Warning:  The following contains graphic pictures of the animal cruelty performed in testing labs.  Each picture links back to the site where you can find further information.  These pictures are incredibly upsetting.  But please don't close the page.  It's that kind of attitude that allows such suffering to continue. 

Once upon a time, I had an anti-vivisection book (and as much as I've torn my hair out while writing this, over what the book was called, I can't remember.  Although the website I found has basically the exact same content so it's a good enough resource to prove my point). Anyway, I swear the contents of it shocked even the staunchest "grr, club woman and drag her to my cave" men that I showed it to. I no longer have the book, but I still have the memories.  I doubt I'll ever forget them. 

You know, at the time of reading that book, my friends and I claimed that we were going to do everything we could to help stop this kind of thing. We were going to write to S.A.F.E (Save Animals From Exploition) and find out ways to help end it.  We were going to write to the government. We were going to do all sorts.

We never did. 

The memories stayed within us, but it became easier just to turn a blind eye in the end. It was too upsetting to deal with.  We had enough problems of our own.  If we could see no evil, then it didn't exist. 

Pathetic.

I did nothing.  And so I hope that if I pass some of what I learnt about animal-testing to you, you'll be a better person than I, and do something about it yourself.  In the least, please show your sympathy for these animals by leaving your comments in the anti-vivisection guest book located at the bottom of this page.

Before we get to the gory details, first of all, pay in mind this:

The British AMRIC (Animals in Medicines Research Information Center) say: "Only those people with the appropriate qualifications, training and experience will be permitted to work on a research project involving animals. Any distress likely to be experienced by the animals must be kept to the minimum possible given the nature of the research and weighed against the likely benefit of the research."

Now then. The following contains graphic pictures from an anti-vivisection website called  Betrayed.  Some of these pics were in the book I had, or they are very similiar.  The stories are what I recollect from the book.  I'll never forget them. 

{Cute kitten.  Sad looking.  Click the pic to see what she looked like after she was vivisected.}

Why was this done?  Is any reason a good one?  No.

{Beagles are used for vivisection not because they are a good model of the human body, but because they are docile and trusting. Please click the link in the picture}

To test for the effects of alcohol have on organs, a dog was pumped full of alcohol until it literally looked as if it was about to explode. It's stomach was so distended I thought it was pregnant with 18 puppies.  But no.  As soon as they felt they'd pumped the dog with enough alcohol, vivisectors cut the poor animal open to examine its organs.  What did they discover?  What we already know.  Alcohol is bad for you.

Betrayed has the same picture as the one in the book, here's the evil for you to see for yourself...

The dog was force-fed alcohol for one whole year before being killed.

The book told of chimpanzees used as crash test dummies.  They were restrained in the front seat of cars, and sent crashing into walls.  To test the effects of car accidents on the human body.  What did these researchers learn?  Aside from discovering that chimpanzees are not humans, they also discovered that "velocity determines the degree of damage". In other words, the faster you go, the bigger the mess. 

Yeah. No shit.

These tests were also carried out on pregnant chimpanzees. Yes, they too were placed in a car and sent crashing into a wall.  To study the effects such an accident would have on the unborn chimp.

{Her back was broken to investigate spinal injury}

Are you curious to know about maternal deprivation?  This is a study of how one adapts when their parent is taken away and replaced with an object  - sometimes covered in spikes, or rigged to give out electric shocks.  Well, someone was interested in gaining a new research paper.

Look closely at this poor baby monkey. You can clearly see it's fear and suffering.  How can researchers justify such treatment?  Do they need to conduct experiments in maternal deprivation?  Shouldn't common sense be enough?

And then there were the epilepsy experiments.  To discover how to cure epilepsy, chimpanzees were electrocuted so that they would produce the symptoms of an epileptic attack.  What were the results?  Vivisectors found nothing to help cure epilepsy.  Why?  Because 'simulated' epileptic attacks are not the same as the real thing.  Results will not be the same. 

Lucky you, I found the picture of this similiar experiments at Betrayed.

The following picture shows a monkey screaming in pain while the vivisector laughs.

Because you know, sadism is just a really funny thing.

And let�s not forget the young puppy that was starved, whilst forced to watch dogs in other cages be fed. (It was a psychological test. Apparently.) No picture to go with that one sorry.

What is the sense in sewing a dog's front paw to his thorax?

{Who knows, but if you click the link, it'll show you what became of Pluto five years later.}

But the truth of many tests is that these companies get an annual budget that must be spent, and if by the end of the year they still have money left over, their budget will be reduced the following year. And we wouldn't want that would we? Therefore, often such tests are simply made for the sake of using up that funding and securing an excessive payout the following year.

Think that my opinion is biased? Probably. But is that above picture justified by anything?

Oh of course.  Medical research.  Through useful and necessary experimentation, scientists can discover cures for debilitating and often fatal human illness.  The suffering of thousands of animals to discover the cure to aids is worth it to save millions of humans. 

But only a small percentage of animal testing is performed for the purpose of medical research.  How would you justify such senseless experiments such as the mouse with the amputated front paws - the purpose of the surgery being that some sick fuck was curious to see how it would feed and groom itself without them? 

Is this medical research?

Surely drowning an animal in oil has got to result in major enlightenment for the human race?  I mean, there's got to be some marvelous profound purpose for it, right?  Perhaps it'll enhance our cooking experiences?

{It seems someone thought so}

Do you support animal testing?  You probably do, yet you'd never know it.  For example, what brand of razor do you use to shave your legs?

Who here suffers from insomnia? Yeah it sucks huh? (It�s been a good 40 hours now since I've slept, I can understand the frustration). Ohh, the things they do when testing insomnia medication�

Picture a cat perched precariously upon a brick.

Now imagine that brick perched in the middle of a tank full of water - a tank from which the cat cannot escape. Picture this full grown cat, atop of a brick, and in a tank of water, forced to stay awake for three months. Yup. Three months. And in this time, it's being pumped with medication designed to make it sink into blissful sleep.

But of course, if the cat does sink into sleep, it will inevitably sink into the water and drown. Because every time the cat bobs its head in slumber, it�s nose touches down in the water, and it must either wake, or die. It lives like this for three months.

Ladies and gentleman. If it�s innocent it will sink, if it�s guilty it will float. Either way, it�s surely a witch and once the experiment is over, it will die anyway. Hopefully.

Because the alternative to death is for it to be shoved back into a cage until the next round of tests comes along. Though of course, after three months of sleep deprivation, these cats are more often than not, completely insane. They are no longer cats. Therefore death is usually a given, as after such treatment they're too defective for further testing anyway.

{This cat had his eyes removed.  But that's not the worst of it.  His penis nerve was surgically exposed and subjected to repeatitive electrocution until he eventually died.}

Vivisectors like to say that their methods of animal testing are humane.  They say the animals suffer no pain - that for surgical procedures, they are anethisised.  This is a lie. 65% of experiments involve no anaesthetic.

The animals in these pictures are conscious, they are feeling pain.  In some experiments, animals are made to feel pain for the purpose of the experiment.  In a picture similiar to the one above (and to your left), the cat is shown to be clearly conscious and in pain - as his unsheathed claws are digging into the platform he is standing on.

This is a modern restraining device.  It was first invented over a hundred years ago by Claude Bernard.  The grandfather of vivisection.  He did this to his own pet dog, and kept the partly vivisected animal in his bedroom where he slept.  Bernard's wife and daughter were so disgusted they set up the very first anti-vivisection campaign.  {Info c/o  Betrayed}

The above photograph was taken in secrecy in a British lab.  The dog is fully conscious.

The following picture is particularly graphic...

The end result of vivesected dogs.  Click the pic to see the dog at the back, when he was still living.

Can you read this, and look at these pictures, and not feel immensely disturbed?  Can you tell me the point to all of this? 

These are just some of the experiments documented at Betrayed, and in the anti-vivisection book I read a couple years back.  There are many other images of animal cruelty.  Of animals kept restrained in the most vile of methods, and kept in such a state for months on end.  And much much more.  Each one of these tales of animal torture is accompanied by highly detailed photographs. Just in case one would prefer to believe it as nothing more than lies and propaganda.  

To see more of this for yourself, take off life's blinkers and look around.  Ignorance is bliss but it's ignorance that helps to allow this torture to continue.

You know I could carry on and on about this.... I'm only shutting up now because it's 4am and I have to get some sleep.

With any luck.

Please show your support and sympathy for these animals and thousands more, by leaving your comments in the guestbook.  It may not seem much, but something is better than nothing, right?  And you never know.  Maybe this time the thought will count.

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Sites relating to anti-vivisection:

Betrayed (warning: graphic)