the futility of it all...

i've been interested in the thalidomide class action that played out in the victorian supreme court this week and was elated for lynette rowe, the lead plaintiff, born with no arms or legs after her mother was prescribed thalidomide to combat morning sickness and anxiety during her pregnancy… a multi-million dollar settlement – although 50 years down the track hardly makes up for a lifetime of hardship, nor does it give her the physical independence most of us know - but she will get compensation and be provided with care for the rest of her life - with ageing parents that must be comforting knowledge… i watched lynette cry on the television, and shed tears with her…

but i couldn’t help thinking – ‘doesn't this yet again prove the futility of animal experimentation? thalidomide was tested on animals wasn't it' so i did some research and of course, the answer is yes...

“The most famous example of the dangers of animal testing is the Thalidomide tragedy of the 1960s and 1970s. Thalidomide, which came out on the German market late in the 1950s, had previously been safety tested on thousands of animals. It was marketed as a wonderful sedative for pregnant or breastfeeding mothers and it supposedly caused no harm to either mother or child. Despite this "safety testing", at least 10,000 children whose mothers had taken Thalidomide were born throughout the world with severe deformities.” from against animal testing from a medical and scientific perspective

and this from does animal testing really help human medicine?...

“Here are just a handful of drugs that were extensively tested on animals and after being approved for human use, were found to have dangerous and deadly side affects. Some were pulled from the market.:

Clioquinol, Eraldin/Practocol, Tequin, TGN 1412, Thalidomide, Zyprexa/Olanzapine. Phenactin, E-Ferol, Oraflex, Rexar, Suprofen, Zomax, Suprol, Rezulin, Selacryn, and Vioxx have been pulled from the market after killing or harming thousands and thousands of people.

Side effects of prescription medicines kill over 100,000 people a year in the US and almost as many in the UK. That is more than all illegal drugs combined!

The great breakthroughs in science that have given us all the medical advances we enjoy today have actually come from ethical, human-based research - most notably astute clinical observation, epidemiology (population studies), autopsies and in- vitro research, including the use of human tissue. Anaesthetics, antibiotics, aspirin, beta-blockers, pacemakers and many other great discoveries owe nothing to animals and everything to human ingenuity.

Another issue is the fact that drugs can injure animals but display no adverse reactions in humans. These are equally significant in revealing the inaccuracy of animal data because these tests keep potentially useful medications out of our reach."

more proof of the futility of experimentation on non-human animals…

maurice beddow bayly wrote the book ‘the futility of experiments on living animals’ way back in 1956 stating “In a universe which embraces all types of life and consciousness and all material forms through which these manifest, nothing which is ethically wrong can ever be scientifically right; ...in an integrated cosmos of spirit and matter one law must pervade all levels and all planes. This is the basic principle upon which the whole case against vivisection rests. Cicero summed it up in the four words: "No cruelty is useful".

cancer researchers have been using animals for decades, with no 'cure' on the horizon… “With billions of dollars, countless animals, and well over 30 years spent on the war on cancer, concrete results should have been seen if animal research was actually working. On the contrary, the incidence of cancer continues to rise.” this, again from against animal testing from a medical and scientific perspective and also borne out in the human cost of animal experiments from the animal liberation front website "the inability to validate carcinogenicity in animals kept cancer-causing agents legal for a much longer time."...

one of the most potent realities of all also comes from the animal liberation front website: "The real bottom line is stark: no animal experiment has ever saved a human life. But animal experiments have led to many human deaths."

frighteningly "increasingly animals are being genetically modified in attempts to model human illnesses. Even when these GM animals have an identical defective gene they do not always develop the same disease as humans, or indeed any disease at all." from what's wrong with animal experiments

surely non-human animal experimentation has been proven futile over and over again and needs to stop - if humans want ‘cures’, test them on human cells, tissues and cultures, not non-human animals who are not less than human, but equal to - they are not 'ours' to use and abuse - we need to end this brutality!!

“Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals and the answer is: 
'Because animals are like us.'
 

“Ask the experimenters why it is morally okay to experiment on animals, and the answer is: 

'Because the animals are not like us.'

“Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction.”

... charles r magel, professor of philosophy...

settlin' in slowly...

it’s hard to believe it’s been nearly 2 months since i wrote my last blog post… but having decided not to blog and just concentrate on moving and settling in i have to admit it has been nice not having that self-imposed pressure we sometimes put ourselves under to get a post 'up'…

so moving and settling in is exactly what i’ve been doing - well, when i haven't been working… i'm certainly enjoying the house with it’s space and peace and quiet (internal noise aside that is - 'part and parcel' of shared space) compared to the flat… no hearing other doors opening and slamming, nobody walking overhead wearing jack boots (that’s what the womon upstairs sounded like), no hearing other peoples toilets flush, no hearing their loud televisions or their other noises…. i hate flats, have never been a willing flat dweller…

shadow had the hardest move and settling in time of the household… there are only a few cats in the street, and no-one had lived here for a while according to a neighbour, so the two boys from down the road had made this their territory too… so my boy had to learn where his territory started and ended and stake a claim on his backyard – which of course entailed a lot of mewling and stand-offs with the two local boys – rags, a beautiful ragdoll cat (albeit without a tail due to an accident) and felix, a manx boy (born with no tail – a genetic mutation associated with the manx breed)...

after all of that sorting themselves out, the boy has the run of the place now as the ‘neighbours’ moved out a couple of weeks ago – they were moving from south yarra to st kilda, and here we’d moved from st kilda to south yarra – somewhat ironic, hey - and they'll be going through their own territorial disputes finding their place with their new neighbours now…

there are cute possums around, but shadow doesn't pose a threat to them - well, not at night time anyway - he has a curfew - he's an inside cat once darkness descends... it's seems only fair for the wildlife who come out to forage during the night hours, and who have lost so much of their habitat to our encroachment - they can do without having to dodge one of the most efficient hunters in their search for food too... sadly for the night critters not all feline guardians feel this way...

shadow is definitely enjoying his backyard – fences and trees to climb, a backyard shed to sun himself on top of, garden beds that we’re in the process of extending so we can get some vegie seedlings in – it must be like paradise to him after having to make do with the small courtyard at the flat…

i thought i’d share some photos - the boy, the camellia, the beautiful skylight in the funny little nook in the loungeroom, which happens to be the perfect reading space - and guess i’ll slowly get back into the swing of blogging over the next few weeks…