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AUSTRALIA
WHAT IS VIVISECTION? Vivisection literally means ‘cutting up’ – the practice of performing operations on live animals for the purpose of experimentation or scientific research. Vivisection is cruel, unreliable and unnecessary. Most studies are curiosity-driven and have no tangible benefit to humans. Vivisection leads to the unnecessary deaths of millions of animals per year and can involve drugging, burning, addicting, freezing, infecting, surgically mutilating and isolating animals, often with no pain relief or anaesthetics.
HOW MANY ANIMALS ARE USED? In 2016, in Victoria alone, 1,080,136 animals were used in experiments. In New South Wales, 4,977,239 animals were used. The approximate total number of animals used in Australia in 2016 was over 9 million.
ANIMALS IN AUSTRALIAN LABORATORIES In Australia, 115,663 experiments subjected to animals coming under major physiological challenge. Experiments in this category require the animal to remain conscious for some or all of the procedure. There is interference with the animal’s physiological or psychological processes and the challenge causes a moderate or large degree of pain/distress, which is not quickly or effectively alleviated. 22,689 experiments included death as the ’end point’ of procedures. The aim of these studies require the
animals to die unassisted as researchers claim death is ‘a critical measure of the experimental treatment’. In 219,377 experiments, animals were subjected to procedures under anaesthetic, and were not allowed to recover. 308,138 experiments involved the production of genetically-modified animals. The category of ‘understanding human or animal biology’ used 3,434,552 animals – yet human diseases remained uncured and are increasing at an alarming rate.
Animals used in experiments include cows, horses, donkeys, native mammals, exotic ‘feral’ animals, primates, rodents, fish, birds and reptiles. Animals used for experiments suffer not just the tests, but also solitary confinement, cramped environments and over-crowding in cages, resulting in multibreeding, fighting, cannibalism and suffocation. Primates may be born in captivity, bred in captivity, or caught in the wild overseas, often leaving their babies alone to die. Monkeys housed on farms may never see daylight. Their life is one of incarceration, experimentation and death. Laboratory animals are killed by having their necks broken, being gassed with aversive and painful CO2, or having their heads cut off with scissors. Death may not be immediate.
WHY DON'T ANIMAL EXPERIMENTS WORK? The National Institute of Health (NIH) states that 90% of drugs found to be safe in animal testing fail in human trials because they do not work or are dangerous. e.g. 85 HIV/AIDS vaccines have been successful in primates – yet ALL 85 have failed to offer protection in humans. To reiterate: 9 out of 10 drugs that start clinical trials fail because of issues with efficacy or safety. Animals are used for efficacy and safety in drug development. Species difference means that animal experiments very rarely achieve human benefit. Clinical observation, epidemiology, autopsy studies and many modern techniques are much more effective, often cheaper and require no harmful use of animals.
Culture. Researchers continue the same experiments over and over again because this is what they have been taught. They teach their students, and the cycle continues
valid methods • In vitro (test tube) methods and models based on human cell tissue and tissue cultures • Computer models and simulations • Stem cell and genetic testing methods
"Vivisection is barbaric, useless, and a hindrance to scientific progress" - Dr Werner Hartinger
Over the past few years, researchers have repeatedly shown that animal studies lack scientific rigour and they are often prone to biases – e.g. they are sloppily reported in scientific journals.
Animals in Australia laboratories
In 2018, scientists cite hundreds of biomedical studies from journals, including Nature, Science, and the Journal of the American Medical Association, to show animal modelling is ineffective, misleading to scientists, unable to prevent the development of dangerous drugs, and prone to prevent the development of useful drugs.
• Breast implants on pigs
Legislation-mandated reliance on animal test results in early stages of the drug development process leads to a mere 10% success rate for new drugs entering human clinical trials.
QUESTION: Experiments on great apes are banned in Europe and the USA. These are our closest relatives, so if animal experiments work, why are we using mice – animals so distant to us in terms of anatomy, physiology and biochemistry?
WHY ARE ANIMAl EXPERIMENTS CARRIEd OUT? Legislation. Laws still require animal testing prior to human testing even though the pharmaceutical sector has better options that were unavailable when animal modelling was first mandated. Money. Pharma is BIG BUSINESS. The combined annual incomes of the Cancer Councils in Australia is well over $200 million. The Heart Foundations have combined wealth of over $100 million. Yet cancer and heart disease remain the two biggest killers in Australia. The same applies to diabetes, strike, neurological diseases, AIDS and so on. Animal experiments are funded and cures remain illusory after many decades.
• Lambs being shaken to death
• Traumatic head injuries inflicted on rats using 450g weights • Dogs being used to test stimulation devices and having electrodes placed into their brains • Greyhounds killed in heart experiments: the dogs were suffocated and their hearts removed before being killed • Kittens deafened on their first day of life • Invasive surgery on cats’ eyes with limited pain relief • Brain lesions induced in baby marmosets to study ‘eye-hand coordination’ • Baboons used to test a radioactive substance • Rabbits subjected to invasive spinal cord injury experiments
WATCH: Dr Ray Greek’s 2017 lecture on WHY animal experiments don’t work. Essential viewing for outreach! , bit.ly/2BDFBcM