Day of action success

Our major new report, Victims of Charity, describes how charity-funded medical researchers have deliberately damaged monkeys’ brains with toxic chemicals, and slowly and systematically destroyed dogs’ hearts. Other researchers have tormented mice in water mazes, injected them with cancerous tissue, or used animals who had been subjected to special breeding programmes that left them weakened, disease-prone and mentally deranged.

Victims of Charity also challenges the claim that animal research is justified because it produces significant health benefits for people. The authors, hospital doctor and medical lecturer Adrian Stallwood, and veterinary surgeon Andre Menache, examine past and contemporary accounts of experimental procedures written by the experimenters themselves. They also assess scientific reviews in leading specialist journals, and conclude that animal-based research into cancer, dementia, heart disease and Parkinson’s has been a ‘wasteful and futile quest’ – one that has failed to advance the cause of human medicine.

Says Andrew Tyler, Animal Aid Director:

‘This campaign marks the first concerted attempt to make people aware that their money is funding cruel and invasive animal research. The feedback we have received indicates that the British public are very uneasy about their involvement in animal suffering – particularly as such research fails to bring significant health benefits to people. Our campaign is intended to promote a debate on this important issue, and ultimately to press the charities into rethinking their research strategy.’