Testing on Animals is Fundamentally Wrong: UK’s National Anti-Vivisection Society   
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The images in the following program are very sensitive and may be as disturbing to viewers as they were to us. However, we have to show the truth about cruelty to animals.

Compassionate viewers, today’s Stop Animal Cruelty program features the first of a two-part series on the sickening practice of using animals in laboratory experiments. Sadly testing on animals occurs in the cosmetics, defense, pharmaceutical, and a number of other industries. It is estimated that globally 100 million animals die needlessly each year in experiments.

The National Anti-Vivisection Society, the world’s first organization to campaign against the practice, was founded in 1875 by the great British humanitarian Frances Power Cobbe, who published leaflets and articles opposing experimentation and gained the support of many prominent figures of her day.

The current Chief Executive of the organization, Ms. Jan Creamer, recently spoke with Supreme Master Television about the ghastly nature of animal testing and why animal-free research is superior in all respects.

They’re used in a range of experiments, whether it’s academics using them for fundamental research where they’re just trying to find something out. They’re used for product safety testing, and they’re used for safety testing of things like batch testing or things like vaccines, and that’s where the majority of animals are used, over three million in the UK and 100 million worldwide.

The point that we have made about animal research is that there are fundamental species differences between humans and other animals.

And so any animal experiment isn’t going to tell you reliably what kind of outcome you might see in human beings, and that’s when you sometimes get news of a drug that has gone on to injure or even kill human beings, because it was judged as safe in an animal test, and so that’s why we need to shift away from 100-year-old technology, animal testing, a very crude and cruel way of trying to test a product, to something more sophisticated, which are the advanced scientific and technological methods that we advocate.

These animals that are used in these experiments, where do they normally come from?

Mostly from suppliers in the UK and in Europe. We do have regulations for animal suppliers in the UK; over the last 20 years or so, our legislation has regulated and licensed supply. So we have purpose-bred animals from regulated supplies. In the past, prior to that, random animals were taken, stray animals, animals such as that, but not so much in Europe.

You’ve got a couple of key problems with using non-purpose-bred animals. One of the key fundamentals when they’re using the animals in research, what they claim is that they need to know the animal’s background. They need to know its genetic background, they need to know what substances has it been exposed to.

So they can’t really justify using stray animals or animals from the wild when they’re trying to claim at the same time that animal research is scientific. They know the background of those animals. So, scientifically, people should not want to use animals from unknown sources.

But then the second problem that you have is that the more you refine animals and provide them for research, for example, a lot of the genetic manipulation of animals (Yes) and the purpose breeding of animals, what you get is a certain animal, series of animals where you try to standardize the way those animals might respond, that people aren’t standardized. We’re varied, and we have a whole genetic mix there. So fundamentally, it’s like a loop of problems that animal research creates, a loop of problems.

Not only is animal experimentation inhumane and immoral, the enormous differences between humans and animals make research results totally invalid. For example, aspirin causes birth defects in dogs and cats, but not in people. Elraldin, a heart drug, was judged safe for humans based on animal testing, but it can cause blindness, growths, stomach troubles, and joint pains in those who take the drug.

Scientists know that there are fundamental differences between the species, and they know that any animal test that they do, they need to go on and test it on humans to ensure that it’s safe. But they’re taking the view that that is all they have, but those scientists are now in the minority. (Right.) The fact is that non-animal methods are now in the majority in terms of the whole overall research effort.

I think it’s one of the cancer societies that said many years ago, that only two percent of their total research effort used animals and half of that two percent was spent on just feeding and caring for the animals, not on the actual research. So the bulk of scientific and medical research is without animals. (Right.)

The problem is that animal research over the past 100 years has gradually been incorporated into legislation, and so animal tests are the things that the legislators use as their yardstick. The civil servants, when they’re looking for a tick box, are looking for an animal test, that’s what has to change.

And does your organization itself also provide scientific evidence to the scientists and the government?

We do. One of the key things that the National Anti-Vivisection Society has done over the last 20 years or so is to invest in non-animal scientific and medical research.

And also in producing scientific briefings for governments and legislators on ways to replace the use of animals, and also to show and explain, we have our own scientists who can explain how non-animal methods, the tissues and cell cultures, the computer technology, using computer modeling, and analytical techniques, things like new technologies like toxicogenomics, accelerator mass spectrometry where you give volunteers tiny, tiny doses of a product, (Right) so minute they can’t hurt them, and then you analyze the effects that had on them.

And then you get actually proper results, because you get results in human beings, rather than in animals. So all of these new scientific techniques that we’ve been promoting and funding are what we’re putting forward to governments now as a way to replace animal tests. Fact is animal research is unreliable. There are fundamental differences between animals and humans, it’s something that we do, because we’ve been doing it for 100 years; it’s time to change.

When we return we’ll hear more from Ms. Creamer about the ruthless, heinous practice of animal experimentation. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

You’re watching Stop Animal Cruelty on Supreme Master Television featuring an interview with Jan Creamer, Chief Executive of the UK-based National Anti-Vivisection Society, about animal testing. We asked Ms. Creamer what happens to an animal at the end of an experiment. Do they then gain their freedom?

All animals used in research must either be killed at the end of the experiment or if they’re used as controls they can be used again in a different type of experiment, and certainly this was one of the key issues for debate. When the new legislation that we’re going to have was being debated in the European Parliament, it was “How do we prevent animals from being used and re-used, and re-used?”

One of the things that we had in UK legislation is a bar on re-use of animals. So this is something that in the next two years is going to be hotly debated in the UK Parliament, and as we start to bring in this new legislation from Europe, is “What limits do we have on re-use of animals?”

While many governments have rules and regulations concerning animal testing, these so-called animal welfare protections are essentially meaningless and in no way justify the continuance of the practice.

Although we have regulations about the way the animals should be kept and the way they should be treated, and their feeding and watering, and so forth, and the environments that they are in, the fact is they are just a means to an end, and so in terms of the way they live, they live in extremely deprived conditions.

You’ve got rats, mice, guinea pigs, and small animals like that that are living in small, bare, plastic boxes. The other animals like primates, you’ve got living in bare cages.

For all of the government’s regulations saying that the animals are entitled to environmental enrichment and things to give them interests while they are in their cages, there is also the caveat that they can have this environmental enrichment unless there’s a potential for it to affect the outcome of the experiment. So there is always potential for that, so they don’t get the environmental enrichment. So again something is given but then taken away, I think.

Are governments now waking up to the fact that animal testing is inaccurate and unwarranted? Ms. Creamer provides her perspective.

They are seeing that non-animal research methods are the way forward, the cutting edge, the leading edge of development in science and technology is by using the new techniques, the computer-modeling techniques, (Yes) sophisticated techniques. And animal experiments are a thing of the past.

And governments do know this, and they see this, but they are still being advised by a minority of scientists (Right) who still cling to using animals. They’ve built their careers on animal research and they don’t want to let that go.

Where do you think these techniques are predominantly used at the moment, and in which country, would you say?

Certainly in the UK, we’re using them more and more. In some countries in Europe, the non-animal research techniques are being quite well used. The biggest problem is that many countries in Europe, their science and technology and their animal research base is way behind countries such as the United Kingdom.

And so if you have this imbalance in Europe, where you have a few countries who are very sophisticated in their approach to replacement of animal use, you have some countries who barely know what replacement techniques are, so we’re trying to bring those countries up to speed. But certainly in terms of advancing their science base and their technology, the answers, the solutions for them is to use advanced techniques rather than animals because that just takes them into a backward technology.

Jan Creamer, we applaud your work that champions the rights of animals and has saved many of them from being used in testing. Through the work of the National Anti-Vivisection Society and other like-minded groups throughout the world may the crude, callous practice of animal experimentation soon completely end.

Each of us can help protect the lives of our animal friends every day by purchasing only those products which have not been tested on animals and by embracing the organic vegan diet.

For more details on the National Anti-Vivisection Society please visit www.navs.org.uk

Thank you for your company today on Stop Animal Cruelty. Please join us again next week for part two of our program with more from our interview with Jan Creamer on animal experimentation. Enlightening Entertainment is coming up next, after Noteworthy News. May all of Earth’s inhabitants live in peace and harmony.
The images in the following program are very sensitive and may be as disturbing to viewers as they were to us. However, we have to show the truth about cruelty to animals.

Today’s Stop Animal Cruelty program features the conclusion of a two-part series on the sickening practice of using animals in laboratory experiments.

Sadly, testing on animals occurs in the cosmetics, defense, pharmaceutical, and a number of other industries. It is estimated that globally 100 million animals die needlessly each year in experiments.

The National Anti-Vivisection Society, the world’s first organization to campaign against the practice, was founded in 1875 by the great British humanitarian Frances Power Cobbe, who published leaflets and articles opposing experimentation and gained the support of many prominent figures of her day.

The current Chief Executive of the organization, Ms. Jan Creamer, recently spoke with Supreme Master Television about the ghastly nature of animal testing and why animal-free research is superior in all respects.

On last week’s program we learned that countries around the world are increasingly moving toward non-animal based testing methods in medical research. Ms. Creamer now addresses related developments in academia.

Animals can be used in dissections and demonstrations for students and a whole range of things; really, completely unjustified. There is much that can be learned from books, (Yes) computers, studying knowledge that we already have. Certainly there’s never any excuse to use animals in education.

Luckily, in the UK, in schools we’ve had a ban on the use of animals for A-level dissection for many, many years, so this was an early achievement where we were able to explain to the school examination boards that for GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) and O-level and A-level as they were, that it wasn’t necessary for students to be cutting up animals in order to study life sciences.

At the university level we still have some use of animals in demonstrations, but also the introduction of computer programs and new technologies have replaced that in many, many areas. And that’s something where you do now have teachers and lecturers in universities who are familiar with the new ways of teaching, the new technologies and so they are more willing to introduce them.

The so-called product safety testing done on animals is appalling and the experiments are indescribably inhumane.

What are the physical problems that animals develop when they go through these experiments?

It can be a whole range of distressing effects depending on the experiments, for example, some of the primates were being forced to drink a product every day, and this is a system called gavage dosing where you force a tube down an animal’s throat and you pump the product into their stomach every day. And in that range of tests that we exposed the animals to they were suffering a whole range of severe side effects.

They were so distressed that some of them were chewing off fingers (Oh, dear) and things like that. They were scratching at their skin and they were being sick. They were salivating and some of the animals, when they were strapped into their chairs, were actually suffering rectal prolapse. As a result of the stress that’s commonly known in monkeys in laboratories, if they’re stressed enough there then they prolapse.

Some of the monkeys in some of those experiments died and the post mortem revealed that they had blocked and blackened lungs so they must have suffered terribly before they died. There is no doubt that the whole point of animal experimentation is that the animals will suffer. I mean, that is acknowledged. Yes)

There is no way of conducting an experiment if you’re going to force feed an animal a product until they are poisoned by that product or until you see some kind of adverse effect. Luckily the poisoning to death experiments have been phased out over the years and in principle now, the idea is that the animals shouldn’t be poisoned to death, just until you see a poisoning effect.

So slow death, effectively?

Whichever way you look at it that animal is going to suffer and suffer terribly.

A more recent form of unconscionable animal abuse is genetic manipulation. Ms. Creamer shares her views about this disturbing procedure.

Genetic modifications of animals, whether it’s cloning, experiments, whether it is other types of genetic modifications, all of those experiments cause extreme suffering, and that’s the area of animal research which is growing very, very fast. I mean in the last 10 years, those animals have lept in numbers I think the last government statistics, it was over a million genetically modified animals were used.

And genetic modification of animals is a whole range of different types of work. Some of the genetic modification is where a gene is either added or knocked out and the animals can be used for what they call bio-farming, Right) which is where they try to produce a drug either from the animals’ milk or from their blood.

So they change the animal’s gene so they’re producing products that we want to use in a drug. And so in some ways they want to get that out and it could be it comes out in their milk or it comes out in their blood, and we then use it for people. Other forms of genetic modification are where they’re trying to use animals to produce spare parts for people, spare organs.

When we return, we’ll learn more about the genetic modification of animals from Jan Creamer. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

You’re watching Stop Animal Cruelty featuring Jan Creamer, Chief Executive of the National Anti-Vivisection Society, who will now explain more about the heartlessness inherent in the practice of genetically modifying animals.

Genetically modified animals, 90% of them have to be killed. If you are implanting, if you’re making a change to an egg and implanting it into another animal, not all of those eggs will have the genes that you want. And only 10% of the animals that are born as a result of genetic manipulation have the required gene. So you’re killing 90% of the animals that you’re producing.

And those statistics haven’t really improved in the last few years. The other problems that genetically modified animals have is that they’re subjected to repeated surgery for collection of the eggs from the donor animals, and then you manipulate the eggs and then you re-implant them; that’s another surgery into the recipient animal. So, it’s repeated surgeries.

They’re also finding the animals have all kinds of other problems; they can be mutated, they can have other health problems when they’re born, they have higher birth weights, making it, difficult for the females to give birth. A whole range of medical problems are associated with that.

In addition to that, the animals that are used in production of genetically modified animals, they have to live in isolation, in little plastic boxes. And so they’re kept in an environmentally barren state, where there is nothing to stimulate them, nothing to interest them, (That’s very sad.) very, very poor conditions.

Humans and animals are fundamentally different in terms of physiology and none of us can imagine visiting a veterinarian if we are ill and need medical treatment. It is similarly unfathomable to expect animal experimentation can give us scientifically valid results when testing for safety of a drug or any other product.

Unfortunately, with animal experimentation, because it’s been around for 100 years or so, and people didn’t look at the actual results we are getting from animal research, the issue was, “Well, okay, we need to test something; what should we test it on? Well we won’t test it on people; we’ll test it on a different species.”

And it’s taken really all of these years for us to see the fundamental differences between ourselves and other animals, and the fact that if you test something on an animal in a laboratory, you are not going to know how that might affect people in the real world.

There was an example, a few years ago, of an experimental drug, TGN1412, and this was in a laboratory in North London (UK), and it was given to human volunteers, who suffered horrific, life-threatening side effects. And this was the story where some of the newspapers said that the swelling in their heads was so great that one of the patients was referred to as the “elephant man” and they suffered permanent damage to their bodies.

And this was from an experimental drug, which had been given to laboratory primates in doses 500 times stronger than the doses (Terrible.) given to the human volunteers, to no effect. So 500 times stronger it was given to laboratory primates, no effect, and they gave a much smaller dose to the human volunteers and it had devastating side effects.

And the worst of that particular story was that we already have a safer, non-animal method that could have been used and saved those people those horrific side effects, which they’re going to suffer from for the rest of their lives.

We have a system called micro-dosing, where you give tiny, tiny amounts of a substance to a human volunteer, and then you analyze it with accelerator mass spectrometry, which is a system that is so precise in the way that it can analyze things, that it can analyze a drop in the ocean of something. So it is very, very refined, very, very precise. And that could have been used instead of these primates and those people would not have suffered those side effects. Absolutely tragic, (Very tragic!) it’s tragic.

What is your message or advice to the public about vivisection?

The key message about animal experimentation is that millions of animals suffer and die in the most horrendous circumstances in laboratories, not only in the UK but all over the world and there is something we can do to stop it. We can stop it by only buying from companies that don’t test their products on animals.

And we can stop it by writing to governments and our members of parliament and telling them that we want animal experiments stopped and that we want advanced, non-animal methods used instead. So we can have both things; we can have safe products on the market (Yes) that don’t damage people and the environment, but we don’t have to make animals suffer for that, we can use advanced technology to replace the use of animals in research.

We are deeply grateful to you Ms. Jan Creamer, and all the staff and volunteers of the National Anti-Vivisection Society for informing us about the horrendous world of animal testing and how we can help end it. Besides writing to government officials and avoiding animal-tested products, please choose the loving and kind organic vegan diet as it is free of animal-products and thus involves no animal suffering.

For more details on the National Anti-Vivisection Society, please visit www.navs.org.uk

Thank you for joining us on this edition of Stop Animal Cruelty. Next is Enlightening Entertainment, coming up after Noteworthy News. May all God’s beings flourish together in love and joy.


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