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Americans Need to Re-examine Cruel Practice of Animal Testing
By Gary Yourofsky
The following editorial appeared in The Oakland Press (Michigan) on July 15, 1996.
"If one human life is saved because of animal experimentation, then the pain and suffering and death of the animals is justified." The truth of that statement hinges upon its antithesis. What if one human life was lost, ruined by injury or never saved because of animal research? Would everyone still support the indignities that take place behind closed doors at our universities, medical research facilities and pharmaceutical corporations?
Today, the public is being duped into the belief that animal experimentation is safe for humans, and vivisection—a live autopsy done on animals—is the only way to advance medicine. However, that is not the case. Scientists have developed cellular, molecular and mathemetical alternatives without the use of animals, and prefer to use non-invasive, human-based clinical studies.
But the alternatives continue to be underfunded and rejected by the status quo because vivisectionists are fighting for billions of dollars in federally funded money. The 1996 budget of The National Institutes of Health, the nation's largest animal research facility, is well over $16 billion.
Irwin Bross, Ph.D., and retired director of biostatistics at Roswell Memorial Institute in New York, has confirmed that animal-based cancer research over the last 40 years has been a failure.
"Not a single new drug for the treatment of human cancer was first picked up by the animal model system," Bross said. "The results of animal model systems for drugs or other modalities have done nothing but confuse and mislead the cancer researchers."
It is clearly evident that we are being deceived by animal experimenters. However, the non-vivisectionists who know the truth behind animal experimentation and aren't afraid to expose the fraud are questioning the medical community. Where are the cures you've promised? Where is the cure for cancer, muscular dystrophy and AIDS?
I urge everyone to re-examine the unscientific and unethical processes inherent in animal experimentation. The simple fact remains evident: We are not anatomically or physiologically identical to a mouse, cat, dog, pig or monkey. So why would we depend on test results received from those species?
And we should be shocked that the medical community equates our well-being with those creatures. In science, being similar doesn't count. Being almost sure doesn't mean much to the dying, uncured victims.
Group Protests Vivisection
By Mary Morgan
The following article appeared in The Ann Arbor News on August 23, 1998.
Burning articles on animal vivisection and carrying banners, about a dozen activists protested biomedical research on primates at the U. of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor Saturday afternoon, part of a nationwide protest in 14 cities.
"There are animals languishing and dying in cages at the University of Michigan, and everyone's walking around like everything is OK," said Gary Yourofsky, a Royal Oak resident who organized the event.
Protesters from the Coalition to End Primate Experimentation gathered outside the Medical Science Building III, located at Catherine Street and Zina Pitcher Place in the UM Medical Center complex.
The group hoped to raise awareness about vivisection—operating on living animals—and other types of animal research, Yourofsky said.
They passed out literature to about 30 people who passed by, but were disappointed that there weren't more people on campus, he added.
UM was targeted because of several researchers—including James Woods, Henry Mosberg and Gail Winger—who do experiments on primates and other animals, Yourofsky said.
Hoping to draw attention to their protest, Yourofsky burned papers describing how to conduct vivisection. Two officers from the UM Department of Public Safety requested that he put out the fire, which he did.
Demonstrators were peaceful, said Sgt. Jane Conners of the DPS. The event lasted about 50 minutes, she said. Animal rights activists hold protests about once a year on campus, Conners said.
Where Have All the Activists Gone?
By Gary Yourofsky
The following article appeared in Federation Focus, the newsletter of the Michigan Federation of Humane Societies and Animal Advocates, in Autumn of 1998.
As nonhuman primates languished in tiny cells at the University of Michigan's insidious animal research laboratory, only 10 state activists protested their unjust incarceration and eventual murder. Frankly, the 10 humanitarians were disheartened and perplexed with the Saturday, August 22, turnout. In fact, the weekend event left protesters wondering, "Where have all the activists gone?"
The Coalition to End Primate Experimentation (CEPE) coordinated 14 national demonstrations to demand freedom for all enslaved animals and an immediate end to the malicious practice of vivisection. However, if so few congragate in unity, it is difficult to attract the needed media to conquer the exploiters and all of their egregious fallacies.
Fifteen Michigan outlets received press releases, yet only three covered the informative event.
James H. Woods, head of UM's animal research regime, wasted nearly $2 million last year forcibly injecting cocaine and alcohol into primates. The university has been conducting comparably unscrupulous protocols for nearly 20 years. Yet, Woods and his execrable cohorts will never be able to recreate—in nonhuman primates—the stress, fear, confusion and hopelessness that drive human primates into chemical addictions. Woods and the entire UM vivisection brigade are the epitome of abhorrent duplicity.
I torched a stack of UM vivisection books when WXYZ-TV (Channel 7) and The Ann Arbor News arrived. I also conducted a phone interview with WJR-radio before the book burning and gave the following statement to the media trio: "Vivisection is a base, depraved and unscientific form of medical research. It is impossible to extrapolate information from one species and make it relevant to another species. Animal researchers are not medical doctors—I repeat not medical doctors. They are spin doctors. Malicious spin doctors trained solely in the abject art of torturing and killing animals, and lying to the public about the benefits of their bloody business. Every ounce of vivisection data can easily be quashed. Yet, the animal researchers remain obdurate and unwilling to use the myriad forms of true scientific research techniques. Instead of learning and employing human-based clinical research, epidemiology, cellular and molecular biology, autopsy and biopsy research, computer and mathematical models, case studies, human-based DNA and genetic research—and, most importantly, trial-and-error methodology—they continue to bathe in the blood of their archaic and barbaric practice. It's high time for all humanitarians to rip the sheath of impunity from these violent and vile experimenters. Animal researchers haven't a wisp of compassion nor a drop of remorse for their merciless and wanton acts. Therefore, in order to prevent more unadulterated cruelty from entering this world, we are torching some UM vivisection books that do nothing but teach young medical students how to mutilate and murder animals with a cold and calculated premeditation. In the poignant words of humanitarian George Bernard Shaw, ‘Those who won't hesitate to vivisect, won't hesitate to lie about it as well.'"
The other protests occurred at UCSF, UCSD, SUNY, U. of Washington, U. of Wisconsin, U. of Minnesota, UK, HU, Emory, Medical College of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson U., Oregon Health Sciences, and the NIH.
Please make a concerted effort to attend protests in the future. The animals need actions, not excuses!