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Questions & Answers
The following document is based on a list of questions that a high-school student compiled for her assignment. We thought they were excellent and decided to publish them for the benefit of other students.
If you have any other questions about the vivisection industry, or any relevant comments or queries, please contact us.
1. What is your organization's stance on animal testing of cosmetic products?
Total opposition
2. What is your organization's stance on animals in medical and scientific research?
The AVU opposes the use of any animal in any research which does harm, causes pain and suffering or interferes with that animal's natural lifestyle.
3. Do you believe these tests are reliable and are there alternatives?
Animal-based research into human health is extremely unreliable – both animals and people vary from individual to individual let alone species to species. There are many ways of approaching the cure or relief of illness without causing suffering to animals or people however, the very powerful forces of Pharmaceutical companies and associated ‘illness industries', prevent more effective methods from developing and flourishing
4. What is your organization's stance on animals in medical and veterinary schools?
There is so much cruelty to animals in veterinary schools that a very famous Australian student, Andrew Knight, went public a few years ago about it and won the right to complete his course without harming any animals, making it possible for students coming after him to do the same We believe that vets can learn everything they need to know and experience, including compassion for all animals, through being in the apprentice situation, not causing suffering to poor animals bred to be tortured and killed. www.animalconsultants.org
5. Are there guidelines/legislation enforced upon researchers using animals?
Very vague guidelines are in the Code of Practice, designed by and available from the National Health and Medical Research Council. www.nhmrc.com.au The problem is that there are no effective controls on researchers and now that so much funding is coming from the private sector and vivisectors are going offshore to practice, the situation for animals is getting worse instead of better.
6. What is the animal testing situation in Australia?
Under the Therapeutic Goods Act, all substances need to be ‘safety tested' before going onto the market. Despite having computer models, fake eyes and skin and other humane testing equipment, animals are still suffering and dying horrible deaths in Australian facilities every day.
7. What is your organization's stance on animals as organ donors?
We totally oppose xenotransplantation. The research so far, transplanting pig hearts into monkeys and many other associated experiments on a wide range of animals, has been extremely cruel and disgusting. This is a cruel and dangerous direction for medical science to take, to solve the problems of human organ failure.
8. Does the use of animals for testing go against animal welfare?
Yes. If scientists were really concerned about the welfare of animals, they wouldn't use them at all. It can't be in the animals' interests to be poisoned, maimed and then killed. Australian testing laboratories use millions of animals every year to test chemicals and products for human consumption. If animal welfare was considered in this outdated process, reliable, efficient procedures would have been in place long ago.
9. Could you please define the difference between animal welfare and animal rights?
The concept of animal rights is much more straight-forward than human rights.
Do no harm is the basic premise and all follows on from there.
The term animal welfare is used by scientists and corporations as a way to avoid facing the cruelty that they're involved in. Rather than being a means of protection for animals, having legal codes of animal welfare permits their exploitation. Everywhere that animals exist in modern society, the economic welfare of people remains a priority over the well- being of the animals they use e.g. in laboratories, farming, zoos, rodeos, live export, circuses, racing, companion animal breeding, wildlife parks…
10. Which one does your organization stand for and what do animals in Australia currently have the right to?
Animal rights: - The rights of animals to live their lives in protection and peace.
In Australia this concept is virtually non-existent. Despite the various Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Acts in each state, there is no actual consideration of animals as living beings that feel pain, fear, loneliness, comfort, satisfaction, even happiness – the same as humans.
11. Most of the public disagree with the use of animals in testing cosmetic products so why do companies such as Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson etc still continue to use animals?
Multi-national companies are very powerful and have a monopoly in the consumer market.
The reality is that most people don't really care or want to know about animal abuse and they continue to buy tested products even though there are non-tested ones available.
12. What is the Australian government's stance on animal experimentation?
The government body, NHMRC, regulates most experimentation in Australia and huge funding is given to this body to continue grants to animal-based research, supposedly to be competitive with international labs in finding cures and ‘saving lives'.
What is AVU's stance on the following statements?
"Animal rights hysteria is holding back important medical research"
This is rubbish. There are so comparatively few people campaigning for the abolition of vivisection that researchers are not really worried about us at all. They just can't bear anyone to question them because the overwhelming majority of researchers are not interested in the use or development of non-animal methods. There can be shown links between the inertia in the field of medical research, the thriving of the extremely lucrative pharmaceutical industry and the illness-based approach to health in general. This should be exposed.
"Animal testing is a necessary evil for the greater good and longevity of humans"
That's why the planet is so healthy in mind, body and spirit – not!
"If anyone uses medicine of any kind they are being completely hypocritical if they protest the use of animals for testing"
In the past we have been led to believe that all products, ingredients and final products are by law- the Therapeutic Goods Administration Act-, to be tested on animals before marketing; so where is the choice?
People who stand up for animals are always attacked on some level. There are many campaigners who want to see improvements in our society. Very few of them can live completely according to their beliefs.
Environmentalists still use electricity derived from coal, they drive cars, travel by plane and eat meat, and probably use plastic bags from time to time - all things that harm the environment.
How many Christians can say that they live as true Christians?
It is well known that some medicine and medical procedures were formulated from experiments done by Nazis on people in the concentration camps during the war. Many people are shocked about this, but do they reject those medicines? SCUBA divers use depth compression tables developed from these experiments.
In the anti-viv movement you would find the greatest number of people who refuse conventional medicine, who search out and support alternative therapies, live as well as they can to prevent lifestyle diseases, offer themselves as test subjects in humane research etc. however, it is entirely up to the individual to make their own decisions about everything to do with their health.
And finally, who in this world is not a hypocrite at one time or another? People who stand up for animals are constantly the objects of ridicule, abuse and extreme scrutiny, whereas people who are continually and inexplicably cruel to animals, have lifestyles that fit right in to our social system and their support of cruel practices is ignored, excused and condoned.
"We should allow scientists to develop their own morals and ethics"
Why should scientists be above any legal or moral laws? We should all be transparent and accountable in our actions – to the earth and to all living beings.
"Using animals in such atrocious ways is deeply wrong"
Of course this is true.
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