70 Million failures

Total evidence must include vivitorment's 70,000,000 failures
J.B.Suconik

Vivitorment: The practice of subjecting live animals to various procedures including invasive cutting operations, with and without anesthesia.

That every failure may be a step to success, may account in some cryptic way for the unabated opposition to the brutal abuse of animals by venerable science. The defense of such use is based on discoveries, which when considered in isolation seem to render a conclusion affirming the efficacy of vivisection. On the other hand, when the discoveries are considered in relation to eclipsed evidence, the conclusion reached is a negation of vivitorment. A negation because the argument for vivitorment now includes the true premises and germane evidence, the whole of which constitute an inductive fallacy. Fallacy because in logical terms it is an induction with true premises and a false conclusion, false because it fails the “requirement of total evidence.” ¹

Thus hope and expectations of progress of medicine is based on a mere excerpt from the whole story entailing true premises and the false conclusion that is an effective method apropos of the need. Those to whom such information is suspect, may experience an attitude change if genes don't vigorously protest. Unfortunately we can never know the whole story. Such language may seem to reflect factual inadequacy, which it doesn't. My candor is apropos of a subject that must not be sullied by either dogmatism or pretense.

Many subjects that are objects of interest to people embracing oppositional opinions can be discussed in a manner entailing verifiable data and credible conclusions. Other subjects about which, the lawyer, judge, accountant, and police are knowledgeable exist in the realm of accepted convention. But the great sphere of uncertainty, prejudice, responsible and irresponsible opinion, fictions, feelings, and values is the domain inhabited by many, if not most people. One of the dismal facts of life is that ‘verifiable data,’ and ‘credible conclusions’ do not always prevail against fictions, feelings, and values, which accounts I believe for the longevity of vivitorment. Vivitorment has cut, burned, and eviscerated animals since antiquity, and was able to do so with impunity for a number of reasons. One such reason was the influence of the great ‘sphere of uncertainty…’ and because impressive pro vivisection data was publicized, and not challenged by facts bolstered by logic that could not be refuted.

The ancient standards of logic have application in any subject that employs inference and argument-in any field in which conclusions are supposed to be supported by evidence. Three of the necessary tools are deductive, inductive, and analogical reasoning. Such tools cannot rectify false premises that tend to appear when the stakes are high, and must be avoided as much as possible to ensure objectivity. It will not, however, serve the purpose of this paper to question credibility. It was not possible to deduce from animal based experiments that the method would be a good source of information in a significant percentage of experiments. Impossible because experience proved otherwise, that even the use of satanic procedures on animals was not the open sesame to discovery, and the conquest of disease. Nor could it be otherwise, because the alleged necessary method was performed in the world of contingent events where nothing happens of necessity.

This very important fact can be illustrated with just a few words. If we consider the letters X Y and Z to be three positive numbers, and X is greater than Y and Y is greater than Z we can say that it follows necessarily that X is greater than Z. It is inconceivable moreover that it should be otherwise. On the other hand if X is a scientist searching for a cure for Y on Z a chimpanzee, can we say that it follows necessarily that the scientist will discover the cure? Our answer must be in the negative because the procedure takes place in the world of contingent events where nothing happens of necessity, where a preponderance of attempts have, and do fail to succeed. Experience and reason have made Scientist X well aware of this principle and its relation to vivisection, nonetheless, research roulette with and without anesthesia is routinely performed, a horrible deadly manifestation of human egoism entailing great mental and physical anguish to millions of helpless victims.

Millions upon millions of such procedures have resulted in noteworthy discoveries of benefit to both man and animals, and it this fact that constitutes the true premises of an inductive fallacy. A fallacy that provided an argument in favor of a savage method not sustained by the germane facts. Such facts would constitute a view in keeping with the need for objectivity not furnished by the blatant use of biased statistics, whereby the argument failed to include all available relevant evidence. This requirement is called “the requirement of total evidence. ¹” Francis Bacon (1561-1620) provides a telling example of ‘biased statistics’ "The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects; in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate. And therefore it was a good answer that was made by one who when they showed him hanging in a temple a picture of those who had paid their vows as having escaped shipwreck, and would have him say whether he did not now acknowledge the power of the gods ,'Aye' asked he again, "but where are they painted that were were drowned after their vows?" And such is the way of all superstition, whether in astrology, dreams, omens divine judgments, or the like; wherein men, having a delight in such vanities, mark the events where they are fulfilled, but where they fail, though this happens much oftener, neglect and pass them by.”

And “aye” I must ask; where is it told how, and how many times vivitorment fails, and what the ratio of success to failure was, and is, in the practice of vivitorment. And by success I mean the discovery of knowledge conducive to human or non-human well-being. Was the ratio one success to one hundred procedures, or to every thousand or one million procedures, and at what cost in terms of suffering and death to the animals, and money to an assenting public? Was it thousands, millions or billions of dollars? And where is it told how many people pass on every day from medical conditions the cure for which, has eluded millions of vivisection's brutal trials, and how many billions of dollars and decades of research have failed to deliver a cure for cancer, aids, and other deadly afflictions for which there is no cure in sight?

And there was "hanging in the temple a picture" of 33 alleged discoveries in human medicine purported to be attributable to the practice of vivitorment, by Americans for Medical Progress a pro vivisection public relations agency. There were also 37 alleged discoveries in veterinary medicine purported to be attributable to the practice of vivitorment. Thus the argument for vivisection seemed sound and acceptable on the basis of incomplete data. The number of animals used for such accomplishment has been a controversial topic for many years. There is little reliable data on the number of animals used in research other than Animal Welfare Enforcement, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA's) annual report-to Congress. The annual report figures are not accurate and complete in the number of animals used in research for the following reasons: 1. The Animal Welfare Act regulates only warm-blooded animals, and there are some exceptions. 2. Rats of the genus Rattus, mice of the genus Mus, and birds are not presently regulated or required to be reported. 3. Farm animals were not regulated and reported until June 1990. 4. Annual reports compiled by USDA were not complete in that some facility annual reports were not received at all or were received too late to be included in the annual report to Congress.

Significant improvement has been made in this area over the past several years. Even with these omissions, the USDA annual report data is the best available for the numbers of regulated animals used in research. While definitive conclusions cannot be made from this data, general trends can be observed from the numbers of animals reported. Any analysis of the figures on the numbers of animals used in research should also consider the number of registered research facilities, which increased from 865 in 1973 to 1,527 in 1992, then decreased to 1,300 in 1995 A detailed account of the number, and kind of animals used is available, the aggregate of which is at least 70,532,191 beings used as things from 1973 to 2001 by America and the United Kingdom. During fiscal 2001 the National Institute Of Health funded approximately 29,441 separate animal experimentation grants for an estimated total of $8,582,110,382. "Every year" as reported by the American Antivivisection Society, "over 24,000.000 animals-95 % of whom are mice and rats-are subjected to various experiments in U.S. laboratories. And the numbers are rising."

Each year, 320,000 primates, dogs, pigs, goats, sheep, rabbits, cats and other animals are used by U.S. Department of Defense [DoD] in experiments that rank among the most painful conducted in this country. These animals are dosed with chemical and biological weapons, exposed to nuclear radiation, infected with some of our deadliest viruses, and forced to suffer a variety of other painful indignities-all in the name of human warfare. The cost to taxpayers for these military experiments is estimated to be in excess of $100 million annually. Military animal experiments are conducted at 35 DoD facilities worldwide. In addition, DoD contracts with universities across the nation to conduct research involving animals. Examples of military animal research, taken from the DoD's on-line database, include: Scalding and otherwise inflicting burns on sheep, rats, pigs and rabbits, then forcing the animals to inhale smoke or infecting their burn wounds with bacterial or fungal pathogen. Infecting monkeys, dogs, cats, pigs, rabbits, hamster, guinea pigs, mice and rats to deadly infectious diseases and biological agents, including deadly filoviruses like Marburg and Ebola, anthrax, biotoxins [like ricin, staphylococcal entertoxin [SE], botulinum, mycotoxin], malaria, dengue fever, encephalitis and hemorrhagic fever. Dosing monkeys, mice and guinea pigs with nuclear radiation: exposing mice and guinea pigs to radiation in combination with biological and chemical warfare agents, and surgically imbedding depleted uranium fragments in rats. Using cats, pigs, ferrets, sheep, monkeys and rats to train medical and other personnel in medical procedures, such as emergency resuscitation techniques and surgery. One DoD training exercise involves the actual poisoning of live monkeys with nerve gases to teach chemical casualty care resuscitation. The DoD's animal experiments have long been a source of controversy. In response to public concern about military animal abuse, the U.S. House Armed Services Committee convened a hearing on April 7, 1992, former military researchers, physicians, scientists, and animal activists testified about waste, negligence and animal abuse in DoD research programs. After the hearing, U.S. Representative Ron Dellums, on behalf of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee stated, "The committee has heard testimony that raises disturbing questions about the necessity, ethical propriety, oversight and quality of the military's experiments on animals." The Armed Services Committee went on to require a number of measures designed to bring greater oversight to the militaries animal research program. Among these measures were annual reporting requirement and a thorough investigation of the DoD animal use program by the U.S. General Accounting Office [GAO]. The ultimate goal was the reduction of animals used in DoD research and the elimination of wasteful and duplicative research.

In 1998 in ‘New’ Britain: 2.6 million animals were subjected to experiments “likely to cause pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm.” (As the Government describes them.) An estimated 9 million animals gassed or decapitated annually because they are deemed ‘surplus to requirements’ by the vivitorment industry. These figures describe the horrific scale of suffering and death in British laboratories. The last year for which UK vivitorment statistics have been published is 1999. According to these Government figures, 2.66 million animals were subjected to experiments “likely to cause pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm” in the UK alone. Many different kinds of animals suffer this fate. Sixty-four per cent of experiments in the UK were conducted without any anesthetic whatsoever. All of the animals either die as a result of the experiments, or are destroyed at the end of the experiment. In addition, an estimated 9 million animals are bred and simply destroyed as supposedly “surplus to requirements.” Investigators have filmed these creatures.

Non exhaustive Antivivitorment Evidence

Total evidence must include that: The thirty year vivisection quest for a cure for cancer, and the twenty year search for a cure for aids, were tragic failures. Some progress in the realm of treatment for cancer has occurred, however, a recent Institute of Medicine report put some of the fanfare about new cancer treatment in perspective, “the reality is that half of all patients diagnosed with cancer will die of their disease within a few years.” The Alzhheimer Association estimated that about 4 million people in America had Alzheimer disease at the start of the 21st century and predicted that by 2050 the number would jump to 14 million. Blood transfusions were delayed 200 years by animal studies, corneal transplants were delayed 90 years. The year 2001 was the 20th anniversary of the initial reports of a mysterious disease known as AIDS that has killed more than 20million people throughout the world. In 2002 an estimated 42 million people were infected with HIV, and 3.1 million died of HIV/AIDS. UN AIDS PREDICTED THAT ANOTHER 45 MILLION WOULD BE INFECTED IN THE NEXT EIGHT YEARS. * New infections were occurring at the rate of 15,000 a day* vivisection notwithstanding.

It was Albert Sabin M.D. who observed during a 1984 House Sub committee meeting: “Work on prevention of polio was delayed for 25 years by an erroneous conception of the nature of the human disease, based on misleading experimental models of the disease in monkeys.” Animal models of heart disease failed to show that a diet high in cholesterol increased the risk of coronary artery disease. The use of animals as models of human disease has also resulted indirectly, in many human deaths. Smoking was thought not to cause cancer based on the results of experiments on animals. Asbestos was thought to be non-carcinogenic, so many continued to be exposed. Vivisection notwithstanding. Total evidence cannot include the degree and totality of mental and physical pain suffered by animals in vivisection laboratories throughout the world. Such knowledge can be known only in principle, but not in practice, now or ever. Accounts of the extent of vivisection's brutalities have not escaped documentation, but it would be indiscreet to include any segment of such horrifying description in this paper.

It seems to me incredible that only 70 discoveries were gleaned from so many millions of experiments as reported by by Americans for Medical Progress. The many years of vivisection subsequent to Galen’s (a.d.130-200) dissections sans anesthesia, may have provided informative insights in addition to the 70 discoveries reported above. I don't know if the number 300 would be closer to the truth, but will use it in this summation rather than give assent to what doesn't seem to be correct. If the 12,892, 885 animals killed as reported by the USDA doesn't translate to experiments, the number of experiments performed from 1973 to 2001 is 70,532,191 a figure that does not include mice, rats, frogs or birds. There was probably a significant but unknown quantity prior to that limited interval that can't be included in this summation. Thus it required at least 70,532,191 and as many as 83,425,076 research procedures to discover approximately 300 measures beneficial to human, and non-human animals. Can we intelligently perceive such a paucity of disclosure of benefits relative to the cost in terms of suffering, death, and money as a standard to which we should adhere, and sanction in the future?

Reality does not take a holiday, venerable science is at the moment of this writing brutalizing and killing animals, and will continue to do so in the absence of authoritative prohibition predicated on popular support. Such support, and prohibition is warranted for logical, moral, and reasons of self interest. Logical reasons: the argument for vivitorment is based on a hypothetical 300 discoveries derived from at least 70,532.191 experiments with and without anesthesia, which constitutes true premises, and the false conclusion that the method used is apropos of the need; which is an inductive fallacy. Moral reasons: the method used necessitates ongoing cruelty, pain, and death to animals while failing to prevent the premature death of millions of people. Reasons of self interest: Ongoing violence in any context is habituating, self perpetuating, contagious. And a violent method entailing such meager results relative to so many millions of experiments, and cost in terms of suffering, death, and money is a self-evident failure contrary to the interest of those for whom the method is employed, but by no means unique.

History is a catalogue of misguided methods responsible for the demise of countless victims. In the middle ages when the disease known as the Black Death had apparently infiltrated a European area, the good fathers would call people to prayer in the churches whereupon the graveyards would rapidly reflect the result of a well meaning, but contraindicated method. Thus it is 'a method entailing such meager results relative to so many millions of experiments,' 'a self evident failure' that should be our concern, because probability is always relative to certain data. Based on the relevant data, the probability that the practice of vivitorment if allowed to prevail will be the means to health and longevity for the great body of people that sanction, and pay for it, while possible is not probable. Thus the answer to the question: 'Can we intelligently perceive such a paucity of disclosure of benefits relative to the cost in terms of suffering, death, and money as a standard to which we should adhere, and sanction in the future' should be in the negative.

That the foregoing is prudent council can be affirmed, I believe by the weight of cogent evidence, and assistance of a figurative analogy. Suppose we have a huge container of 70,532,191 beans, the edibility of which is uncertain, and having obtained the suitable equipment proceed to determine how many beans are edible, and find that only 300 beans conform to the requirement. The obvious conclusion that must be drawn even if it were a thousand good beans found, is that the containers contents are not a satisfactory source of food and must be discarded, a conclusion made possible by ‘total evidence’ without which a potentially dangerous source of nutrition would not be discarded. Because of a lack of vision, beans that 'must' be ' discarded' may not be rejected, resulting in tragic consequences. Such myopia is a significant factor that accounts for the hold on vivisection, tragic consequences notwithstanding. The deadly legacy of an inadequate method is not yet obvious to a passive majority, but is of great concern to a kindly minority, and an unfortunate element afflicted with various "incurable" diseases.

Those afflicted with AIDS that demonstrated against the futility of vivitorment to help them, believed that those who died, and were going to die from the disease, would not be the doomed victims of disease if vivisection had fulfilled the purpose for which it was allowed to exist. It is not yet obvious to a busy uninvolved world that a history occasional success in a context of baneful failure, calls for a mandate for abolition of an inadequate method. A method of which the probability of future failures based on the relevant data of past failures, approaches certainty. A method entailing live animals, and not insentient beans that our world is subjecting to physical, and psychological torture as these words are being written.

How could a practice of such relatively scant positive results derived from a barbarous practice, and enormous sacrifice of sentient life, and expenditure of money and effort; be an acceptable modus operandi for such a long period of time? I believe that a combination of ignorance of, and indifference to the relevant facts, hope, egoism, prejudice, fear, and avarice degenerated into an act of faith, which became a habit by both clergy and parishioners to be the answer. Moreover, at least a degree of popular, and professional acceptance of a procedure as the method, even though it failed to save millions upon millions of people from the scourge of disease; worked to discourage the necessary incentive for a universal search and discovery of a more productive, and morally acceptable means. The absence of popular condemnation of vivitorment entailed an unforeseen and tragic irony. It was on the one hand a vote for an approach whose well publicized success notwithstanding, had failed to save millions of trusting people from the scourge of disease. A vote in other words for that which failed to accomplish its reason for being.

On the other hand it was a vote for violence in a world where violence, whatever the reason tends to be habituating, thus self-perpetuating, and contagious. Violence in the laboratory doesn't include beating dogs to death before butchering, a la Korean butchers, nor the hanging of dogs a la Spanish monsters. The respective purposes and means are different, but results are often the same; torture and death for the victim. The statistical, moral, and impractical aspects of our lab procedures are not ambiguous, and comprise the threefold reasons necessary to formulate prudent answers. One such reason entails the method (vivitorment) sustained on the basis of an inductive fallacy. Reason two is the folly of sustaining a method that has and does substantially fail to prevent that which is its reason for being i.e., discovery of adequate measures for the treatment and cure of deadly afflictions, and prevention of death. And reason three is the inevitable result of preoccupation with, and adherence to, an odious, and unsatisfactory method namely: the lack of the necessary impetus to discover an acceptable efficient method.

It may be that vivisection's lack of justification either on deductive, inductive or moral grounds as the foregoing disclosure reveals, will finally invoke exposure of invisible attitudes such as: "if the torture and killing of even a million animals everyday would produce benefits to man, and animals; then so be it." It is here that we find what I believe to be an unexpressed rationale for vivitorment, based on an irresponsible opinion, and value judgment. But neither such monstrous opinions or value judgments, can be justified by deduction from statements of fact. How this amalgam of hypothesis and facts will be evaluated by the thoughtful reader is unknown to me. I do think that many people were influenced by the dogmatic contention that; "there is no alternative to vivitorment," which is a misleading truncated statement that cannot be affirmed as truth, and is refuted by experience. Candor would demand a realistic syntax such as: "there is no alternative to vivitorment, a method that has produced noteworthy benefits, but has failed to prevent suffering and death of untold millions of people, while torturing and killing millions of helpless animals."

Such candor did not, and will not evolve from the vivisection camp for obvious reasons. The tragic error of animal experimentation was A. To casually reject justice for animals, and perceive the practice to be in the unequivocal interest of people, a belief that was apparent, but not real. B. To base judgment and conduct on relatively scant positive results, while failing to conclude that a barbaric method was not capable of fulfilling a vital need, even though protracted experience affirmed that fact. Thus interests, both human, and non human will be best served by the abolishment of mutilation, torture and death of animals in the laboratory. Total evidence¹ cannot include the degree and totality of mental and physical anguish suffered by animals in vivitorment laboratories throughout the world. Such knowledge can be known only in principle, but not in practice, now or ever. Accounts of the extent of vivitorment's brutalities have not escaped documentation, but it would be indiscreet to include any segment of such horrifying description on this paper.

Change of the moral and legal status of the animal kingdom requires that people act individually, and en masse on their own initiative. Action too, is power.

Something to think about:
In their book Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan tell of actual laboratory experiments in which monkeys were forced to choose between electroshocking other monkeys and doing without food themselves. Almost all of the monkeys went hungry for up to two weeks rather than shock others. "These macaques -- who have never gone to Sunday school, never heard of the Ten Commandments, never squirmed through a single junior high school civics lesson -- seem courageous in their moral grounding and their resistance to evil....If the situation were reversed, and captive humans were offered the same deal by macaque scientists, would we do as well?"