbags that Like to see people dieing through diseases that could have been prevented and one Day i'm going to Bash YOUR Fucking head In.

Love, Real men don't hurt people

Real men don't hurt people



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Alex the reason may anti vivisections wont post on your forum...
24.02.2006 17:55

Dear Alex the reason there are few anti vivisectionists debating on your foum is they have viewed the posts made by the students, who have take great delight in trying to ridicule those who do with insults like 'dirty doley terrorists' smelly hippies' 'monkey terrorists' - implying we have sex with animals, implying that none of us work, and well the list is endless.
They are corrected on their grammar and spelling mistakes, like naughty little school children. They dont need that when they are trying to debate with supposedly some of the best students in the country, most of you dont want to debate, you want to ridicule! In
addition I would like to add that many are supporting the pro-test demo out of spite rather than their deep held beliefs. Many of you students have delighted in posting new topic starters that highlight you sinister sides. So It is my belief that this article points to the true terrorists that will be at the demo this saturday and those that follow blindly behind them.
Star Wright



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Evidence here it is
24.02.2006 17:55

Here Rob,here some evidence from a medical historian Hans Ruesch(his little brother was killed by a legal drug given to him by his doctor for a rash,which partly inspired him to writ this) , written in his books called-SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENT,NAKED EMPRESS ;OR THE GREAT MEDICAL FRAUD and 1000 DOCTORS AGAINST VIVISECTION AND MANY MORE-theres your evidence Rob..

animal experimentation is a 200yr established practice-which involves-diseasing,burning,scalding,electricuting,electroejaculating,poisoning,cutting,sleep deprivation,starvation,xenotransplantation(implanting internal organs into the necks,abdomens or individual primates,goats),forced ingestion of cocaine,heroine etc,all done on the pretext of "studying it".

All this described above has and continues to done on every know species, globally including individual gendered mice,rats,guinea pigs,primates,dogs,cats,lizards,frogs,dolphins,turtles,cows,goats,sheeps,pigs,chickens,polar bears(forced fed crude oil-in canada),calfs,elephants,rabbits and historicly has been done also on human beings in mental institutions,hospitals,orphans homes.

All this continues unabated in our modern "civilised world" and was done 200ys ago, the practice was called vivisection,the experimenters called themselves vivisectors in the same medical journals as today,so it is not a made up term by "crazy" animal rights activists.
Tom



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Not all scientists and doctors are in favour of vivisection
24.02.2006 18:32

The following essay is reprinted from a Medical Research Modernisation Comittee booklet.

Murry J. Cohen, M.D.
Stephen R. Kaufman, M.D.
Rhoda Ruttenberg, M.D.
Alix Fano, M.A.

Increasing numbers of scientists and clinicians are challenging animal experimentation on scientific grounds. Considerable evidence demonstrates that animal experimentation is inefficient and unreliable, while newly developed methodologies are more valid and less expensive than animal studies.

Historical impact of animal experimentation
Proponents of vivisection (tests, experiments and "educational" exercises involving harm to animals) claim that it has played a crucial role in virtually all medical advances. However, several medical historians argue that the key discoveries in such areas as heart disease, cancer, immunology, anesthesia and psychiatry were in fact achieved through clinical research, observation of patients, and human autopsy.

Human data have historically been interpreted in light of laboratory data derived from non-human animals. This has resulted in unfortunate medical consequences. For instance, by 1963 prospective and retrospective studies of human patients had already shown a strong correlation between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. In contrast, almost all experimental efforts to produce lung cancer in animals failed. As a result, Clearance Little, a leading cancer animal researcher, wrote, "The failure of many investigators to induce experimental cancers, except in a handful of cases, during the fifty years of trying, casts serious doubt on the validity of the cigarette-lung cancer theory." Because the human and animal data failed to agree, this researcher and others distrusted the more reliable human data. As a result, health warnings were delayed for years, while thousands of people died of lung cancer.

By the early 1940s, human clinical investigation strongly indicated that asbestos caused cancer. However, animal studies repeatedly failed to demonstrate this and proper workplace precautions were not instituted until decades later. Similarly human population studies have shown a clear risk from exposure to low-level ionizing radiation from diagnostic X-rays and nuclear wastes, but contradictory animal studies have stalled proper warnings and regulations. Likewise, while the connection between alcohol consumption and cirrhosis is indisputable in humans, repeated efforts to produce cirrhosis by excessive alcohol ingestion have failed in all non-human animals except baboons, and even baboon data are inconsistent.

Many other important medical advances have been delayed because of misleading information derived from animal "models". The animal model of polio, for example, resulted in a misunderstanding of the mechanism of infection. Studies on monkeys falsely indicated that poliovirus infects only the nervous system. This erroneous assumption resulted in misdirected preventive measures and delayed the development of tissue culture methodologies critical to the discovery of a vaccine. While monkey cell cultures were later used for vaccine production, it was research with human cell culture that first showed that poliovirus could be cultivated on non-neural tissue. Similarly, development of surgery to replace clogged arteries with the patients own veins was impeded by dog experiments which falsely indicated that veins could not beused. Likewise, kidney transplants, quickly rejected in dogs, were accepted for a much longer time in human patients. We now know that kidney failure suppresses the immune system, which increases tolerance of foreign tissues.

Nevertheless, the public continues to endorse vivisection, primarily because many people believe that animal experimentation has been vital for most medical advances. However few question whether such research has been necessary or even, on balance, helpful in medical progress.




morals



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Splendid article!
24.02.2006 18:39

Splendid article that recognised the the true terrorists are the vivisectors not those who are trying their hardest to oppose such evil acts! I applaud the writer I could not have espressed it better!
Nicole W.



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Maybe this is one of the things that drives the vivisectors
24.02.2006 18:46

I took the following from todays gaurdian

Simon Festing, executive director of the Research Defence Society and a speaker at the Pro-Test rally tomorrow ......
He says that medical researchers realise that they need now to go out and win the arguments so that they can continue with animal research, which he says accounts for 10-20% of research awards. "Keeping down doesn't protect you," he says.

Worried about their research awards then?!
legal protest



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Courage?
24.02.2006 18:54

Dear Rob

I wouldn’t call you a 'speciesist' but you are someone who obviously does not see the possibility of things being other than the way they are at present. So it is truer to say you are a fundamentalist - a “what is should alway be” mentality. We would still be living in caves with those beliefs and lack of imagination!

If medical research involving animals is done to benefit people (and not for the profit or self aggrandisement of those who do it) then it is obvious that the same people who are supposed to benefit may question how it is done. If they feel the way it is done is ethically or scientifically unacceptable there is no reason for them not to try and change things.

Many people like yourself perhaps are understandably afraid to challenge power or orthodoxy. Some people just want an easy life and you are welcome to yours.
Myself



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Sigh
24.02.2006 19:19

If people *honestly* can't see why threatening to beat people up, calling them 'stupid' or 'deviant' for disagreeing with you, or assuming that everyone who doesn't disagree with medical testing on animals (a majority of the
UK population) is a 'terrorist' - then I think the animal rights movement is going to face an extraordinarily uphill struggle convincing anyone of its arguments.

That said, some of the attitudes displayed on OxfordGossip are similarly ridiculous and stereotyped. If either of these two fora represent the best that we can come up with in terms of rational debate on this issue, then we might as well *all* give up and go home.

All I'm asking is that people attempt to discuss things without calling each other names or making wild assumptions that are generally not true. Apparently this is hoping for too much...

Matt
Matt S



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Say What?
24.02.2006 21:04

This forum  http://www.oxfordgossip.co.uk/new/forumdisplay.php?f=115 is full of chronic masterbators and other depraved individuals that seemingly walk around with their genitals (or each others) gripped in their hands whilst pretending to take part in their own twisted version of group solidarity.

If I see 'em at Oxford tomorrow I'll run a million miles for fear of catching herpes, scabies or genital lice!

I wouldn't want to seen to be part of the 'let's bum Blakemore' brigade, not like The Guardian is aspiring to be, and I HATE anyone who abuses animals for their own pleasure.
Dirt^Dog



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Excerpts
24.02.2006 21:44

"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 confirm the just views taken from the study of anatomy and natural motions."(Sir Charles Bell (1774-1842) Scottish anatomist,doctor,surgeon and professor of physiology at London and Edinburgh University)

"Well- Established facts about human disease have been ignored by experimentalists and have had to be rediscovered before fallacies were recognised and corrected".(Dr Clifford Wilson,Lancet,Sep.19,1953)

Experimental evidence may be dangerously misleading;for in the words of one gastric surgeon,'not all of our patients behave exactly like dogs`."(Lancet,Sep 20,1952)

"In the old days we were taught,as the result purely of animal experiments,that digitalis raised blood pressure.We now know that this is utter nonsense.Indeed,it is a remedy of great value in certain cases when the blood pressure is found abnormally high."(Dr James Burnet,Medical World,Jul.3,1942)

"It is not possible to apply to the human species experimental information derived from inducing cancer in animals."(Dr Kenneth Starr-honorary director of the special unit for investigation and treatment of cancer for the New South Wales Cancer Coucil)

"I will not discuss the research work that has been done to find the cause of peptic ulceration,because it leads to nowhere.Most of the work has been done on animals and animals do not get peptic ulcers".(Sir Heneage Ogilvie,M.D.,Surgeon,Nursing Mirror,Oct.21,1952)

"The folly of founding the actions of drugs on animal experiments cannot be over-emphasized.This is the case with chloramphenicol(chloromycetin).This Drug was tried out for long periods on dogs and was found to produce only a transient anaemia but fatal results have followed its use in human disease".(Editorial,Medical Review,Sept.1953)

"The proclaimed purpose of vivisection has not been achieved in any field,and it can be predicted that it won't be achieved in the future either.On the contrary,vivisection has caused enormous damages,has killed thousands of people...We have a great number of medicines and therapeutical techniques which have been perfected without torturing animals,but they have not been used and propagated as they deserve because our generation of researchers don't know any other method than the vivisectionist one".(Dr.Wolfgang Bohn,Physician,Medical Journal - Aerztliche Mitteilungen,1912)

"I consider that vivisection is as useless as it is immoral.The immortal Hippocrates never vivisected,yet he raised his art to a height that we are far from attaining today,in spite of our alleged great modern discoveries,which are the result of introducing extravagant theories which it will be most difficult to eradicate".(Dr.Salivas)

"I am particulary concerned not with the wickedness but with the folly of experiments on animals...To apply the results of experiments on dogs to the aetiology and treatment of peptic ulceration in man is as scientific as to base a course on post-natal lectures to mothers on a study of the maternal habits of the female kangaroo".(Address by Sir Heneage Ogilvie,M.D.,Surgeon,to Leeds Medical Society,Dec.12,1952,Lancet,Mar.21,1953)

"The sooner we relegate the pure laboratory worker to his proper place in medicine the more likely we are to advance in our diagnosis and treatment of disease.At present we are being grossly misled by the experimentalists".(Review of the Medical Annual,1937,Medical World,May 28,1937)

"As the years pass,cancer seems to be on the increase.The search for the cause has up till now met with a very poor result largely owing to the fact that cancer research has been and is being conducted on laboratory animals...We believe that until research switches over to the clinician and leaves the laboratory investigator of cancer to grieve over his failures,no real progress will be made".("Cancer,an Abstract Review",Medical Review,Feb.1951)

"In praxis all animal experiments are scientifically indefensible,as they lack any scientific validity and reliability in regard to humans.They only serve as an alibi for the drug manufacturers,who hope to protect themselves thereby...But who dares to express doubts of our much-vaunted technological medicine,or even just to ask questions,without meeting solid opposition from the vested interests of science,business,and also of politics and news media?".(Dr.Herbert Stiller and Dr.Margot Stiller,Doctors of neurology and psychiatry,Hannover,Germany,1976)
Mick



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vivisection is quackery
24.02.2006 22:23

quackery is medical fraud. As far as testing on animals for things such as eye drops. Rabbits have no tear ducts, so it is incredible to me how visine can sufficiently prove and reprove how this affects our eyes the same as rabbits. The draize test causes horrific pain to a rabbit, this same test would not cause as much harm to a human corpse but yet this is never a consideration or an option. completely odd to me, since rabbits do not use eye drops and do not have the same eyes as humans. If after 60 years of performing this test on thousands of rabbits a year, nothing has come of it then why continue to perform it? I doubt that any one of those people on the forums would like to have their bodys held in a stock with only their heads protruding while someone drops 100 ml of concentrated solution into your eyes and watches the progress as their eyes deteriorate over 72 hours or up to 7-18 days with no pain medication. Rabbits are fighters and they can break their backs and necks in protest against the pain. This is absurdity as the FDA does not require these tests and does not require by law tests on animals. So why is it still done when there are non animal alternatives? Can anyone give me a case of an opthamologist using the data of a draize test to assist in the care of a patient. In all my research on the subject, I have not seen one case. I guarantee all people having to go through the draize test in order to use products such as eyedrops would quickly forego the visine, because they could not take the pain or torture.
As far as vivisection, Dr Taub is a prime example. He was tried and sentenced for cruelty to animals Unfortunately, it was reversed by a legal loophole but it goes to show a good point, that people arent protesting against vivisection without believing there is good cause. Pro-viv people always say it is for the good of human health concerns but it just isnt so. There are tons of documented cases of products that were tested on animals that have killed humans. Do the research, and there is alot of it to do, before you have blind faith that animals should somehow forsake their lives to help humans.
In the united states Bill Frist, the senate majority leader was in medical school in boston, he was performing heart transplant tests on cats. When he ran out of cats supplied to him by the university he went to the shelter and adopted cats and continued his research. He later said it was wrong and barbaric and apologized. This is the same man who diagnosed terri schiavo from watching a video of her in a coma, he refused to go to her hospital room to diagnose her in person when he was very near by. He disagreed with her attending physicians diagnosis of her as "brain dead" After the autopsy it proved just how wrong bill frist was. vivisection is fraud, it is based on money and politics. The only way to get these places closed down, period.. is to go after the people funding the expirements.
Bunny



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Relax
25.02.2006 15:13

Dear all,

I can't help but feel (as others have said) that all the emotive languaged used (by both sides) isn't helping anyone.
Throwing around words like 'terrorists' - especially in the current international situation - isn't desperately smart, for either side.
A terrorist is not necessarily the primary aggressor, but quite simply someone that uses terror to achieve their aims.
I personally feel that scaring people out of doing something is using terror to achieve an aim, whilst animal visection, or testing, doesn't use terror (as 'terror' is a word I would associate with human emotion).
I'm sure people will respond to this post in a variety of ways, probably homing in on the last comment I made and possibly bandying around more confrontational words.
Is it possible to listen to the voices of reason on both sides, not become aggressive and challenge each others' views without comparing one another to Hitler, terrorists or any other randomly selected "figure of Evil". It's silly.
For me, there are two ways you can see the debate: either it's about animals vs. humans (i.e. are there such things as animal rights), or its about medical research and its quality.
If anyone is interested in my views (which I'm going to share anyway, because I can) they are as follows.
1. I would choose a human life over an animal life every time, and will never agree with anyone who argues differently.
2. I would support the best quality medical research available. I do not know enough about the subject to form an opinion on how best to secure this good research, however those whose opinions I trust have suggested that animal testing (or vivisection if you prefer) is the best way available to us at this time. I do not have the time to fully examine the arguments at the moment, so I will follow the opinions of the people that I trust. I know this isn't the best strategy in the world, but there are more important things for me right now, sue me.
I do, however, agree that any testing should be regulated (although one could comfortably argue they might self regulate - who, after all, would buy a drug they suspected didn't work, look at the MMR jab drop since that scare?). Despite arguments in favour of self-regulation I think its far too important to leave to anybody, therefore I favour strongly controlled testing in countries such as the UK where people care enough about animals to watch the standards.
I went to the 'ProTest' (or however they spell it) and the SPEAK protest today (on numbers the 'ProTestors' were clearly winning, not necessarily an important point, but an interesting one), but didn't feel able to join either. The problem being that by taking part I would be putting my name down alongside views which I don't hold, I would be allowing myself to be steam-rolled into a road of opinion that led to places I don't think we should go. Much in the same way 'indymedia' seems to argue with the 'mass' or 'corporate' media's presentation of opinion and fact.

There was no real need to share all of that, and I apologise that it was so disjointed, but I'd like to make the point that we might all (myself included) benefit from thinking harder and saying less, but saying what we really meant. Language is vitally important in shaping our reality, to allow ourselves to bandy around words with very precise, very scary meanings, is to warp our reality. This is true both in the 'Media' and on 'indymedia'.

Yours,
Freddie Yiend
Freddie Yiend



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Fanatics?
25.02.2006 16:16

The above article is highly inaccurate. Most people who marched on the PRO-test today did not do so because they "are fanatical about torturing animals to death", they did for the following two main reasons:

1. Oxford students have been silent for too long in the face of mounting threats and intimidation from the ALF, and disruption caused by SPEAK demonstrating noisily and often constantly outside teaching establishments and harrassing students outside colleges.

STUDENTS HAVE VERY LITTLE SAY ON, OR POWER TO INFLUENCE, UNIVERSITY POLICY.

The threats and intimidation largely began with the arson attack on the Longbridges boat house:
 http://www.directaction.info/news_july06_05.htm

More recently, the ALF put out the following communique, which stated that *STUDENTS and STAFF* would now be "legitimate targets":
 http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/communiques/2006-02-02_oxford.htm

SPEAK have refused to criticise either the ALF or their methods.

2. Many (though certainly not all) people on the march also believe in animal testing. I don't feel I know enough on this issue to be able to have an argument about it, but I'll briefly outline my views:
a) human life is infinitely more valuable than animal life. if it's a choice between human life and the life of a dog, for me, humans always come first.
b) researchers at Oxford University, and other such institutions, don't test on animals for fun. They do so because they believe it to be necessary in order to develop life-saving medical cures
c) I am much happier to accept the views of venerated academics than those of people who use threats, intimidation, arson, abuse and insults to try and force people to accept their views.

Mark
mark



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a bit of objectivity would be nice
25.02.2006 17:34

It seems like the animal rights movement needs to take a bit more of a serious attitude to convincing people that they're in the right.

'Pro-test' campaigners are, on the whole, motivated by the belief that research done on animals is necessary for curing human diseases, inspired by the belief that we should put the interests of our own species above those of other animals. Even if you disagree with this view it's a pretty understandable one to have.

They genuinely believe that animal testing is necessary, and even if it isn't [scientifically], it would probably be a bit better to educate them about how theyr wrong, than to just characterise them as "the most sick, twisted, perverted beings on this planet" and "freaks of nature". They are motivated by compassion, just like you are, but theirs is directed at other humans, and not animals.

'Pro-Test' campaigners justify their opinions by pointing out all the times that animal testing has been useful, and you point out all the times it hasn't. This is just 2 sides to the same coin. Both groups have facts that back up their opinions.

It's really easy to label 'Pro-Test' campaigners as ignorant conformists just blindly following whatever lies are pumped into them, but the natural response to the sight of injured animals with their heads sown up, locked in a cage, is to think its a disgusting disgrace.

i think that if organizations like SPEAK really want to 'open the eyes' of the public to thier opinions, they need to properly look at the pro-vivisection arguments and respond to them rationally, instead of just whipping out another picture of an abused animal. If people are brainwashed then the only way to un-brainwash them is to demonstrate to them that their arguments have no factual basis.

We can't prove an argument wrong if we just say that vivisectionists 'enjoy' hurting animals and are 'evil'. They've developed their own rational arguments just like i hope you guys have, and if you're right then you should prove it by demonstrating it rationally. For most people, appealing to their emotions is not enough to convince them of an argument, and in this mental climate what 'the brainwashed' need is a clear argument showing how you're right.

Good luck with the campaign. i really think that the only way you'll come out on top is if you marshall some arguments that actually adress those raised by pro-vivisectors.
justin
e-mail:  just_one2@hotmail.com



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Thanks, you made my point
25.02.2006 20:22


1. Oxford students have been silent for too long in the face of mounting threats and intimidation from the ALF, and disruption caused by SPEAK demonstrating noisily and often constantly outside teaching establishments and harrassing students outside colleges.

STUDENTS HAVE VERY LITTLE SAY ON, OR POWER TO INFLUENCE, UNIVERSITY POLICY.


Thank you for making my point for me that the 700 students protesting the protestors are not there because they believe in the ethics of building the lab. They are frustrated and this is the first chance they have had to voice their opinions. This is an "issue" for them, it is imperative "they win at any cost" It isnt about the lab itself. Those protestors are just as bad as they claim the anti-viv people are. They are on the message forums asking for legal advice to see just how violent they can be towards the protestors and get away with it. They have gone to idiotic levels with their name calling and anti animal views. Those posts are in no way proving they have an argument and a true stance FOR building the lab. I will say it a million times, it is a load of crap on their end. When vivisection cant even cure the common cold, you expect us to believe that there is a chance it will cure aids, malaria or anything else. How many true cures are there really? not many. Can you name them? When they give us just enough to keep aids/HIV patients hanging on but not curing it, it just goes to show this is bigger than anyone. No one wants a "cure" for anything that is a billion dollar a year business. It just simply isnt good business practice. Why should animals die for medical corruption? Why dont they use alternate methods? my guess is simple, vivisection is a way to keep from finding the truth and those other non animal methods work, and that is certainly what they dont want! Keep the corruption going at any cost to the animals? I do not agree and as far as I am concerned, there is no true view from the other side.
Bunny



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Anthropopmoric Fanatics=Pro Test=Humanising Animals=Animalising Humans
25.02.2006 21:05

So Mark,property destruction done by the ALF is fanaticism but the abusing,mutilating,brain scewing,death dealing of the fake humanitarian "researchers" is'nt?The "Pro test" group can and should march under all the noble established tv spewing euphemisms like "pro test" and "animal research" as this is the only way to characteristicly come off as a caring compassionate humanitarian."Animal research" is a wonderfull lettered label which implies verbal and physical aggreement by the individual gendered animals and also anthropopormicly, implies consent.So what is this point of attention seeking demo's, the public will only get off their obese or saggy arse if their tv and tabloid newpaper,visually and verbally impell them too,otherwise there's is just an inactive dead opinion.

The Advocates of animal experimentation are deeply anthropopmoric because they think a mouse or a rat or a dog or a primate are so similar physically and mentally to human beings that we can get cures from them,when 90% of human diseases are never naturally gotten by animals-I took the lead of the advocates of animal experimentation,i went to my vet asking if he had any medicines for my ill-health,he laughed at me saying,"whats harmless or relieving for your dog,may be dangerous and fatal for you".The following day i went to my doctor with my dog asking if he had any medicines for my ill dog,he looked at me bemused and said,"whats usefull and relieving for you, may be fatal or damaging for your dog",i pleaded honestly,but he called the receptionist to exit me out.


"I firmly believe that if the whole of the materia medica,would fall into the bottom of the ocean,it would be all the better for mankind and all the worse for the fishes".(Dr Oliver Wendall Holmes,Professor of Medicine at Harvard University)


Leo



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The end is here - Pay attention
25.02.2006 21:19

"Pro-Test" come across as a bunch of middle class/upper class spoilt brats chucking their toys out of the cot because daddy pays out so much for them to have peace and quiet whilst they pretend to study.

The animal molesting pervert neurosurgeon (monkey brain basher) Tipu Aziz is the MONSTER that leads them and picks their toys up after the tantrum, hoping to save the day. Ha.

Why Tipu Aziz? ALL FOOLS need to be led by a greater fool.

Pro-Test are now dead in the gutter and the media won't give a shit after such a dissapointing march through Oxford that was cut short by the police and given miniscule airtime on national tv.

Good riddence and goodbye Pro-Test

F3st3r|ng S|m0n



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Grow up
25.02.2006 23:01

"Quite simply, it will be a coming together of the most sick, twisted, perverted beings on this planet."

Yeesh, will you grow up, kid? If humans in favour of animal testing are "the most sick, twisted, perverted beings on the planet" then what does that make, ooh I don't know, Ratko Mladic? Monkeyboy Bush? Margaret Thatcher? Vladimir Putin? All have the blood of thousands of people on their hands. What language are you going to use to describe them? Or are they not as bad because they only kill humans, all of whom (other than a very, very select ultra-vegan chosen ones) are guilty of direct or indirect complicity in the mass murder of innocent animals? Doubtless many of those killed by these murderers were carnivores and thus murderers, and had it coming to them.

Enough. I'm going to become and accessory to murder by eating a digestive biscuit.

Gerry
Gerry Gerbil
e-mail:  gerry.gerbil@gmail.com



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The easy option for 'radicals'
25.02.2006 23:27

"For The Animals Until Every Cage is Empty.!!! "

It's awful easy to be in favour of 'animal rights', eh? If you're into anti-racism, feminism, disability rights, worker's rights, kid's rights, etc, then there's always that embarrassment when, say, some of the group you so campaign for turn out to be racist/sexist/disablist/tory. That's a real pisser, and no mistake - how can you campaign for workers when some of them are up to their necks in guilt due to racism/sexism/whatever? That's disillusioned many a middle-class liberal or student marxist who've retreated into disappointment and cynicism or who've swung off to the barking Right (step forward, Peter Hitchens). So what's a young radical to do, eh? Simple - campaign on behalf of animals which can't be guilty of anything by definition, because they're not moral creatures. They are the original innocents, and guaranteed embarrassment-free. You can take the highest of high moral grounds, and sneer down in disdain at the rest of humanity beneath you, and never risk having your perch whipped away from you. A bit like authoritarian moralists who justify anything they do by saying that it's "for the children", except animals are even better because they'll not turn into "feral yobs" but will remain forever innocent.

"Animal rights" is the easy way out, and backward and reactionary to boot. If "rights" are achieved for animals it won't improve human society one jot, and in all likelihood will set it back because you'd need a highly authoritarian society to enforce laws against animal abuse. It won't get rid of capitalism, or make the world a safer place, or redistribute wealth, or prevent wars, or defeat starvation. It won't do anything for humans at all. There's also a nasty tinge of fascism to some of the more macho animal rightists - talk of "real men" and kicking people's heads in reminds me of skinhead blood and honour types for whom violent struggle is an end in itself.

Maybe "animal rights" represents the temporary triumph of extreme liberalism over humanist socialism. It's certainly a nice easy rite of passage for Nigels and Sarahs who want a wild radical youth before they settle down into Suitdom...

Gerry
Gerry Gerbil
e-mail:  gerry.gerbil@gmail.com



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Is this really the voice of animal welfare?
26.02.2006 12:07

I came to this site to see what the arguments were against the animal testing lab in Oxford. An issue which I have mixed views on.

Having read the original posting and many of the comments I have come to the conclusion that SPEAK and most of its supporters are doing more damage to the cause than good.

Does threatening violence and name-calling really enhance the case for animal welfare in this country?

Are your arguments really so weak that you have to rant in this way?
Neil
Homepage:  http://liberalneil.blogspot.com/


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Gerry Gerbil is a moral creature?
26.02.2006 12:16

So Gerry Gerbil(thats a cute and anthropopmoric surname) the only moral creatures are those designated as "human beings", ie- those who act like you,verbalise the same as you and share the same nobel label, as you.Who runs the Slaughter houses,zoo's,factory "farms",vivisections labs and other anthprocentric humanist enterprises-Gerry Gerbil-is it the mice or the rats or the cows or the pigs or is it arragont self worshipping anthprocentric "there's gotta be something in it me or human society" verbals conformists humanists like you.
What does "human" or "human being" mean Gerry Gerbil?It implies nobleness,kindness,compassion and once again who runs the slaughterhouses,vivisection labs,zoos,factory "farms"-its certainly not individual gendered independantly willed, animals who you see as dumb stupid animals because they do not look like you,act like you or verbalise the same sounding tones as you or furfill actively the designated superior criteria of "humanness", which is of coarse is set by slaughterhouse running "human" species so as to justify these blood spilling humanist enterprises by creating a false oppostion of "humans vs animals" and then from this rigged criteria, naturally to justify the "superior(you) over the "inferior" as morally independantly unbaisely right.

Gerry Gerbil instead of fanny around indirectly, endorsing the historical and present, beagle sqealing practice, of animal experimentation,just say directly you agree humanisticly(no societal euphemisms) with all the undercover videod documented abuses(not the prearranged visiting adverts from the BBC),because it furfills your species supremeisist mentality and you wrongly conformistly hope "who cares, there be something in it for me".

P.S- I've never met a vegan who says eating disgestive biscuits is murder-you put previous typing words into there mouths so that you can truthlessly ridicule them while pretending they have said that and your just reporting it.

"The advocates of animal experimention say,"animals are so similar to human beings we can get cures from them" and then a person will say,"if animals are so similar to us,why is it right to hurt,abuse and kill them", because there only animals".
Tim



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Gerry
26.02.2006 12:59

"For The Animals Until Every Cage is Empty.!!! "

You should of left it at that mate.
Michael



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Debate
26.02.2006 14:19

I'm not a fundamentalist, and I've given this a lot of thought. I've looked at the medical evidence for and against "vivisection", I've looked at what medical research has done for members of my own family and come to the conclusion that it would be hypocritical in the extreme for me to oppose it.

It's horrible, it's not pleasant but it's the best thing we have. That is my opinion, and none of the arguments or evidence above has been enough to change that.

The debate is pointless as I don't think consenus will ever be reached - however, I have to say that as long as the AR lobby continue to use words like "torture", and imply that scientists do this for pleasure, you are not going to convince many enlightened people that you are in the right.

I've also heard the phrase "chronic masturbator" bandied around a lot in relation to this for some reason - is a puritanical self-hatred of the human body another symptom of animal rights sympathisers? It would explain a lot.
Rob
e-mail:  rob.barbour@gmail.com



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Moral creatures
26.02.2006 18:41

Tim ranted:

"So Gerry Gerbil(thats a cute and anthropopmoric surname) the only moral creatures are those designated as "human beings", ie- those who act like you,verbalise the same as you and share the same nobel label, as you."

No, you fool, my point was that animal rightists take the easy way out precisely because non-human animals are not moral creatures, and thus can't embarrass activists. Animals can literally do no wrong, in contrast to pesky humans who are all guilty of something, so being an animal rights activist means that you'll never be toppled from your moral high ground - safe as houses. Go back and read wot I rote then come back with a rational comment, there's a good lad.

"Gerry Gerbil instead of fanny around indirectly, endorsing the historical and present, beagle sqealing practice, of animal experimentation,just say directly you agree humanisticly(no societal euphemisms) with all the undercover videod documented abuses(not the prearranged visiting adverts from the BBC),because it furfills your species supremeisist mentality and you wrongly conformistly hope "who cares, there be something in it for me"."

You want to lay off the skunk, mate - you're making no sense at all. Nothing surprise there, then...

Gerry
Gerry Gerbil
e-mail:  gerry.gerbil@gmail.com



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Digestive biscuits
26.02.2006 18:45

Tim ranted:

"P.S- I've never met a vegan who says eating disgestive biscuits is murder-you put previous typing words into there mouths so that you can truthlessly ridicule them while pretending they have said that and your just reporting it."

Digestive biscuits contain animal fat, derived from the killing of animals, therefore if "meat is murder" then eating a digestive makes you an accomplice after the fact. Ridiculous? Not to all the right-on veggies I knew back in the 80s, of which I was one for a while, when lifestyle politics was at its height. Hell, you couldn't even have Worcester sauce in your tomato soup because it's got bits of anchovy in it. For a vegan, or even a plain old lacto-veggie, eating a digestive is the same order of crime as chomping a T-bone steak, even if not quite of the same magnitude.


Gerry Gerbil
e-mail:  gerry.gerbil@gmail.com



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Gerry Gerbil???
26.02.2006 19:13

Maybe it's time to leave the keyboard keys alone here mate and just chum up to your pals in the barren Pro-Test camp in their hour of darkness.

Unlike yourself and others like you, we NEVER give in and we ALWAYS win!

Onwards to another landmark victory against the animal abusers

STOP THE OXFORD ANIMAL LAB!

Hammy Hamster!



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More than two sides
26.02.2006 23:16

Hammy Hamster jotted:

"Maybe it's time to leave the keyboard keys alone here mate and just chum up to your pals in the barren Pro-Test camp in their hour of darkness.

Unlike yourself and others like you, we NEVER give in and we ALWAYS win! "

If you're not for us, you're against us, right, Hammy? Anyone who's not 100% behind the animal rightists must be on the side of the pro-vivisectionists? Oh dear, what a limited world view. And, of course, you miss my point, which is that the whole animal rights thing is about self-righteous moralism and activists playing commando and having a warm cosy feeling about themselves whilst looking down in disdain on the remaining 99.9% of us.

As it happens, I think that the vast majority of animal abuse is unnecessary and gratuitous, carried out for/by one or more of the following:

drug companies
cosmetic companies
the military
the State

And, of course, there are always researchers looking for a niche* in the annals of bleedin' obvious/pointless research, but they're a small chunk of the billions spent and thousands engaged on vivisection. This rodent, and most other ordinary Joes and Janes, would agree that all this pointless and destructive experimentation should be stopped, and in that sense 'animal rights' has got the message through.

The trouble is, natural rights are just so, well, absolute, aren't they? A right has to hold in all circumstances at all times in all places unless trumped by a bigger right. So if an animal has an absolute right to life, which can only be trumped by its predator's right to eat, then there can be no justification ever for humans to kill animals. Same goes for a natural right to not be harmed. So this means that it's the 5% or so of animal experimentation for non-commercial medical purposes that causes the ructions with the ALF ultra-vegans. Even if it could be shown that 000s of human lives could be saved by the deaths of a few animals that would not matter because the right to life of human and non-human animals is equal, and that of humans can't trump that of animals, so it wouldn't be justifiable to kill an animal to save any number of humans, the same as it wouldn't be right to kill a human to save any number of any other humans.

And it's that ideology of natural rights, taken wholesale from the liberals and extended to all sentient creatures, which cages in the animal rights movement. You couldn't possibly accept that, say, experimentation on chicks is justified to learn more about neurophysiology. You'd argue that the experiments weren't valid because of different physiologies, and in some cases you have a point, but because of our common evolutionary ancestry with so many other animals there are cases where you can learn more about human physiology from that of animals, and then you have to abandon your first line of defence and fall back on absolute natural rights, with which there is no argument. Trouble is, 99% of the population doesn't think that way, and because of that, because we continue to be complicit in the 'abuse' of animals in experimentation, for meat, for products and for servitude, we're tainted with guilt and, at worst, legitimate targets.

That's what burns this rodent up, the insufferable, arrogant, elitist, moralism that runs through the animal rights movement like a bad gene. Only you guys, and most of you are guys, live truly moral lives, and the rest of us are guilty as sin. Never mind what we do in our lives, how much good we may do, if we chomp a burger or make an omelette or give money to Cancer Research, we become accomplices to mass murder and genocide and legit targets.

Which of course suits you guys down to the ground, because the more of us are guilty the more of us you can look down on, the smugger and more self-righteous you can feel, and the more you can feel justified in using violence against us. Of course, were you to concentrate on the practical welfare of animals and drop the absolutist natural rights crap, which is way past its sell-by date even for liberals, you'd have far more positive impact on human society and animal welfare than firebombing researchers houses or digging up graves or releasing a few boar into the wild. But that would mean giving up the macho gestures, the adrenaline of the fight, and above all the moral supremacy that comes with being guardians and vanguards of the True Way, and that just wouldn't do at all, because then what would make you special?


* Such as the bunch who subjected rats to MDMA and loud music and, surprise, found that the combination caused brain damage.

Gerry Gerbil
e-mail:  gerry.gerbil@gmail.com



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well said
27.02.2006 00:19

I'd just like to say Gerry, you are very very VERY right.
i



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?!
27.02.2006 00:23

Gerry writes: the right to life of human and non-human animals is equal

And therein lies the massive difference in view. Because, Gerry, most of us just don't buy that. At all. Sorry mate. If its a choice between (say) a human and a rat, then the rat loses evey time.

This is not to be construed as support for vivisection, just a comment on your crazy screwed up value system.
Observer



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Gerry Gerbil(he loves gerbil's)
27.02.2006 02:01

Hi,Gerry oh my, you are busy,your deep hatered for vegans and anti vivisectionists must be why your constantly on here.I can understand why an anti-vivisectionist would be on here often, as this is the animal liberation forum but why are you?
The "researchers" do have vocal cords to speak for themselves you know unlike their devocalised victims(dogs, in iams labs),Colin Blakemoor employee of the BBC(once on their science committee) is regulary on the tv with his eyes open unlike the individual primates and kittens he blinded and killed-are you happy to verbally represent such a fellow?

what about christian barnard? or Robert White(monkey head transplanter)?
what about the "researchers" who ignored the clinical evidence in humans that vioxx was dangerous and went with the results of animal experiments which said vioxx was "safe",thus hurting and killing thousands upon thousands of human beings worldwide?
Is this your idea of representing humanity?

P.S-Keep giving your money to cancer research,in particular -cancer research uk-they were previously called cancer research campaign(i think) and Imperial cancer research fund(i know) and have been around for over 120 years,when they first started cancer was a rare disease now is an out of control epidemic but atleast they've (cancer research uk) have made billions in the process along with the "researchers".

Keep giving Gerry Gerbil!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LIZ



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The point of all this
27.02.2006 11:25

Right, I want to keep this simple.

My dad has suffered from Parkinson’s for almost all my life. He had to give up his job as a teacher; my mother has had to spend the last 16 or so years caring for him full time. He used to be a chunky bloke; these days he weighs about nine stone. He can't leave the house and he spends most of the day pumped full of drugs that seriously affect his behaviour, mood and physicality.
I don't know if any of you know what it is like to live with Parkinson’s from the age of 40 - constant agony, inability to sleep, tremor, and severe depression.
Basically, this disease has ruined my mum and dads lives.
And now, thanks to research with animals in oxford, he is due to have an operation on his brain. For the first time in years there is a chance for him (and my family) to live a more normal life again.
How many of the more self-righteous people on here take their health for granted? Can you seriously say that if you were in a similar position you wouldn’t be desperate for treatment, even if it were derived from the results of research on animals?
Fundamentalist beliefs always crumble in the face of extreme circumstances. For example, The Republican party in America has always been anti-stem cell research. But as soon as former President Reagan is diagnosed with Progressive Alzheimer’s disease - what this? President Bush Sr suddenly endorsing Stem Cell research.... duh.

Anyway, this is how I feel. I haven’t posted my email here because I can't be arsed to get threats from people who can't type properly. If you want to threaten me, do it here.

Guy



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Guy
27.02.2006 12:26

So what relevance are individual animals to your dads parkinsons-animals do not get parkinsons disease,in fact 90% of human diseases are never seen in animals but you should keep believing your white robed gods who all are trained-mentally and practicly-in the animal experimentation mantra and who institutional profit from this corrupt disease producing system.
There was and are thousands of medical people who say the main cause of disease today,is doctor induced disease from drugs,vaccines all passed as "safe" through your religious lucrative ritual of vivisection-i'll name one at of the thousands-Dr Robert.Mendelsohn,has all the medical qualifactions and has won numerous awards and is author of confessions of a medical heretic-he calls medical science a religion and animal experimentation its religious ritual and says the best way to avoid disease to to stay out of hospitals and trust doctors as much as you trust used car salesman.

PS.Aspartame a chemical compound-found in drinks,yogurts-there is clinical evidence of this chemical killing local neurons in the brain and causing brain disorders like parkinsons-check it out Guy-Aspartmame was passed as "safe" by "researchers" who you are appraising.
(EVERY ONE NEEDS GOD-YOU MORE THAN OTHERS)
Mick



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Thanks
27.02.2006 12:53

LOL
guy



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Values
27.02.2006 13:26

Observer - you need to re-read Gerry's comments. I think you've got the wrong end of the stick!

Liz - you actually have no idea about the real world, do you? Do you believe that the life of a rat or a mouse is equivalent to the life of a child? Would you prepared to tell the 17 year-old in my old school, who died last year of a spinal tumour, that we can't do research into his condition, or the reasons why spinal tumours come about (very little is known about them), because it might threaten the lives of a few mice?

And you think Cancer Research UK is just a massive conspiracy for researchers to enjoy torturing animals? What about the fact that, despite the increase in cancer incidence rates, the death rate from cancer fell 11% in the last ten years? That survival rates for breast cancer have increased by an average of 6% every five years between 1986-1999?

Have a think about it and then come back and reply if you want.
mark



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dear guy
27.02.2006 13:27

hello guy

sorry to hear about all the trouble your family has been having.

Can I ask one question?

If your father could have a chance to be cured (because face it, it's only a chance) without the use of a monkey to find a cure, would you still think using monkeys is alright?

The fundamantal point here is that OTHER means of finding cures should be used. Then everybody would be happy and democracy and fairness would be restored.

You could also probably argue that you father would not be in his current situation if it were not for cheap shoddy science and technological shortcuts and money mad cheapskate corporations.

Thanks

Jools.

p.s. pro testers don't flame me with, but yeah, but what else, but there is nothing else, but but but. Save it. Find something else you lazy gits. Stop using the cheap easy corperate pleasing options because they are not people just entities. Use your brains, which you keep telling us you have so much of, and find proper answers.
jools



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Nonsense
27.02.2006 13:39

from the website of the Parkinsons disease society, Ottowa, US
 http://www.parkinsons.ca/faq.html


"What causes Parkinson's and who gets the disease?

Research to date has not been able to identify the exact cause of this condition. There is evidence to suggest that some people may have a genetic predisposition to Parkinson's, but there is no clear evidence to suggest that it is hereditary. Other risk factors that have been identified are head injury, direct occupational pesticide exposure and the age-related loss of brain cells that transmit nerve impulses. "

Sorry, Aspartamine is where exactly? And what do my religous beliefs have to do with anything?

I would like someone to respond, using their brain, to my point about what they would do if they were suffering with a Parkinsons or a similar disability. If all you can do is attack me using spurious facts and mis-typed abuse then you are an IDIOT. Not because of your beliefs, I am quite happy to debate reasonably with people with a counter view to my own, but a dingbat is a dingbat, period.
Guy



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Moralists
27.02.2006 13:41

Liz wrote:

"Hi,Gerry oh my, you are busy,your deep hatered for vegans and anti vivisectionists must be why your constantly on here.I can understand why an anti-vivisectionist would be on here often, as this is the animal liberation forum but why are you?"

Er, no, you've missed the point, as most of the other foamy-mouthed fanatics on here have. It's not anti-vivisectionists or vegans I hate, as I've no problem with either (I used to have many good vegan friends, and believe it or not I'm not fan of animal experimentation). It's moralists I hate - self-righteous arrogant morally-pure people who look down on the rest of us scumbags with contempt and who want to tell us what to do and think. That's what so many animal rights activists are, and they have the advantage over other moralists because they can never be toppled from their high moral ground because animals can't speak and can't do any wrong.

Moralists all have the same authoritarian, reactionary, elitist, contemptuous mindset, and in the last (sometimes the first) resort want to force their morals on the rest of us. No doubt Indymedia folk are aghast at 'pro-lifers' who attack healthcare staff and bomb abortion clinics, at fanatical Christians who want to ban all contraception, at Taliban fundamentalists who want to put all women into burqas, yet when animal rightists display the same mindset many 'radicals' on the Left keep schtumm. But you're the same sort of folk - under the warcry of "For the animals!" you want to force all of us into veganism and end any exploitation of animals even if it doesn't harm the animal (such as shearing sheep for wool), and you'll use any means necessary to achieve your ends if friendly persuasion fails. You regard all us ordinary slobs, even those of us who are veggie (Milk is Murder, after all), as at best deluded and ignorant, and at worst murderers and torturers, and only your morally-pure ultra-vegan vanguard can lead us into the promised land where all animals roam free and are unexploited. If that means the wholesale trashing of historic cultures, then WTF, it's "For the animals!", and any culture which has animal exploitation at its heart (say, ooh I don't know, the Kalahari people who live exclusively off animals) deserves to be killed off anyway.

Of course, you'll never achieve these ends, no more than Godsquadders will achieve heaven on earth. In practice animal rights direct action has little positive benefits for animals, and in some cases can be positively harmful (all those mink released into the wild knocking off unprepared native species, for instance) - real, practical reductions in animal suffering have come about through non-violent campaigning and changes in social attitudes, not through SAS-wannabes in balaclavas releasing a few bunnies into the wild or trashing a scientist's house. However, the sort of campaigning that generates practical results just doesn't have the adrenaline rush of direct action, or the moral superiority that comes from being a warrior for animal rights - it's a long boring slog, and requires having some understanding of, and empathy with, ordinary people, not sneering moral contempt for them.

Oh, and Observer: yes I did write "the right to life of human and non-human animals is equal" but do read it in context, there's a good lad/lass. That's read, not skim. Do make an effort.
Gerry Gerbil
e-mail:  gerry.gerbil@gmail.com



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Hey Jools
27.02.2006 14:30

Sorry, this site doesn’t refresh that quickly...


Hi Jools, some good points, thanks. I was expecting a bit of the old 'U WIL DY U ANIMUL MURDERDR' I express myself pleasantly surprised.
Anyway,

" If your father could have a chance to be cured (because face it, it's only a chance) without the use of a monkey to find a cure, would you still think using monkeys is alright? The fundamental point here is that OTHER means of finding cures should be used. Then everybody would be happy and democracy and fairness would be restored. “
Well, the research has already been done, for this specific operation; they wouldn’t be allowed to carry it out with out years of research. The rules on what medication or operations can be performed are very strict. To digress, if something is not fully tested it can lead to long term problems, the Thalidomide debacle being a case in point.

The trouble is, Parkinson’s is a syndrome not a disease. It cannot be ‘cured’. The operation is to install a kind of ‘pacemaker’ for the brain that stops most of the Parkinsonian symptoms. It is inconceivable, scientifically, for they’re to be any other way to test this. If there were, obviously it would be better than something derived from animal research. I like animals; hell I used to be Vegan. But there isn’t any other way, I’m sorry that’s just a harsh reality.

You also said

“You could also probably argue that you father would not be in his current situation if it were not for cheap shoddy science and technological shortcuts and money mad cheapskate corporations. “
Perhaps, but if you see one my other points, nobody knows what causes Parkinson’s. I know that the cause has nothing to do with animal research into treating it…
For the record I am against animal testing for cosmetics and similar products. That should be a no brainer. But when it comes to medical research that can give back a normal life to millions of human beings, well, I fully support it.
I have to go back to work now, so I won’t reply to any more posts. I feel I have laid out my beliefs and endless mud slinging would be pointless…
All I’ll say is, and this is aimed at those anti-viv people who like to abuse people and threaten violence (not the more reasonable people who are prepared to debate), the law and the vast majority of people in this country (and this is nothing to do with media ‘manipulation’) think that you are obnoxious idiots. You are a small minority and your days are numbered. Suck my balls!


guy



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Parkinson's treatable with stem cells?
27.02.2006 15:18

Guy, I certainly sympathise with your situation, and I think all but the most hard-hearted animal rights activists would be hard pushed to find a way out of the dilemma. On Parkinson's, something sticks in my mind about there being research on treating it with human stem cells and that some trials have taken place - is this the case? I think I read a couple of articles in New Scientist on stem cells being used to treat human degenerative diseases, but it might have been to treat Alzheimer's rather than Parkinson's.

Of course, stem cell research, although presumably kosher from an animal rights viewpoint, does have its moralist opponents on the fundamentalist Christian Right, but as you point out a fair few of those are getting on a bit and might loosen their principles a little to get treatment before they go (even more) ga-ga.
Gerry Gerbil
e-mail:  gerry.gerbil@gmail.com



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To all that believer the news...
27.02.2006 15:51

Why can you all stop eating what the media are feeding you?

Ill attempt to cover some of the issues...

1. Facts & sources from Pro and Anti Vivisection movements.

If you are unsure about the facts don’t listen to either side? Look in medical journals and find out the facts for yourself. I personally would find more facts in statements from the AR side as the AR movement has no financial links to this multi million £ industry.

2. The ALF & Terrorism.

Please will everyone shut the f*** up about the ALF? The ALF is not a person it is not a group of individuals and it is not the animal rights movement. It is a flag for direct action. When an individual does something which involved non violent direct action e.g. criminal damage / arson etc they do so under the flag of the ALF. There are extremists within this movement as with any movement, anti war / pro choice, not to mention religion and its followers. Animal rights activists under the flag of the ALF have never killed a human or any other creature this is a strict unwritten law with all AR activists.

People who say AR activists shouldn’t break the law should look at other movements throughout history and realise that people have always broken the law to achieve results, if activists did not involve themselves in direct action, you may as well forget about women’s rights, slavery abolition and start preparing to be locked to your TV set by the government.

The difference is people have been killed in the name of other movements. The only people to die as a result of the Animal Rights movement are AR activists.

In the USA the Animal Liberation movement are considered more dangerous than Al Qaeda, you should ask yourself why this might be. The reason is in fact simple: Property damage in the US from the animal rights has cost more than the destruction caused on 9/11. It can’t be about the amount of people killed or injured? So this tells you something about government priorities.

Government priorities.

1st. Government self sustenance
2nd. Protection of property and economy.
3rd. Protection of Citizens
4th. Environmental issues / other worldwide economy issues.

Try and see past the Governments stated reasons for taking certain political actions. It all boils down to wealth and power.


3. The media.

It is only since being involved with the animal rights movement that I have seen the full extent of media biased. I have seen exaggerated articles, one sided articles and complete lies.

The media have only one aim. This is too get that scoop that will sell more of the channel / paper / publication. The fact that the animal rights movement has no clear leadership means that the press have almost free reign to lie about the AR movement without any re-percussions.

A good rule for the news. – Don’t trust them – even the BBC are liars.

The BBC have felt the wrath of many campaign groups (not just Animal rights) for biased journalism. The BBC pride themselves on there impartiality.

Anyway the fact is the media will lose interest in pro-test soon. As with any other two bit movement like people who fight for McDonalds in the USA. They will fade away and good riddance.

---

Sorry for the spelling and grammar I was in a rush 

See you on the streets, Ill be there fighting for what is morally right will you? In the rain? In the snow and sleet?

Chris


FatPUnKChris
e-mail:  chris@stopanimalcruelty.co.uk



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hello again guy
27.02.2006 17:04

you said

>>Well, the research has already been done, for this specific operation;

On what Mokeys? Monkeys with Parkinsons?

>>they wouldn’t be allowed to carry it out without years of research.

You wanna bet! Depends how much money is to be made.

>>The rules on what medication or operations can be performed are very strict. To digress, if something is not fully tested it can lead to long term problems, the Thalidomide debacle being a case in point.

Well yes, precisly put. Unfortunatly what you are saying means that effectivly you dad is becoming a test victim also.

>>The trouble is, Parkinson’s is a syndrome not a disease. It cannot be ‘cured’. The operation is to install a kind of ‘pacemaker’ for the brain that stops most of the Parkinsonian symptoms.

I think Cannabis may do the same thing but I'm not a scientist.

>>It is inconceivable, scientifically, for they’re to be any other way to test this.

Other than on your dad, yeah.

>>If there were, obviously it would be better than something derived from animal research. I like animals; hell I used to be Vegan. But there isn’t any other way, I’m sorry that’s just a harsh reality.

I disagree. The harsh reality is this. Nobody lives forever. Some poeple live less long than others. Sadly sometimes those are people we know. We (society) already live too long for Sustainability on this planet.

>>For the record I am against animal testing for cosmetics and similar products. That should be a no brainer.

Sorry what I'm saying here is that keeping people alive for as long as possible just so we can hide from the spectre of death a bit longer is purly a cosmetic approach to an undeniable enevitable conclusion of death for us all.

>>But when it comes to medical research that can give back a normal life to millions of human beings, well, I fully support it.

What you refer to as normal is VERY VERY VERY far from normal in a natural sense of the word. If your father gets through all this it would be very interesting to meet him.
jools



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Conspiracy Theorists
27.02.2006 17:23

A recurring theme here is allusion to globalisation or "the corporate ideal".

You guys are starting to sound like the puppets in Team America.. "the big corporations.. sit in their big corporation buildings.. and they're all.. corporationy".

I don't doubt that big business drives many policies, but the facts and figures regarding animal research are there for all to see. Including the FAILED experiments.

The animal rights brigade only ever present facts which support their arguments, you will not find balanced information on their sites as they know their success lies in the emotive qualities of their argument and not the factual qualities. This is because AR is a PHILOSOPHY and not a science.

Serious question to all the Stoppers on here - do you turn down medication when you are ill? if you do not, what gives you the right to wax self-righteously on "animal abuse"?

PS - Gerry, I'm quite convinced you are a genius.
Rob
e-mail:  rob.barbour@gmail.com



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Hmmm
27.02.2006 18:38

Thanks gerry gerbil. You sound like a rational person, nice one.

As for you fatpunkchris, thanks for not being abusive. Some key points -

"The media have only one aim. This is too get that scoop that will sell more of the channel / paper / publication. The fact that the animal rights movement has no clear leadership means that the press have almost free reign to lie about the AR movement without any re-percussions. "
No, the media report on the actions and effects of the Animal RIghts Movement - something you probably don't percieve in the same way as an outsider, being right in the middle of it.

The difference between the Animal RIghts Movement (and let me be very clear, I am talking now about the extreme end of the spectrum, the ALF and so on) and say, the suffragettes is that rather than fighting for human rights (like female equality, the abolition of slavery and so on) the Animal Rights movement is attempting to propagate a fundamentalist agenda through terrorism. Like, say, Islamic Jihad.

Probably some of the gutter press will tell out right lies - this is what they do. But proper media sources, although they may make mistakes, are bound by a stringent code of conduct. They are not telling lies - the AR movement can be frightening, thug-like and loose with the facts. Sorry, but that is true.

"A good rule for the news. – Don’t trust them – even the BBC are liars.
The BBC have felt the wrath of many campaign groups (not just Animal rights) for biased journalism. The BBC pride themselves on there impartiality. "
Of course the BBC pride themselves on their impartiality. They are non profit organisation, (as is the Guardian by the way.) Why would the BBC lie about the AR movement? When? Instances, please.

"See you on the streets, Ill be there fighting for what is moTrally right will you? In the rain? In the snow and sleet? "
And why does this stuff always boil down to who's more 'hardcore?' If you have to resort to that, then your argument can't be up to much.
And no one has supplied an answer to my question as to what they would do if they were suffering from Parkinson's (or something similar)? Funny that, isn't it?


Oh and I can't remember the name of the person who mentioned stem cells, sorry. Unfortunatly any results from stem cells are way off in the future, this being down to the actions of fundamentalist christians....no matter the issue, fundamentalists always mess everything up.

Damn, I said I wouldn't post again.
guy



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jools
27.02.2006 18:45

arrgh, refresh rate
hi jools

I think you have misunderstood me...my dad is undergoing an operation, which is fully tested and to be performed by one of the best neurosurgeons in the world. Not a test.

"What you refer to as normal is VERY VERY VERY far from normal in a natural sense of the word"

what so you sleep in a tree and eat raw food?
And why havn't you answered my question?
guy



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jools
27.02.2006 18:47

arrgh, refresh rate
hi jools

I think you have misunderstood me...my dad is undergoing an operation, which is fully tested and to be performed by one of the best neurosurgeons in the world. Not a test.

"What you refer to as normal is VERY VERY VERY far from normal in a natural sense of the word"

what so you sleep in a tree and eat raw food?
And why havn't you answered my question?
guy



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Humans as a curse?
27.02.2006 19:59

jools, in her/his rather less than sensitive second reply to Guy, whose Dad has Parkinson's, wrote:

"I disagree. The harsh reality is this. Nobody lives forever. Some poeple live less long than others. Sadly sometimes those are people we know. We (society) already live too long for Sustainability on this planet."

Note the last sentence, which sadly reveals the true feelings of many radical Greens and animal rights activists. To them, humanity is a curse on the planet because it's been so destructive of the environment and so oppressive to animals. From which follow some quite unpleasant ideas to do with population reduction...

This is the logical conclusion of the idea that we're all guilty of animal oppression, other than the animal rights vanguard. If someone's guilty of a crime, particularly one as heinous as complicity in mass murder as nearly all of us are, then they're at best a lesser being than someone who's innocent, and at worst should be punished for their crimes. It's this logic that leads militant anti-abortionists in the States into harassing, attacking and killing anyone involved in abortion. Animal rights activists aren't nearly in the same league in terms of vindictiveness, but their attitude is the same - if saving animals requires the hurting of people with animal blood on their hands, then that's what it takes and is morally justified by the guilt of the oppressors. And, by that logic, if you look at humanity en masse it's plainly guilty of the most appalling crimes against the natural world, and it would be better for the innocent animal kingdom if its numbers were reduced.

These aren't fancies of my mind, but sentiments I've read on various fora over the years, on Usenet and the WWW, from extreme Greenies and animal rights activists. This dark view of people, and of human nature, isn't likely to endear them to ordinary stiffs who're unlikely to be persuaded of the animal rights case by activists who think they're a stain on the planet, and this naturally leads the activists into darker and tighter cliques. Not unlike some of the urban guerilla groups of the 70s, such as the Red Army Fraction, and the Red Brigades...
Gerry Gerbil
e-mail:  gerry.gerbil@gmail.com



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Vivisection kills
27.02.2006 22:12

Firstly a note to all the AR activist posters on here. How do you feel being personally offensive will help with your cause? Calling someone a ‘paedophile’ or ‘wanker’ or any other offensive terms will just reinforce the image of AR activists as raving nutters, something the media would love to see in place. As someone else mentioned in a good post on this thread previously, you need to engage people in serious debate and discussion, this doesn’t mean being static and just discussing, far far from it, but what the AR movement doesn’t need is lies, distortions and half-truths, there is enough solid medical, ethical, philosophical and historical evidence to back up the AR case without going down to the common denominator of calling a vivisection ‘scum’ or something like it. People aren’t stupid, they may not realise all that goes on in a vivisectors’ lab, in fact many know very little of what goes on, but they know that scientists don’t just do it for a laugh or for sadistic aims- some may, and there have been examples of this yes I know, but they are a minority. Vivisection is based on economics and preserving the ‘traditional’ medical code. Three have been some very good books written from a specific medical perspective on anti-vivisection, by some well recognised Dr’s and Professors. There are also literally thousands of quotes on a medical basis against vivisection, a very small handful of which have been posted here. The anti-science view of some in the AR movement, and the childish negative comments just put ‘ordinary’ people of the anti-vivisection side and push them towards the slick, million pound pro-vivisection side, as pushed by most of the media. Come on the AR movement is already a ‘terrorist’ movement and vilified in the media, we don’t need to make people think we are all wankers with it!!

A reply to Guy , sorry to hear your dad has Parkinsons, it is a horrible condition that one of my friends dad’s had for the last few years of his life. I lost a friend on his 17 birthday in 2005 due to adverse side affects to hospital drugs, and relatives and neighbours suffer, often severely, from the side effects of drugs, some labelled, many not. Vivisection is horrendously cruel and that’s a key reason why I oppose it, but I also oppose it for the sheer fact it is deadly to people, as demonstrated by the cases I know, and many, many others to. There is a group in the UK (and probably the US to) of seriously ill people (terminally ill) who are opposed to vivisection on medical and ethical grounds, they may have members with Parkinsons. Just type in seriously ill against vivisection on google). Guy am I correct in thinking (do correct me if I’m wrong) that you take a somewhat anti-vivisection viewpoint from two things 1) a natural desire to improve your dad’s health and 2) that vivisection, hopefully through improving your dad’s health, can help others to? And that anti-vivisectionists just wish to stop needed medical progress? Well the issues have been raised regarding your dad’s situation and while I support medical research and have the opportunity of speaking to some people closely involved in this research, vivisection is not the way. Not only is it very cruel, but it has not helped medicine!! This may sound abit strange as we are always taught to believe vivisection is some sort of golden medical temple to worship the validity of medicine at, but I’m sure there are many, many other ways your father could be helped without using vivisection. Regarding the primates you say could help your dad, I’m afraid they couldn’t- especially since primate research is very limited in the UK (doesn’t make it any better though!!), I don’t wait for the day when all vivisection ends and then everyone is fine without it, no, you need to actively work towards stopping vivisection, promoting the truth (and not being offensive with it) and especially being supportive in monetary, vocal or other ways of those in the medical business working towards alternatives, of which many are. We need alternatives NOW and ending vivisection NOW, not just calling a vivisector a prick and saying its murder etc, yeah sure it is, BUT ACTIVELY SEEK OUT ALTERNATIVES.

To Gerry- in your last post you discussed rights in a decrementive way, could you please provide any solid substance to your posisition on rights? If there is not a position of rights for animals, why so for humans, why can’t I go out and kill you if I want if you lack rights? Sorry your 5% of animal testing not done for medicine is incorrect, at HLS alone it is more like 15-20% non medicial, a statistic repeated around many vivisection labs.
‘You couldn't possibly accept that, say, experimentation on chicks is justified to learn more about neurophysiology’ – since when would experimenting on chicks help us learn more about the human mind? It wouln’t even tell us a lot about the grown chickens mind (unless you meant chicks as in young women?). Just because something isn’t that popular dosen’t mean it isn’t correct. If you went to the deep south in the 1920s and asked about voting rights for blacks you’d be told where to go (maybe even now to), yet staunch anti-apartiad opponents were wrong for opposing a majority view? The people who post on here who have a political view against the mainstream are wrong? You don’t see Marxists and anarchists in the Daily Mail, they don’t visibly share the wider populances view, so they are wrong? Some Deep Ecologists do take a somewhat semi-fascist view on humanity, but these views are small and seemed to be more prelavent in the 1970s, not so much now. Murray Bookchin and other social ecologists have criticised deep ecology, but im not to strong in this area.

Vivisection kills- both humans and non-humans.

Note: I have written a short document on why their should be links among political activists and animal rights activists. Also I’ve done a 20 page breakdown and criticism of the Seriously Ill for Vivisection PDF. To put these up here would take way to much space, but I do hope to get a site up to host them on.

sarah



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well.... I simply don't believe this.
28.02.2006 09:58

All Hail Gerry who has the most astonishing ability to jump to the wildest conclusions that fit into the way your average pro-science activist thinks. It's a shame, really.

Guy you seem to have missed my points and focused on ones you can face. You started this harsh reality mate.

I don't see you asking me a question that I havn't answered? Or were you refering to me Sucking your balls??

I'm sure your dad would be proud of you.


jools



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Wild conclusions?
28.02.2006 13:57

jools ranted:

"All Hail Gerry who has the most astonishing ability to jump to the wildest conclusions that fit into the way your average pro-science activist thinks. It's a shame, really."

Your throwaway remark about humans living too long already for sustainability is indicative of a deeply misanthropic current in animal liberation and the deep Green movement. I've read plenty of posts on forums that basically say that the planet would be better off without humans, and sadly I met a few such types back in the 80s (which seem such innocent days in comparison to now). There is misanthropy in the animal rights movement which you know about full well if you're an activist, a misanthropy that doesn't do your cause (which has a fair few strong arguments to make) any good at all.

Your throwaway comment about "pro-science" above is also revealing. Do I take from that that you consider anyone "pro-science" to be the enemy? Do you consider "science" itself as the enemy? If so, you certainly remind me of the wilder fringes of the radical feminist movement that rejected science and rationality as patriarchal, and which ended up in tiny self-regarding cliques.

Maybe you associate "science" with big business, capitalism and the State - is that the case? If so, you should know that there are an awful lot of scientists who are opposed to the perversion of science for capitalist and State ends, and who call for a radical and democratic conception of science. You can go back to the 70s to see articles and books written by the likes of Steven and Hilary Rose, and despite science being increasingly appropriated by multinational biochem and pharm companies there are still plenty of scientists who reject this privatisation and commercialisation of science and who strive to carry out science for the benefit of humanity as a whole, rather than for the benefit of GSK's shareholders. Many such scientists are pretty sympathetic to anti-vivisection and Green causes, and are working actively to come up with alternatives to animal testing, but because in the meantime they continue with testing I dare say you class them amongst the animal mass murderers and torturers in your for-us-or-against-us bipolar world.

If you give up on science, though, I can tell you that you're opening up a whole world of grief for yourselves, and your movement will soon enough become a faith rather than a coherent rational philosophy, which won't do animals any good. Best to keep an anchor to reality and to reason if you want to have a positive effect on animals and humans.

"Guy you seem to have missed my points and focused on ones you can face."

Grow up, will you? This is na-na-na-na-na playground stuff.

"I don't see you asking me a question that I havn't answered? Or were you refering to me Sucking your balls??"

What are you going on about? I think you must have me mixed up with someone else.

"I'm sure your dad would be proud of you. "

You've lost it, really. What's my Dad got to do with anything?
Gerry Gerbil
e-mail:  gerry.gerbil@gmail.com



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Human and animal rights
28.02.2006 14:50

Sarah, thanks for your post, which was a real diamond in the dungheap of this discussion. If more animal rights activists were like yourself, and less little boys playing SAS and sneering down at the rest of us, the movement would have far more impact on the ordinary Jane and Joe in the street than it does now. You asked a few Qs:

"To Gerry- in your last post you discussed rights in a decrementive way, could you please provide any solid substance to your posisition on rights?"

The animal rights case is based on the human rights case, that all humans have 'natural rights' which apply to all humans at all times in all places. The right to free speech, for instance, isn't qualified by living in this or that place, but applies to all humans as an absolute birthright, and can only be trumped by another natural right, the classic example being that there's no right to shout "Fire!" in a crowded cinema as that might breach the rights of others to life. Animal rights thinkers, such as Peter Singer (I read his first book back in the 80s and was impressed at the time, less so now), simply extend natural rights to non-human animals, and if you accept the argument for natural rights then it's difficult to argue against this extension. As you point out:

"If there is not a position of rights for animals, why so for humans..."

Is that a fair summing-up? Essentially, the natural rights argument comes from liberal philosophers, going way back to Rousseau and Voltaire. Why did these thinkers invent natural rights? To give philosophical and moral backing to the emerging dynamic mercantilist and capitalist classes in their challenge to the established feudal order, backed up as it was by the divine right of kings. Note that one of the fundamental human rights, according to liberal thinkers, is the right to own property, which of course is the cornerstone of capitalism. The idea of natural rights drove the French revolution, where a capitalist middle class overthrew a feudal ruling class, and of course inspired many other 'bourgeois' revolutions.

I'm sure you know this already, but I write it for the benefit of those who might not, as there are many people who take natural rights as a given, without understanding where the concept comes from. The problem, of course, is that if you accept natural rights then you accept capitalism and liberal democracy, which is fine for liberals but not for socialists, anarchists (I humbly count myself as one), and marxists. That's why I have no time for natural rights at all, and view them as at best obstructive to progress, at worst downright reactionary. Which leads on to another Q:

"..., why can’t I go out and kill you if I want if you lack rights?"

It's a liberal conceit that they hold the monopoly of virtue, and that if you don't accept natural rights then a Hobbesian war of all against all reigns, which of course is based on the profoundly wrong liberal conception of human nature as driven by individualistic self-interest for power and wealth (another cornerstone of capitalism, not uncoincidentally). There are many other social mechanisms by which communities and people keep order amongst themselves, too many to go into here - see an anarchist FAQ at  http://www.anarchistfaq.org/ for more detailed arguments, section I.5 in particular on the social structure of an anarchist society. Basically, though, if you take the view, as I do, that humans tend towards cooperation and mutual aid, rather than individualistic self-interest, then you don't need natural rights to ensure people behave morally, in the same way as you don't need religions to do this (clerics also have the conceit that only religion can enforce morality, and that secularism = chaos).

So why don't I go out and kill people if they don't have natural rights? For the same reasons that societies without the concept of natural rights didn't indulge in wholesale slaughter (unlike, say, liberal democracies which have slaughtered 00s of millions on a quite industrial scale in recent times) - because killing of people is hard, there's very rarely any reason to do it, and all bar the most pathological societies have strong tabus against it.

To get back to the animal rights point, I'd argue that you don't need a natural rights argument to campaign against animal oppression and exploitation, and indeed you're hamstrung by natural rights and forced into absolutist all-or-nothing positions, as is plain from most of the contributions to this 'discussion' from the foamy-mouth brigade. What you need, for starters, is anti-capitalism. I'm not saying that you should wait until the revolution for animal liberation, rather that your campaign should have anti-capitalism at its core because the vast majority of animal experimentation is as a direct or indirect result of capitalism. If you cling to natural rights then you perforce are tied into capitalism, and you'll be much less effective because of that.

I also think that you've made a major blunder in allowing yourselves to be suckered into the animal medical experimentation argument. The number of animals used in genuine scientific research for medical purposes is miniscule (AFAIK) compared to those used in commercially-driven research and testing, but by being suckered into opposing medical experimentation you've put yourselves at the mercy of media and State demonisation which makes you appear anti-human and more concerned with bunnies than dying children. The cause isn't helped by the foaming mouth brigade actively jumping into the anti-human camp, as they have done in these 'discussions'.

"Sorry your 5% of animal testing not done for medicine is incorrect, at HLS alone it is more like 15-20% non medicial, a statistic repeated around many vivisection labs."

Ok, fair enough - I did pluck the figure out of the air.

‘You couldn't possibly accept that, say, experimentation on chicks is justified to learn more about neurophysiology’ – since when would experimenting on chicks help us learn more about the human mind?

Human neurophysiology shares an awful lot with that of other vertebrates, with the same physiological mechanisms in action - for instance, in nerve signalling. Hell, we have a fair bit in common with invertebrates, hence neuroscience research on nematode worms. I picked the chick example because the biologist Steve Jones (quit hissing at the back there!) uses chicks for genetic and neurological research, as he details in his book The Language of the Genes.

" The people who post on here who have a political view against the mainstream are wrong? You don’t see Marxists and anarchists in the Daily Mail, they don’t visibly share the wider populances view, so they are wrong? "

Not at all, and I don't see where you're getting that idea from. Indymedia is specifically for non-mainstream politics. Neither do I object to many of the core ideas of the AR movement. What burns me up is, as is plain from my previous posts, is the sheer moralism, arrogance, misanthropy, and absolutism of the SAS-wannabes. And it's those macho attitudes that are increasingly damaging the animal rights movement in the public's eyes, and playing into the hands of the bourgeois media.

"Some Deep Ecologists do take a somewhat semi-fascist view on humanity, but these views are small and seemed to be more prelavent in the 1970s, not so much now. Murray Bookchin and other social ecologists have criticised deep ecology, but im not to strong in this area."

I get the impression that these misanthropic deep Green ideas still abound, going by things I read now and again, but I'm not sure how representative or not they are of deep Greenies such as Earth First!

Thanks again for the considered response - it's nice when someone makes a serious effort to argue rationally. I dare say it's no coincidence that it's taken a woman to do it... ;-)

Gerry
Gerry Gerbil
e-mail:  gerry.gerbil@gmail.com



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Human and animal rights
28.02.2006 14:51

Sarah, thanks for your post, which was a real diamond in the dungheap of this discussion. If more animal rights activists were like yourself, and less little boys playing SAS and sneering down at the rest of us, the movement would have far more impact on the ordinary Jane and Joe in the street than it does now. You asked a few Qs:

"To Gerry- in your last post you discussed rights in a decrementive way, could you please provide any solid substance to your posisition on rights?"

The animal rights case is based on the human rights case, that all humans have 'natural rights' which apply to all humans at all times in all places. The right to free speech, for instance, isn't qualified by living in this or that place, but applies to all humans as an absolute birthright, and can only be trumped by another natural right, the classic example being that there's no right to shout "Fire!" in a crowded cinema as that might breach the rights of others to life. Animal rights thinkers, such as Peter Singer (I read his first book back in the 80s and was impressed at the time, less so now), simply extend natural rights to non-human animals, and if you accept the argument for natural rights then it's difficult to argue against this extension. As you point out:

"If there is not a position of rights for animals, why so for humans..."

Is that a fair summing-up? Essentially, the natural rights argument comes from liberal philosophers, going way back to Rousseau and Voltaire. Why did these thinkers invent natural rights? To give philosophical and moral backing to the emerging dynamic mercantilist and capitalist classes in their challenge to the established feudal order, backed up as it was by the divine right of kings. Note that one of the fundamental human rights, according to liberal thinkers, is the right to own property, which of course is the cornerstone of capitalism. The idea of natural rights drove the French revolution, where a capitalist middle class overthrew a feudal ruling class, and of course inspired many other 'bourgeois' revolutions.

I'm sure you know this already, but I write it for the benefit of those who might not, as there are many people who take natural rights as a given, without understanding where the concept comes from. The problem, of course, is that if you accept natural rights then you accept capitalism and liberal democracy, which is fine for liberals but not for socialists, anarchists (I humbly count myself as one), and marxists. That's why I have no time for natural rights at all, and view them as at best obstructive to progress, at worst downright reactionary. Which leads on to another Q:

"..., why can’t I go out and kill you if I want if you lack rights?"

It's a liberal conceit that they hold the monopoly of virtue, and that if you don't accept natural rights then a Hobbesian war of all against all reigns, which of course is based on the profoundly wrong liberal conception of human nature as driven by individualistic self-interest for power and wealth (another cornerstone of capitalism, not uncoincidentally). There are many other social mechanisms by which communities and people keep order amongst themselves, too many to go into here - see an anarchist FAQ at  http://www.anarchistfaq.org/ for more detailed arguments, section I.5 in particular on the social structure of an anarchist society. Basically, though, if you take the view, as I do, that humans tend towards cooperation and mutual aid, rather than individualistic self-interest, then you don't need natural rights to ensure people behave morally, in the same way as you don't need religions to do this (clerics also have the conceit that only religion can enforce morality, and that secularism = chaos).

So why don't I go out and kill people if they don't have natural rights? For the same reasons that societies without the concept of natural rights didn't indulge in wholesale slaughter (unlike, say, liberal democracies which have slaughtered 00s of millions on a quite industrial scale in recent times) - because killing of people is hard, there's very rarely any reason to do it, and all bar the most pathological societies have strong tabus against it.

To get back to the animal rights point, I'd argue that you don't need a natural rights argument to campaign against animal oppression and exploitation, and indeed you're hamstrung by natural rights and forced into absolutist all-or-nothing positions, as is plain from most of the contributions to this 'discussion' from the foamy-mouth brigade. What you need, for starters, is anti-capitalism. I'm not saying that you should wait until the revolution for animal liberation, rather that your campaign should have anti-capitalism at its core because the vast majority of animal experimentation is as a direct or indirect result of capitalism. If you cling to natural rights then you perforce are tied into capitalism, and you'll be much less effective because of that.

I also think that you've made a major blunder in allowing yourselves to be suckered into the animal medical experimentation argument. The number of animals used in genuine scientific research for medical purposes is miniscule (AFAIK) compared to those used in commercially-driven research and testing, but by being suckered into opposing medical experimentation you've put yourselves at the mercy of media and State demonisation which makes you appear anti-human and more concerned with bunnies than dying children. The cause isn't helped by the foaming mouth brigade actively jumping into the anti-human camp, as they have done in these 'discussions'.

"Sorry your 5% of animal testing not done for medicine is incorrect, at HLS alone it is more like 15-20% non medicial, a statistic repeated around many vivisection labs."

Ok, fair enough - I did pluck the figure out of the air.

‘You couldn't possibly accept that, say, experimentation on chicks is justified to learn more about neurophysiology’ – since when would experimenting on chicks help us learn more about the human mind?

Human neurophysiology shares an awful lot with that of other vertebrates, with the same physiological mechanisms in action - for instance, in nerve signalling. Hell, we have a fair bit in common with invertebrates, hence neuroscience research on nematode worms. I picked the chick example because the biologist Steve Jones (quit hissing at the back there!) uses chicks for genetic and neurological research, as he details in his book The Language of the Genes.

" The people who post on here who have a political view against the mainstream are wrong? You don’t see Marxists and anarchists in the Daily Mail, they don’t visibly share the wider populances view, so they are wrong? "

Not at all, and I don't see where you're getting that idea from. Indymedia is specifically for non-mainstream politics. Neither do I object to many of the core ideas of the AR movement. What burns me up is, as is plain from my previous posts, is the sheer moralism, arrogance, misanthropy, and absolutism of the SAS-wannabes. And it's those macho attitudes that are increasingly damaging the animal rights movement in the public's eyes, and playing into the hands of the bourgeois media.

"Some Deep Ecologists do take a somewhat semi-fascist view on humanity, but these views are small and seemed to be more prelavent in the 1970s, not so much now. Murray Bookchin and other social ecologists have criticised deep ecology, but im not to strong in this area."

I get the impression that these misanthropic deep Green ideas still abound, going by things I read now and again, but I'm not sure how representative or not they are of deep Greenies such as Earth First!

Thanks again for the considered response - it's nice when someone makes a serious effort to argue rationally. I dare say it's no coincidence that it's taken a woman to do it... ;-)

Gerry
Gerry Gerbil
e-mail:  gerry.gerbil@gmail.com



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This is nonsense!
28.02.2006 15:38

Dear whoever-you-are,

Animals are never 'tortured to death in laboratories'. Why on earth would anyone want to do that?! Being in pain is not an animal's natural state, therefore an animal being in pain is counterproductive to good research. Animals are treated with the utmost care in testing establishments. They live the most priviliged lives of any animals on the planet in terms of freedom from disease, parasites, pain, hunger, starvation - all things that 'Mother Nature' actually tortures wild animals with CONSTANTLY. You would be better spending your time putting every animal in the world into a protective environment where they don't get eaten, starved, injured, infected, etc. But then that wouldn't be 'natural', would it? This problem is called the 'naturalistic fallacy', a common mistake, made by stupid people. The natural state of the animal world is to be on the brink of death at all times. The moment a population does too well there isn't enought to go around and some of them starve to death, leaving the others on the brink of death. That is how nature works. Take your head out of your ass.

Scientists do not enjoy torturing animals. Are you sick? Do you really have such little faith in humanity that you think scientists take pleasure in performing experiments upon animals? Most scientists find it deeply upsetting but have to distance themselves from their emotions on the subject in order to carry out their work. Their work is important for the eradication of diseases.

Animals used are mostly rats and mice, and they are usually killed by lethal injection. Scientists certainly never burn them (although the carcasses are incinerated), and I would be extremely worried about a person's mental health if they enjoyed killing animals as part of their job.

Animal testing is not pleasant, but it is very tightly regulated and sensitively performed. If it is not, then you are right that it should be discontinued. The anti-vivisection movement has done some good in that it has altered various governemnt statutes, but lunatics such as yourself only cause damage.

As a parting shot, I must point out that people who go around accusing others of being 'sick' and 'perverted' are often projecting unwanted characteristics of their own persona onto the world. Take a look in the mirror, and read some books.
it's no joke



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Dear Gerry
28.02.2006 16:33

Well Gerry, sorry but I think it's clear now. Your responce proves me right I think you'll find. I still hold you have an amazing capacity for wild conclusions mate.

Anyway some other points.

you said..

>>Maybe you associate "science" with big business, capitalism and the State - is that the case?

well according to you yes..

>>If so, you should know that there are an awful lot of scientists who are opposed to the perversion of science for capitalist and State ends, and who call for a radical and democratic conception of science.

thus implying that it is in fact the case.

>> Grow up, will you? This is na-na-na-na-na playground stuff.

Gerry you appear to have lost the plot of this discussion. If you had been paying attention instead of being foamy mouthed you would know that these comments were for Guy.

I guess it's hard for somebody who is the centre of the world and has everything all worked out to coprehend I may be addressing somebody else.

I have "This is Nonsense" post to thank for making this next point

"As a parting shot, I must point out that people who go around accusing others of being 'sick' and 'perverted' (or even foamy mouthed) are often projecting unwanted characteristics of their own persona onto the world. Take a look in the mirror, and read some books.

it's no joke"

Jools
jools



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Science
28.02.2006 17:35

joolz wrote:

"you said..

>>Maybe you associate "science" with big business, capitalism and the State - is that the case?

well according to you yes.. "

Er, no, it was a question to you, not an exercise in mind-reading. Is that how you and your fellow activists view science? Your throwaway comment about "the way your average pro-science activist thinks" did imply to me that you saw science as the enemy. If that's not the case, then do say so.
Gerry Gerbil
e-mail:  gerry.gerbil@gmail.com



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Dr.Walter Modell
28.02.2006 18:07

Hi Guys,this is an interesting quote i came across:

"When will they realize that there are too many drugs?No fewer than 150,000 preparations are now in use.About 15,000 new mixtures and dosages hit the market each year,while about 12,000 die off..We simply don't have enough diseases to go around.At the moment the most helpfull contribution is the new drugs to counteract the untoward effects of other new drugs".(Dr Walter Modell of Cornell University's Medical College,Time,May 26,1961)

On a separate note-one of the aspects of animal experiments are- burn experiments- this from what i've seen on undercover videos-showing a pig ,straped down and metal stick either filling the mouth or clamping the mouth down and blow torched alive-and also a beagle dog who was supposedly put on anesthesia and then part of their body burned extensively and then after the anesthesia was observed awake, how they would physically cope with the pain.(theirs a picture of the dog,which was taken by a vet in the lab who was upset by the pain induced to the dog).

I know there are other aspects to vivisection from cocaine and herione to acholol experiments and also sleep deprivation experiments but i can't remember them all but the basicness of it is to induce mice,rates,cats,dogs,primates to an externally induced disease,drug,chemical,electric shock,sleep deprivation,cold,severe heat,organ removal and then to "study" the physical and mental reactions and publish them.
Mark



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Jefferson
28.02.2006 19:19

Just surfed on into this site. I find some of the comments made about Mick's writings rather petty, just a play on semantics really so as to lead the discussion away from the important matter of vivisection and to make nit picking, legalistic remarks in an attempt to invalidate some very important points that Mick made.

Vivisection is scientific fraud. Thalidomide was tested on animals for ten years before being marketed to an unsuspecting public, with the terrible results of birth deformities, infanticide and some mothers becoming insane (10,000 children were born in the West with limbs missing). Again, this drug was comprehensively tested on animals before being marketed. Chemie Gruenthal, the pharmaceutical company who manufactured this filth were acquitted in a WEst German court (1970) after a long line of medical researchers ironically testified that animal testing could not safely predict any drug's reactions on humans. In substance, a long array of research authorities confirmed in court, explicitly or by implication, what Dr. Raymond Green had written earlier in the Lancet (September 1st 1962), namely:

"We must face the fact that the most careful tests of a new drug's effects on animals may tell us little of its efects on humans... animal experiments cannot obviate the risks and may even prevent the use of excellent substances".

Despite the tragedy of thalidomide (Chemie Gruenthal paid the victims no compensation whatsoever), vivisection is still employed today in drug testing, with more terrible effects. Opfren the anti arthritis drug was tested on animals and marketed as safe before being withdrawn due to serious photosensitivity in patients. Valium and the benzodiazepine group of sedatives are now being withdrawn because of serious side effects to mental and physical health, yet these were tested on animals and marketed as safe. the anti diarrhoea drug Clioquinol led to thousands of deaths and 30,000 cases of blindness and paralysis in Japan alone, in 1979 a Tokyo court ruled that the drug had no therapeutic benefits whatsoever, yet this was tested on animals. DES, a synthetic oestrogen was tested on animals before being marketed to the public, but DES caused cancer in offspring ("I had no way of knowing what those pills do. Thousands of women took them, because their doctor prescribed them" Mrs. Grace Molloy, who lost her daughter to DES induced cancer, Newsweek, Jan 26th 1976). THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF OTHER DRUGS PASSED 'SAFE' BY ANIMAL TESTING WHICH HAVE GONE ON TO INJURE AND KILL PEOPLE.

I have no doubt whatosever that I shall be attacked for perhaps, a few spelling mistakes in what I have written. But facts are facts, and the use of vivisection in medical research can be compared to trying to cure a headache or a brain tumour with a shotgun, maybe 1 in a 1000 times there is success. But this debate ought to be put out in the public domain where both sides are given equal consideration, rather than the overly biased media articles we see today. It really is disgraceful to read the rubbish in the press written about anti vivisection, portraying all people involved in this as terrorists. This is quite frankly a hysterical remark because as far as I know, no one has been killed as yet, and drugs passed as 'safe' by animal testing have gone on to injure and kill millions of people around the world, while making enormous profits for the pharmaceutical industry. The CAmbridge Lab is being bankrolled by Lord Sainsbury, who gained a peerage and the influential post as Science Minister after bunging Neo Labour £11.5 million in party donations. I would like to point out that I certainly do not condone violence at all, no matter what the cause, I prefer the passive resistance approach that Gandhi advocated, but what is not written in the press is the extent of the violence committed against animal activists, this goes unpublished, and the fact that many of these people have died (such as Jill Phipps and Mike Hill, also 15 year old Tom Worby). But what is urgently needed is an honest, open debate about this instead of the appalling bias and double standards that are prevalent in the media today in favour of vivisection and big business.

"I abhor vivisection. It should be curbed, or better still, abolished. I know of no scientific discovery, in medicine or otherwise, which could not have been obtained without such barbarism and cruelty. The whole thing is evil"
Dr. C. Mayo, founder of the famous Mayo Clinic, New York (1961).

Jefferson



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Jefferson



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Carl Jung
28.02.2006 19:27

During my time at university I found the practice of vivisection cruel, barbaric, and above all unnecessary.

Professor Carl Gustav Jung, founder of Analytical Psychology and protege of Freud, in Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1956)
Carl Jung



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Replies
28.02.2006 22:48


Hi Gerry,

I will reply quickly to what you posted to Jools as well (not stuff you posted direct to her/him but stuff you posted in a wider context). I agree with you there are some sections of the Deep ecology/ AR movement that would like to see a few thousand people living in a country, and that’s it, but that isn’t the whole movement, far far from it (and damn well to). I saw someone post on another thread with the email vegan10000 or something like it, refering to how many vegans they thought would need to exist in one country for the world to go back to some paradise. I find this humerous, and ironic but its that type of wooly hippyish shit that puts people of ‘things’ (I need a better word) like veganism and AR and ecology. I’m vegan and I’m vegan for many reasons, one of them is not im one of the 10000 needed, that’s bull. Veganism has a strong ethical, medicial and tasty points to be made- we don’t need something that sounds like another SWP front – on your local protest placard soon ’10,000 vegans in Britain to return it to paradise’. Also I find the ‘pro-science’ insult totally self destroying, science covers a lot – it also covers hudreds of non-animal vivisection methods, is that wrong to? Sadly anti-science is also prevalent in some AR groups to.
To Jools- your comments about dads and balls and all that really dosen’t help your argument, which im sure is very good. Heres a tip- you don’t call people names, put your strong argument forward, let them wind themselves up and start calling you names, then they look like the total prick!! Good idea??

I’m not trying to be a ‘vegan police’ sort, the AR movement can/ cant do this, can/cant say that, but the AR movement is already marginalised but its the post 9/11, 7/7 world and AR activists residing in US prisons for possessing ‘WMDs’ we can’t afford to marginalise ourself further. The ALF is a terrorist group according to the FBI (ELF to). We need to reach out to ‘ordinary’ people. Petty arguments and name calling in the movement reminds me of so many left groups and believe me I’ve sat through some dead boring left secretarian debates, don’t put that in the AR movement, it divides people and collapses movements. We need to build a broad based movement, I’m not condeming more militant sections, or appeasing to more liberal wooly sections, I’m saying we need a wider base to appeal to the gerneral public and dispell the ‘grave digger’ image that the AR movement has in a lot of non-aligned minds.

Onto the ‘human and animal rights’ post. As I’ve mentioned a fair bit before, the commando elements in the AR movement do keep it separate from the wider public so I won’t mention it more here. I won’t leave what I truly believe due to the idiotic nature of some (or the supposed idiotic nature, maybe they could debate really well??). In regards to rights I have debated this for agesss with various libertarian communists, as some viewed that no one had rights- they explained their view in great depth, yet never truly answered my question of if you do not support any view of rights, what do you propose that people do to not cause harm to others, or non-human animals? They criticised rights yet didn’t provide an opposite to it, so I listened to their arguments but they didn’t change my view. People who criticise the rights view say that internal rights is only a social construction and as such does not explicity apply, but Guy what would you believe stops someone from, say, stabbing an old women to death in her bed? Is this morally wrong, if there is no rights the women must not posses any, but then if she dosent posses any rights then killing her would not violate her rights? So is her death ok, if not, what is it- aside from rights- that dosen’t make it ok? I haven’t read any of Peter Singer’s work, I have read a selection of Tom Regan’s work, which is very interesting. A right for property is different from a right for a person, property destruction would feature below life destruction for many. Maybe property rights are embedded in the law- but hey the law tends to be against the AR movement as a whole!!

I am involved in politics, I have been for a long time before any AR activity, and I work to link the two. I have done an article concerning this linking- you can get it at -  http://www.marxismonline.com/modules.php?name=Universal&op=ViewItems&vid=32 (I did this very early into my AR activity, and I’m sure I can edit it further, but I don’t have that much time at the mo!, have a look its not to long) I have a right based view, but I acknowledge a wider anti-capitalist view, I can see how animal explotation links in with human explotation, but I do feel AR arguments need some difference from human arguments, but they are closer together than not.

I cannot fully grasp your argument against medicine opposistion to vivisection, I think your abit confused as the State and media often don’t like discussing the medical opponents of vivisection as their arguments are totally deconstructed. Opposising vivisection has a very strong ground in more ‘pro-human’ research as well. Vivisection kills animals and also humans. Also a lot of animals used in vivisection are used in medical experiments, have a look at the Home Office stats. For last year-  http://www.uncaged.co.uk/news/2005/statistics.htm

For the full report have a look at the Home Office PDF at 108 pages!-  http://www.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm67/6713/6713.pdf

The % of animals used in vivisection in 2005 in Britian increased from 2003 of 2.3%, or 57,093 animals.

The stats aren’t to hard to find, I know a lot of sites, ask me, or look yourself.

Humans can share 95% of their DNA with primates, and also 60% with a banana. 5% is a humugous difference in the medical world. Im sure a infant chickens mind is miles away from an adults, nevermind a human adult. I can provide you with dozens of examples of minute medical differences between animals and humans leading to discrepencies in drugs. Or check some out for yourself at-  http://vivisection-absurd.org.uk/indexf.html .

If you have a belief in sections of the AR movement, focus on them!! It dosent matter what others say who then say they are in the movement as well, if you believe something hard enough, others won’t put you of.

To its no joke- animals are tortured to death in labs, open those eyes, you can, many animals in labs can’t!! So what if animals are treated with care before they are killed, tortured? Bigger cages, bigger leashes? Better wages, more holidays, anti-sexism legislations- you know reforms don’t work?? ‘They live the most priviliged lives of any animals’- sorry but phrases like that collapse any argument you would have.
‘That is how nature works. Take your head out of your ass.’, sorry but please take your head out of your’s!! Maybe you can’t see the facts up there?
Have a look further through my posts, and on some of the sites I’ve recommended, then you’ll see the truth.

sarah



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Telling
01.03.2006 12:46

I think it's telling that the 'anti's are using quotes from the 1950s and 1960s to make their points.
Rob



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Carl Jung
01.03.2006 17:46

My goodness, is that really the best you can do? Perhaps I should have mentioned the recent disasters of Vioxx, now being withdrawn because it has killed people (although tested on animals), and the recent poll by GP's in Britain, 84% of which said that vivisection was useless in determining the effects of drugs on their patients, or perhaps the new SSRI drugs which are now under scrutiny because they too, have been linked to serious side effects in humans, even though they were tested on animals and passed as safe. Think about it Robert my boy, this could be you on a hospital bed having to take all this.

BTW, the quotes from the fifties and sixties, as well as the information here are based on absolute fact, not lies and obfuscation. Do you deny their validity? And furthermore, can you do any better?
Carl Jung



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and??
01.03.2006 18:09

Yeah, because cruelty has changed so much Rob??
sarah



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Yawn! (pt 2)
02.03.2006 00:20

This is getting soooo boring. Let's just get on with the job in hand and fight for those that have to be liberated from the nazi hell holes.

Leave the nonces and pervs to croon about how they support animal torture ..

I'm off to bed, there's a battle to be fought tomorrow and ever after until it's done.

Night all.
NeverMeatNeverDairy



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Thanks to Sarah
02.03.2006 12:58

Sarah, just a short note to say thanks for taking the time to post the other day, with the useful links which I'll certainly chase up. Once again, a diamond in the dungheap of this 'discussion', and I'll save it for future ref.

And a quick note to NeverMeatNeverDairy, who wrote:

"Leave the nonces and pervs to croon about how they support animal torture ..

I'm off to bed, there's a battle to be fought tomorrow and ever after until it's done."

I know that arguing the animal liberation case with the general public is hard work with long hours and seemingly little reward, compared to the adrenaline rush of breaking into labs and trashing houses, but it's what your movement needs to do in the long run to get us ordinary plebs (sorry, "nonces and pervs") onside. Very unsexy and unexciting to be sure, but in the long term you'll save more animals from death and suffering that way than you will playing boy soldiers in balaclavas. Think about it.


Gerry Gerbil
e-mail:  gerry.gerbil@gmail.com



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