Old Stuff

`Book Review (Week 1)`

The Cruel Deception

by Dr. Robert Sharpe

This is a long and detailed book, not for bedtime reading, but the most referenced and researched book I have ever read. It has a thorough commentary of the causes of the decline in disease, and what part was played by social reforms, such as better housing, etc. Has detailed and logical arguments against the claims of the vivisection community that vivisection found this, cured that, etc. This has the most effective defence against the "vivisection led to insulin" argument. The details and the references make it easy for any one wishing to research further. It also has graphs, quotes and statistics you would not find elsewhere. Get it for your scientific uncle.

`Available from Edinburgh Central Lending Library, QL55.`

Book Review (Week 2)

Why Animal Experiments Must Stop, and How You Can Help Stop Them

by Dr. Vernon Coleman

This is a very good book for those new to the anti-vivisection movemant. It is not ment solely to pursuade you, as "The Cruel Deception" does, but puts those arguments forward which are most often put to us animal advocates. It is easy to read and is lucidly written, and rather than come out with varuious statistics it carefully and logically explains how to counter each argument. It also has 10 practical ways of reducing animal experiments, from not buying fertilizers with "New formula" on them to recycling your clothes. Not so good, however, if you want to write a comprehensive essay against vivisection. Don't get this for your scientific uncle, get it for yourself so you can argue effectively with your uncle!

Available from Edinburgh Central Lending Library, HV4943.

Book Review (Week 3)

Cured to Death

by Arabella Melville and Colin Johnson

This is a good book for anybody sceptical about the medical establishment. Although not centered on anti-vivisection, this is a powerful impartial book containing information which is an indictment of the pharmaceutical industry. This has details of the procedure for reporting adverse reactions to drugs, what's involved in complaining about a doctor, the growth of the drug companies, and the drug disaster, Eraldin. This makes the allegations and has the facts to back them up. It also has details on the role of medicine in the decline of disease. If you had any faith in your GP, your hospital, or your pescriptions, be ready to discard that faith.

This book is available from Edinburgh Central Library, RM262.

Book Review (Week 4)

The Monkey Wars

by Deborah Blum

This book centres on the debate on the use of primates (not just monkeys) in medical research; aiming to come from a non-biased view point. However, it is nothing short of an excellent book. It starts with the psychology researcher making important advances in primate sign language, to the researcher who believes in freedom of speech and listening to the other side of the argument; but still sees no problems in keeping his monkeys in indoor cages. It takes you to the two scientists who were given the job of devising something to occupy isolated rhesus macaques in space, and who surprisingly found they liked computer games. It takes you to the surgeon who's using monkeys in brain research to help prevent and cure memory loss due to brain damage; but his motivation is the search for knowledge, not for cures. Also it details the life of the notorious Harry Harlow. It also has some interesting anti-vivisectionist facts. It has everything from the woman who was sued after a "letter to the editor", to the origin of AIDS. A truly brilliant book; you need to read this!

Available from Edinburgh Central Lending Library, HV4940.

Book Review (Week 5)

The Hazards of Immunization

by Sir Graham S Wilson

This book, although it is old, is uesful, as it details all of the major, and not so major, vaccine disasters. It provides useful information on how the vaccine inventors have messed up before, with disasterous vaccine trials. It gives details on, for example, Koch's Terberculin, and how the vaccine was found to back-fire. It also has details on now obsolete vaccines, such as smallpox, so you can set those pro-vivisectionists straight, and horse serum. An education on the problems and precautions of vaccination. And for an old book, it seems to be very sceptical about the whooping-cough vaccine...

This book is available from Edinburgh Central Library, RA638.

Book Review (Week 6)

Slaughter of the Innocent

by Hans Ruesch

"The first book to demonstrate the counter-productivity and fraud of vivisection and the inevitable damage to human health as a result of this pseudo-scientific sham. The massive and impressive evidence presented within this monumental work - which is the result of five yaers exhaustive research - is an appaling indictment against all those involved in the perpetuation of vivisection. Slaughter of the Innocent resulted in the formation of a world-wide movement against vivisection by members of the medical profession, and is vital reading for all true anti-vivisectionists."

British Anti-Vivisection Association

A book presenting the scientific reasons, and the methods the powers-that-be use to continue vivisection, in a form that is easy to read. The book is written with emotion, especially concerning Part 3, which catalogues animal experiments, and at times with wit. Read it.

Available from BAVA, PO Box 82, Kingswood, BRISTOL, BS15 1YF, for £5.50.

New book reviews will appear sporadically.

Naked Empress (or the Great Medical Fraud)

by Hans Ruesch

The sequel to Slaughter of the Innocent, with more startling revelations. Provides more facts, details and explanations to the first book. An excellent addition to your books on vivisection, unfortunately it reads like an appendix to an earlier addition, and lacks the fluency of the first book.

"[This book] describes how the oil industry adopted vivisection in order to give the public confidence in its new chemical products in the late nineteenth century, and shows how the drug industry grew into the most profitable of industries, which set up trusts to influence medical schools."

British Anti-Vivisection Association.

This book is available from BAVA, PO Box 82, Kingswood, BRISTOL, BS15 1YF, for £8.00, or from Edinburgh Central Library, RM425.

Quotes of Weeks Past

"As an ophthalmologist in the New York University I am surprised that the Draize eye irritation test is done at all... I know of no case in which an ophthalmologist found Draize data useful."

Stephen Kaufman M.D.

from "1000 doctors (and many more) against vivisection" by Hans Ruesch.

"The difficulty of predicting human risk from animal teratogenicity tests is illustrated in the fact that, although aspirin is a proven teratogen in the rat, mouse, guinea-pig, cat, dog and monkey, it is also one of the substances which has been widely used by pregnant women and yet not been shown to produce any kind of characteristic malformation."

Dr. Mann, from his book, "Modern Drug Use."

from "1000 doctors (and many more) against vivisection" by Hans Ruesch.

"Results from animal tests are not transferable between species, and therefore cannot be used to guarantee product safety for humans... In reality these tests do not provide protection for consumers from unsafe products, but rather are used to protect corporations from legal liability."

Herbert Gundersheimer, M.D.

from "1000 doctors (and many more) against vivisection" by Hans Ruesch.

"I cannot recall a single instance where my clinical judgement was even remotely influenced by the results of a psychological study using animals as ubjects or 'models.' In view of what I perceive to be the complete irrelevance of the often cruel experiments inflicted upon innocent animals; I wish to go on record in calling for the termination of the use of non-human animals in psychological experimentation."

Michael Klaper, M.D.

from "1000 doctors (and many more) against vivisection" by Hans Ruesch.

"It has been shown on many occasions that the LD50 test is misleading."

Joel D Mack, M.D. F.A.C.S.

from "1000 doctors (and many more) against vivisection" by Hans Ruesch.

"Part of what's driving me is not the fact that I want to develop a cure for brain damage. It's just that I want to be able to understand how this all works. I hope others will be able to use what we find in a practical and clinical way. But the major reason I'm doing this is that I want to know."

Dr. Stuart Zola-Morgan (who causes brain damage to macaques in memory research)

From "The Monkey Wars" by Deborah Blum.

"You can't know the answer to strokes by looking at cats"

William De Vries (involved in artificial heart trials)