Europeans are besieged by more than 100,000 chemicals, surreptiously  permeating their systems, inundating their organs and penetrating  their cells. Yet, many do not know it. Approximately 98% of these  intruders have not been tested for their effect on health of humans and the environment. Worldwide, chemicals pervade air, water and soil and do harm; from serious to grave lethal.

Pity!  Pity! Deplorable since it is all avoidable. It takes courage,  right seeing and true science, not denial, trickery and hocus-pocus  science.

The European Commission (EC) has decided that these products  must be evaluated. WITH THIS we concur, but we do not chime in  with the EC putting its faith in animal-based testing; invalid  and harmful, we say beware and cast a nay vote. Moreover, according  to the EC's Registration, Evaluation, Authorization of Chemicals  (REACH) we will get to know the risk, by the year 2020. Not good  deal. No cheers. Sixteen years from now? How come? Wherefore?  Why not 2004, 2005 or 2006 by the latest? Reason being, chemicals  kill living matter, such as us! Sad isn'it? Human cells and human  tissue cultures are yearning to give the correct answer within  the hour or within hours not years distant and afar. The grim  toll continues to mount: cancer rates are increasing, asthma  especially in children is escalating, autism in children is soaring  and the 10 billion-cell human brain is increasingly drifting,  propelled into early dementia.

Human prospects on earth are not that bad or grim as many think  or imagine. But through ignorance, hubris and fiction we squander options, opportunities and offerings. Listen to this: 80% of  all cancers are preventable, two thirds of all diseases are diet  related. Shouldn't we prevent the preventable? Eat right, treat  environment right, and stop wasting resources and treading roads  that mislead. Therefore, to this Forum, the fallacy of testing  chemicals and pharmaceuticals on animals does belong. It is an  environmental issue.

Vivisection (Animal Experimentation) is one of those evils grafted  on the human mind by the false prophets of science and reason.  While some agile minds have rejected the ominous graft, others  have accepted it as an article of faith, not to be questioned,  let alone carefully looked at or seriously examined. And the  verdict had been, is, and always will be: in harming others   human and non human, sentient and non sentient, knowingly and  unknowingly  we harm ourselves. All while being misled,  all while longing for harmony, longevity, security and bounty.  Longing won't do it for us. Hope procrastinates, cowardice defeats,  blind obedience corrupts; figures of authority must be questioned  and held accountable; and, the burden of responsibility is individual,  non transferable. Payday isn't light years away. It is here,  today. Payday is now! Just look: along with higher cancer rates,  asthma, dementia and autism, every survey reveals unrestrained.  We are always paying for what we commit and for what we omit.  Omission is commission.

Some basic facts about vivisection:

1) Animal models differ from their human counterparts. Conclusions drawn from animal research when applied to human disease delay progress, mislead and do harm to the patient. Not to be overlooked  are crucial and sequential differences in anatomy and physiology  between animal and humans. In genuine science, be it biology,  chemistry or mathematics, variances considered minor, on many  occasions invalidate extrapolation: so, in transferring and inferring  from animal to human and assuming the same outcome will follow  is farcical and foolhardy. Many drugs that were tested on animals  and considered safe for humans, were proven unsafe when administered  to humans.

2) Animal experimentation inevitably leads to human experimentation.  Animal experimentation is a cover-up hiding and legitimatising  human experimentation. Animal experimentation does not prevent  human experimentation. A de facto license to kill and bruise  humans without being accused, questioned, arrested or punished,  merely serving as a precursor, a prelude to the human misadventure. Vivisectors may try it on animals a thousand and  one times, but the moment they move on to the human condition,  still, they will be experimenting on humans.

3) The discovery of cause and effect between smoking and lung cancer came as a result of studies of human populations, not  animals in the lab that never developed lung cancer after being  exposed to smoking in the animal laboratory. Similarly, studies  of human populations, established that heart attacks are much  more frequent in individuals who smoke, have high colesterol,  high blood pressure and sedentary life. Some goes for strokes  and diabetes. They experimented and experimented, used and abused  millions of animals, to no avail, merely wasting lives and misleading  themselves and others who trusted them.

4) The claim that we owe most of our advances and breakthroughs  in medicine to vivisection is false. Even whatever little, minuscule benefit came out of the infamous chamber of horrors (the animal laboratory) it could have been obtained by other means. None  of the following momentous discoveries came through animal experimentation:  the circulation of blood, cardiac catheterization, x-rays, CT  scan, magnetic resonance, radium for cancer treatment, the standard  microscope, the electron microscope, anticoagulants, blood transfusion  and blood groups, penicillin, sulfa drugs, cepholosporins, streptomycin,  diuretics, beta blockers, digitalis, coronary bypass surgery,  angioplasty; and more and more. If anything, animal experimentation  has impeded, mislead and delayed progress. Who pays the price?  All animals, including the leader of the pack, Homosapiens: Us!

5) Alternatives to animal experimentation are many, versatile, available, more reliable, and scientific, not pseudoscientific  like vivisection is. Here are some: cell culture, tissue culture,  organ culture, epidemiologic studies, clinical research (not  experimentation) and autopsy studies, bacterial and protozoal  culture, DNA studies. Animal experimentation is not only wasteful  and unnecessary but also unjust to humans and animals alike.

6) Finally, animal experimentation and animal exploitation in  all forms have no scientific proof, no religious basis, no philosophical  merit, no ethical vindication and no health reason; therefore  they must be stopped.

Moneim A. Fadali, M.D.

F.A.C.S.

President, Doctors and Lawyers For Responsible Medicine (DLRM)

Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeon