Doctors Speak Out Against Animal Testing

"The genetically engineered monkey experiments now underway at Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) bear as much resemblance to bona fide medical research as a circus sideshow does to a legitimate museum. Fall for the hype, and you'll believe OHSU's bizarre assembly line of designer 'monkey models' will actually help cure Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cancer, and who knows, even male-pattern baldness.

Apparently, OHSU is undeterred by the dismal results from decades of genetic engineering of mice, who have been inserted with human genes to study human cancers and other human diseases. What did we learn? That treatments which may work in transgenic mice fail in humans. Nothing relevant to treating human disease has resulted."

-Neal D. Barnard, M.D., President-Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, January 2001

"Animal experimentation is not necessary. It is expensive. It is inaccurate. It is misleading. It consumes limited resources. And further, it is detrimental to the very species it professes to be working to help -- humankind."

-Dr.s Ray & Jean Greek, Sacred Cows and Golden Geese, 2000, p 223

"What good does it do you to test something (a vaccine) in a monkey? You find five or six years from now that it works in the monkey, and then you test it in humans and you realize that humans behave totally differently from monkeys, so you've wasted five years."

-Dr. Mark Feinberg, a leading AIDS researcher, Atlanta Journal Constitution, September 21, 1997

"Because of the irreconcilable biological differences between animals and human beings, the results of animal tests cannot be applied to human beings with any degree of confidence. Dr. Ralph Heywood, past scientific director of Huntington Research Centre (U.K.), stated at a 1989 scientific workshop held at the Ciba Foundation that: ‘…the best guess for the correlation of adverse reactions in man and animal toxicity data is somewhere between 5% and 25%.’ "

-Dr. Andre Menache, speaking at the 10th World Congress on Law and Medicine, held in Jerusalem, Israel, August 29, 1994.

"There is no doubt that the best test species for man is man. This is based on the fact that it is not possible to extrapolate animal data directly to man, due to interspecies variation in anatomy, physiology and biochemistry."

-Dr MacLennan and Dr. Amos, Clinical Sciences Research Ltd., UK, Cosmetics and Toiletries Manufacturers and Suppliers, 1990; XVII: 24

"The findings were that if you enclosed animals in a field armored vehicle and set off an explosion inside, that the ear drum and the middle ear mechanism may be damaged... More valid information regarding sound pressure levels presented to the middle ear could have been much more easily obtained by the use of a Kemar mannequin placed in the appropriate position in the vehicle."

-J. William Wright III, M.D., The Ear Institute of Indiana, October, 1990

"Ever since the days of Galen, who put back the study of anatomy several hundred years by basing his conclusions on his experience dissecting pigs, practicing doctors have been aware that animals are so different from humans –anatomically and physiologically-that the results obtained from experiments on animals are pointless. Only really second rate scientists still believe that such experiments are worthwhile. But, sadly, the scientists who use animal are just that-universally second rate. We suffer from different diseases and we respond in different ways to drugs. Using animals to ‘try out’ products intended for humans is at best useless and at worst-as with Thalidomide-dangerously misleading."

-Dr. Vernon Coleman, M.D. one of Britain’s most popular medical journalists and TV personality, from a speech he submitted to ILDAV to be delivered at the International Scientific Conference held at the Mutualite in Paris on June 19, 1989

"There are, in fact, only two categories of doctors and scientists who are not opposed to vivisection: those who don’t know enough about it, and those who make money from it."

-Dr. Werner Hartinger, M.D., German surgeon, 1989

"I would like to talk about what can be done with clinical research and why clinical research can not only be much more successful than any animal research but how it can be done safely."

-Henry Heimlich, M.D., from the "Proceedings of the First International Medical Conference Against Vivisection", Israel, 1989

"Why am I against vivisection? The most important reason is because it's bad science, producing a lot of misleading and confusing data which pose hazards to human health. It's also a waste of taxpayer's dollars to take healthy animals and artificially and violently induce diseases in them that they normally wouldn't get, or which occur in different form, when we already have the sick people who can be studied while they're being treated."

- Dr. Roy Kupsinel, M.D., 1988, medical magazine editor, USA.

"Our addiction to animal research provides us with faulty information about AIDS and drugs intended for humans, who differ physiologically from other species."

-Laurence E. Badgley, M.D., July 1988, in his forward to AIDS, Inc., by John Rappoport

"Vivisection is barbaric, useless, and a hindrance to scientific progress."

-Dr. Werner Hartinger, surgeon

"Human disease occurs as a result of a combination of factors including genetics, growth and development, positive or negative lifestyle activities, and social and environmental influences: These factors are profoundly dissimilar in humans and animals. Experimental research on animals to find the causes and cures for human ailments is pure folly- at best an appalling waste and diversion of resources and at worst the cause of much humans suffering and disease."

-Les Stewart, D.D.S., February, 1987, Last Chance for Animals, Tarzana, California

"I cannot recall a single instance where my clinical judgment was even remotely influenced by the results of a psychological study using animals as subjects or 'models.' "

-Michael Klaper, M.D.

"Not only are the studies themselves often lacking even face value, but they also drain badly needed funds away from patient care needs."

-Neal D. Barnard, M.D.

"Most important, I agree with your position re the utter uselessness of vivisection. When I first left the laboratory, I remained skeptical, stating, "there are some good experiments to be sure, but the majority are worthless", or words to that effect. Now after years of looking for those "good" experiments, I have long since concluded that they do not exist. But I had to do the looking myself. I was simply too conditioned to the "Party Line" to accept anyone’s word for this."

-Donald J. Barnes, after experimenting on rhesus monkeys for 16 years, from a letter to Hans Ruesch of December 31, 1987

"Unfortunately these experiments will continue in a self-proliferating manner until they are curtailed by brave and innovative decisions on the part of people in positions of authority who have the courage to declare openly that the emperor has no clothes and that it is time to stop wasting money and animal lives on the pretense that manipulating several variables in rats, dogs, cats or monkeys has anything to do with human psychology."

-Dr. Murry Cohen, M.D.

"Animal models differ from their human counterparts. Conclusions drawn from animal research, when applied to human disease, are likely to delay progress, mislead and do harm to the patient."

-Moneim A. Fadali, M, D., Cardiac/Thoracic Surgeon, UCLA Faculty, Board of Directors, Royal College of Surgeons of Cardiology, Canada, UCLA Clinical Staff, as reported in Fur ‘n Feathers, Oct. 1987

"The growing opposition is understandable both on ethical and biological counts. However, a certain scientistic culture says they serve to save human lives. But reality is quite the opposite."

-Prof. Gianni Tamino, biologist, Padua University, a Congressman in the Italian Parliament, in Gazzettino, Venice, Oct. 8, 1987.

"Giving cancer to laboratory animals has not and will not help us to understand the disease or to treat those persons suffering from it."

- Dr. A. Sabin, 1986, developer of the oral polio vaccine

"The abolition of vivisection would in no way halt medical progress, just the opposite is the case. All the sound medical knowledge of today stems from observations carried out on human beings. No surgeon can gain the least knowledge from experiments on animals, and all the great surgeons of the past and of the present day are in agreement on that…Animals are completely different from Man from the anatomical standpoint, their reactions are quite different, their structure is different and their resistance is different."

-Prof. Dr. Bruno Fedi, in an interview with CIVIS in Rome, January 11, 1986, At the time of the interview he was the director of the Institute of Pathological Anatomy at the General Hospital in Terni, Italy

"The reason why I am against animal research is because it doesn't work, it has no scientific value and every good scientist knows that."

- Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, M.D., 1986, Head of the Licensing Board for the State of Illinios, paediatrician & gynaecologist for 30 years, medical columnist & best-selling author, recipient of numerous awards for excellence in medicine.

"I am against vivisection because it is immoral and completely useless for the progress of human medicine. Animals have a physiology and reactions quite different from ours. I am of the opinion that all experiments on live animals should be abolished because they only lead us into error."

-Dr. Marie-Louise Griboval, Paris France

"The wellbeing of man takes first place in the ladder of human values. Today, in 1986, after years of practice as a physician, I am convinced that any result I might obtain from experimentations on a dog, a cat, or any other animal, will be misleading, damaging and even disastrous for human beings. There is no question of any advantage to be gained at all.

Animal experiments confuse the issues and their results will never have scientific precision. There is absolutely no connection between vivisection and human health. The general belief in the value of animal experimentation is the result of brainwashing that the public has been submitted to for a long time. Behind it are the pharmaceutical industries, which spend fortunes on publicity and finance the research in institutes and the universities."

-Dr. Arie Brecher, M.D., extract from a lecture to the Medical and Juridical Society at the Hotel Dan-Panorama of Haifa in Israel on November 1, 1986.

"Everyone should know that most cancer research is largely a fraud, and that the major cancer research organizations are derelict in their duties to the people who support them."

-Linus Pauling, PHD, two time Nobel Prize Winner

"It could be argued that this (cancer research) is a field of research which has consumed an enormous number of animals without any tangible result."

-Professor D.H. Smyth, Alternatives to Animal Experiments

"From an animal one can get only a very approximate indication of how a human will react under similar circumstances. But this is not science-it’s a lottery. However, we are not playing games. At stake are health and life. There is absolutely no connection between vivisection and human health. The day it was decided to develop medicaments using animal models, it was a sad day for mankind. People began to get sick and to die due to medications."

-Dr. Arie Brecher, M.D., the Israeli physician, held on August 12, 1986 at Tel Aviv

"I have been in medical practice for 38 years. I have never done any animal experiments, neither during my studies nor subsequently, and have also never been inside an animal laboratory. Animal experimentation represents a fallacious practice. I cannot name one single case in which experiments on animals may have led to a useful result. I think vivisection is a crude, archaic method which must be completely reconsidered. I am convinced that we are approaching a quite differently conceived form of research method, based on cell cultures."

-John A. McDougall, M.D., article, "The Misguided War on Cancer" in the Vegetarian Times, September 1986

"The statement that the prohibition of animal experiments would result in a deterioration of medical care and knowledge is not tenable, and quite clearly a view with overtones of self-interest…"

-Dr Werner Hartinger, Specialist in General and Accident Surgery, practitioner for the Industrial Injuries Insurance Institutes, with 25 years’ experience at the hospital and in private practice, in an interview with CIVIS, April 29, 1986

"The facts continue multiplying that refute the barbaric practice of animal experimentation in the name of human health and longevity. Yet the efforts by the medical establishment to justify this practice continue unabated…The medical establishment threatens us with dire consequences if animal experimentation is stopped. This is a shame, a weapon being used to ensure continued funding to the tune of $6 billion a year by the National Institute of Health and Mental Health to the nation’s universities."

-Murray J. Cohen, M.D., in the Chicago Tribune, April 8, 1986

"The question was, can we give up animal experiments without halting medical progress? My answer is that not only one can, but that one must give up animal experiments not to halt medical progress. Today’s rebellion against vivisection is no longer based on animal welfare…But we have now become convinced that we should put an end to animal experimentation not out of consideration for animals, but out of consideration for human beings. I won’t speak now of the pharmacological disasters due to animal experiments, that would be too simple. I mean the constant, daily harm caused to medical science by the belief in the validity of animal tests."

-Prof. Pietro Croce, M.D., in an interview with CIVIS, Jan 11, 1986

"It would be very difficult to find anything that could be more misleading for biomedical research than animal experimentation."

-Prof. Pietro Croce, M.D., Vivisezione o Scienza, (Vivisection or Science- a Choice), 2nd edition, 1985

"As a researcher I am involved with mutagenesis and cancerogenesis, two areas in which experimentation is fundamentally indispensable. I therefore know what I am talking about. And I say ‘no’ to vivisection…above all on scientific grounds. It has been proved that the results of research with animals are in no case valid for man. There is a law of Nature in relation to metabolism, according to which a biochemical reaction that one has established in one species only applies to that species, and not to any other. Two closely related species, like the mouse and the rat, often react entirely differently…"

-Gianni Tamino, Italian parliamentarian, researcher at the University of Padua, 1984

"Whenever government agencies or polluting corporations want to cover up an environmental hazard, they can always find and animal study to "prove" their claim."

-Dr.Irwin Bross, 1983

"As regards animal experiments in medicine, I answer as a doctor with a clear NO. Not only do animal experiments not have to be carried out, they are totally useless and contribute nothing whatever to so-called progress in medicine. For a result obtained in a series of experiments on a sick cat (or are laboratory animals or cats with electrodes implanted in their brains supposed to be healthy?) cannot for one minute be applied to the corresponding healthy animal, and much less so to man."

-Dr. Jurg Kym, 1983

"It is the outrageous lie of the supporters of vivisection, a lie serious in its consequences, that animal experiments take place for the good of mankind. The opposite is the case: animal experiments only have an alibi function for the purpose of obtaining money, power and titles. Not one single animal experiment has ever succeeded in prolonging or improving, let alone saving, the life of one single person."

-Dr. Heide Evers, D-7800 Freidburg, 1982

"The moral is that animal model systems not only kill animals, they also kill humans."

-from an article in Fundamental and Applied Toxicology, November 1982, Dr. Irwin Bross, former Director of the largest cancer research institute in the world, the Sloan-Kettering Institute

"There are no alternatives to animal experimentation, for one can only talk of alternatives if these replace something of the same worth; and there is nothing quite as useless, misleading and harmful as animal experimentation. In its stead, however, there is a "medical science", and the latter has absolutely nothing to do with animal experimentation."

-Prof. Pietro Croce, M.D.

"For the great majority of disease entities, the animal models either do not exist or are really very poor. The chance is of overlooking useful drugs because they do not give a response to the animal models commonly used "

-C. Dollery in Risk-Benefit Analysis in Drug Research, e. Cavalla, 1981, p. 87

"The discovery of chemotherapeutic agents for the treatment of human cancer is widely heralded as a triumph due to the use of animal models… However, there is little, if any, factual evidence that would support these claims…Indeed, while conflicting animal results have often delayed and hampered advances in the war on cancer, they have never produced a single substantial advance in either the prevention or treatment of human cancer."

-Dr. Irwin Bross, in testimony before the U.S. Congress, 1981

"The extensive animal reproductive studies to which all new drugs are now subjected are more in the nature of a public relations exercise than a serious contribution to drug safety. Animal tests can never predict the actions of drugs on humans."

-Smithells RW: Drug teratogenicity. In Inman WH (ed): Monitoring for Drug Safety. Philadelphia: JB Lippincott, 1980.

"Biomedical research does not need animals any more, but should use computers. It is pointless and even dangerous to continue following the traditional paths, for the difference between man and animals is so great that it mostly leads us into error."

-Dr. Luigi Sprovieri, contributor to the invention of the cardiopulmonary bypass machine in La Nazione, Florence, Italy, October 5, 1980

"Normally, animal experiments not only fail to contribute to the safety of medications, but they even have the opposite effect."

-Dr. Kurt Fickentscher of the Pharmacological Institute of the University of Bonn, Germany. Diagnosen, March 1980

"In most cases, the animal tests cannot predict what will happen when the drug is given to man. Standards for toxicology are often set by officials, such as Federal regulators, who are responding to the pressures of ill-advised but obviously well-intended legislators or consumer groups who may or may not be aware of the futility of increasing the amount of testing required when some tests often have no bearing on how man will respond to the drug. The multiplication of tests in animals, often invalid tests and possibly performed in the wrong species, can only add to the cost of drug discovery and can only limit the range of discovery. The result is not only a waste of animals but also a waste of limited scientific resource; the loss is compounded by the fact that human life will not benefit from drugs whose release is unnecessarily delayed."

-Melmon KL: The clinical pharmacologist and scientifically unsound regulations for drug development. Clin Pharmacol Ther 1976;20:125-129.

"Practically all animal experiments are untenable on a statistical scientific basis, for they possess no scientific validity or reliability. They merely perform an alibi for pharmaceutical companies, who hope to protect themselves thereby."

- Herbert Stiller, M.D. & Margot Stiller, M.D., 1976.

"In the opinion of leading biostatisticians, it is not possible to transfer the probability predictions from animals to humans…At present, therefore, there exists no possibility at all of a scientifically-based prediction. In this respect, the situation is even less favorable than in a game of chance…In our present state of knowledge, one cannot scientifically determine the probable effect, effectiveness or safety of medicaments when administered to human beings by means of animal experiments. The example of the Thalidomide disaster…illustrates this problem particularly clearly. Such a medicine-caused disaster could no more be prevented with adequate certainty through animal experimentation today than it could at that time."

-Prof. Dr. Herbert Hensel, Director of the Institute of Physiology at Marburg University, 1975

"Animal tests conducted to establish the effect of medicaments for humans are nonsense."

-Dr. Herdegg, animal experimenter presenting at Conference on Laboratory Animals, Hanover, Germany 1972

"In the conduct of the largest research laboratory in America for many years, I have not used an animal. It is my earnest belief that the use of animals has been…utterly barren of results in progressive medicine."

-E.M. Perdue, M.D., Director of Johnson’s Pathological Laboratory in Cancer Research at the time of this quote

"In part because of possible major differences in responses to drugs in animals and man, the knowledge gained from studies in animals is often not pertinent to human beings, will almost certainly be inadequate, and may even be misleading."

-Dr Arnold D. Welch, Department of Pharmacology, Yale University School of Medicine, in Responses in Man, 1967

"It is nonsense to believe that vivisectional experiments are necessary or useful for scientific progress: circumstances of vivisection are too arbitrary to have real interest, and the animals cannot be identical."

-Dr. Frederic Benoit, Surgeon of the Maternity Hospital, Wassy, France, April 1, 1964

"Another basic problem which we share as a result of the regulations and the things that prompted them is and unscientific preoccupation with animal studies. Animal studies are done for legal reasons and not for scientific reasons. The predictive value of such studies for man is often meaningless-which means our research may be meaningless."

-Dr. James G. Gallagher, Director of Medical Research, Lederle Laboratories, Journal of American Medical Association, March 14, 1964

"It is no longer, then, a matter of balancing the cruelty of suffering animals against the gain to humanity spared from suffering, because that is not the choice. Animals die to enable hundreds of new drugs to be marketed annually; but the gain is to industry rather that mankind."

-Dr, Louis J. Vorhaus, The Saturday Evening Post, May11, 1963

"The abolition of vivisection would not only have the effect of enabling research workers to avoid the pitfalls and fallacies associated with animal experimentation and the dangers to human health and life upon the application of these results to mankind, but would, in fact, promote in the highest degree the true progress of medical science."

-Dr. M. Beddow Baily, The Futility of Experiments on Animals, London 1962

"I abhor vivisection. It should at least be curbed. Better, it should be abolished. I know of no achievement through vivisection, no scientific discovery, that could not have been obtained without such barbarism and cruelty. The whole thing is evil."

-Dr. Charles Mayo, founder of the Mayo Clinic (New York Daily News, Mar. 13, 1961)

"The paramount need for a clear and documented account of past achievements arises from the prevalent custom of those medical authorities who set out to support and defend the practice of experimenting on living animal so far to distort historical facts as to create the impression in the mind of the public that every single medical diagnosis and treatment had depended for its discovery and application on vivisection…Happily, even the briefest perusal of the available evidence shows falsity of these claims and provides historical proof of the supreme value of clinical observation and experiment when contrasted with the doubtful and often misleading practice of animal experimentation."

B. Bailey, Clinical Medical Discoveries,1961

Doctors have been criticizing animal experimentation for a long time:
"The difficulties which beset the licensed experimenter are many. In the first place, it is well known that it is almost impossible, in an experimental animal, to reproduce a lesion or a disease at all comparable to such as is found in the human subject"

-Dr. Lional Whitby, Dec. 1937 p.170

"We wish to know when the medical profession will unite in expressing their dissatisfaction at the way in which they are being misled by the published results of experiments on animals in physiological and pharmacological laboratories."

-Editorial, Medical Times, April, 1937

"The teachings of vivisection are often erroneous and act disastrously on the intelligence of those who trust in them…Misled by experiments of incredible cruelty on highly-developed animals, soap was denounced as a cause of cancer…"

-Medical Times, March 1932

"Like every member of my profession, I was brought up in the belief that almost every important fact in physiology had been obtained by vivisection and that many of our most valued means of saving life and diminishing suffering had resulted from experiments on the lower animals. I now know that nothing of the sort is true concerning the art of surgery: and not only do I not believe that vivisection has helped the surgeon one bit, but I know that it has often led him astray."

- Prof. Lawson Tait, M.D., 1899, Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (F.R.C.S.), Edinburgh & England. Hailed as the most distinguished surgeon of his day, the originator of many of surgery's modern techniques, and recipient of numerous awards for medical excellence.

"As a surgeon, I have performed a very large number of operations, but I do not owe a particle of my knowledge or skill to vivisection. I defy any member of my profession to prove that vivisection has been of the slightest use to the progress of medical science and therapeutics."

-Charles Clay, M.D., London Times, July 31, 1880, renowned surgical innovator, former President of the Manchester Medical Society

"Experiments have never been the means for discovery; and a survey of what has been attempted in recent years in physiology will prove that the opening of living animals has done more to perpetuate error than to confirm the just views taken from the study of anatomy and natural motions."

-An Exposition of The Natural System of the Nerves of the Human Body, London, 1824, p. 337

The following are quotes compiled by Hans Reusch in 1000 Doctors Against Vivisection:
“How fortunate we didn’t have these animal tests in the 1940s, for penicillin would probably never been granted a license, and possibly the whole field of antibiotics might never have been realized.”

-Alexander Fleming, 1945 Nobel Prize winner "for the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect in various infectious diseases"

Anyone who has accustomed himself to regard the life of any living creature as worthless is in danger of arriving also at the idea of worthless human lives."

-Albert Schweitzer

"During my medical education at the University of Basle I found vivisection horrible barbarous and above all unnecessary."

-Carl Jung

"For the medical profession vivisection has been a curse, as well as a hindrance instead of an aid towards increasing our knowledge."

-Dr. John Bowie

"I have long since been a strong opponent of vivisection as it is an insane, superficial and unscientific way of fighting illness. Vivisection is absolutely unnecessary and should be abolished."

-Dr. A. Stoddard Kennedy

"I am pleased to inform you that a steadily growing number of members of the medical profession are entirely of the opinion that vivisection experiments on animals have not only led to mistakes in medical practice, but are absolutely misleading in their results."

-Dr. F.E. Vernede

"Artificial experiments on animals under artificial conditions cannot possibly reproduce what happens to an animal in natural conditions. Even if it were possible to perform experiments on animals under natural conditions, how can one reasonably deduce that the results obtained could also be applied to human beings?"

-Dr. C. Muthu

"Both feeling and reason condemn vivisection. The only way to study physiology has already often been shown by both the doctors and the surgeons: it is by studying Man. But the terrible custom is to continue resorting to vivisection, this ancient procedure which has never produced a single success in 20 centuries. Valuable time which could have been used profitably for science in other ways has thereby been wasted. The evil, out-moded, archaic and malevolent vivisectionist thinking must be fought."

-Dr. Foveau de Courmelles, Paris, President of the International Society for External Medicine, medical advisor to the Education Department of the Legion of Honour, honored by the French Academy of Medicine

"…The attempt to obtain knowledge about physiological and pathological processes in man by vivisecting animals is completely unscientific. All such experiments have led to extremely confused, contradictory and consequently worthless results, in other words they have done far more to obscure knowledge than to illuminate it."

-Dr. R.H. Perks

"I have studied the question of vivisection for thirty five years and am convinced that experiments on living animals are leading medicine further and further from the real cure of the patient…I know of no instance of animal experiment that has been necessary for the advance of medical science, still less do I know of any animal experiment that could conceivably be necessary to save human life."

-H. Fergie Woods, M.D.

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