independent interdependence … (08/22/14)
The “Ice Bucket Challenge” is all the craze these days, with videos of lots of celebrities and even a few of us “normal” folks dumping buckets of ice water over their heads to draw awareness to — and support the fight against — the disease known as ALS.
Fair enough … A good cause is a good cause, no question about it. I was even challenged myself, and publicly agreed to let my friends & family film me while I fulfilled it this coming Thanksgiving when I return to the States.
AND YET then Pamela Anderson woke me up. You see, she recently turned down the Ice Bucket Challenge for a very good reason — because in recent experiments funded by the ALS Association, mice had holes drilled into their skulls, were inflicted with crippling illnesses, and were forced to run on an inclined treadmill until they collapsed from exhaustion. On top of that, monkeys had chemicals injected into their brains and backs, and were later killed and dissected …
And to make matters even worse, these “experiments” were mostly ineffective, amounting to nothing more than sanctioned torture of thousands of helpless, innocent, sentient beings. Indeed, of all the ALS testings done on those animals, only a rough dozen made it to human-trial, and of all but one failed when administered to humans — and the one that “worked” offers only a marginal benefit to those who suffer from ALS today.
As it turns out, this level of drastic futility and waste is quite typical, with the FDA admitting that 92 out of every 100 drugs that pass animal trials fail during the human clinical trial phase.
In essence, then, testing — whether it be for ALS or any other disease or condition — equals LOTS of needless suffering for the animals, and NO real benefit to humans.
Sadly enough, more sophisticated non-animal testing methods already exist … and they are the ones that have given us everything from the best life-saving HIV drugs to cloned human skin for burn victims. How ironic, then, that trying to cure human diseases by relying on outdated & ineffective animal experiments isn’t only brutally cruel — it’s also a huge disservice to the people who desperately need those cures.
As such, I join Pamela Anderson in issuing a new set of challenges — to the ALS Foundation (and all research facilities & organizations like them): STOP TESTING ON ANIMALS … and to you: please stop supporting the same.
Thank You.
“Atrocities are no less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research.” ~ George Bernhard Shaw
P.S. For every known human disease, researchers are currently trying to develop animal “models” thereof (Greek & Shanks, Animal Models in Light of Evolution. Boca Raton, FL: Brown Walker Press, 2009). In order to do so, animals are subjected to invasive involuntary procedures, including surgeries, traumatic injuries, burns, force-feeding, blood draws, biopsies, food, water, and social deprivation, dart gun sedation, prolonged restraint, behavioral and environmental manipulations, viral and bacterial infections, exposure to toxic drugs and chemicals, induced heart attacks, induced motion sickness, induced vomiting (J. Pippin, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine) … Of course, the relevant effectiveness or ineffectiveness of animal testing are patently irrelevant, as ANIMALS ARE SENTIENT and thus have THE SAME INNATE RIGHTS that we humans do — the right not to be incarcerated, the right not to be tortured, and the right not to be murdered … period! As such, even if animal testing was marginally effective (which it isn’t), the solution would always be cruelty-free alternatives — including (and especially) human volunteers.
Amen … Let it be so!
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