The animal testing industry makes propaganda

The animal testing industry makes propaganda
05.09.2022
France
The animal testing industry makes propaganda
Animal testing

We often have a habit of representing people who practice animal testing as monsters void of empathy. However, the situation is more complex: lobbyists and the industry seem to manipulate public opinion just as well as those who practice animal testing.

Wednesday 15 June in Marseille. In the halls at the international FELASA 2022 congress there is the same happy look as any other conference, the same cheery networking fed by petits fours and pleasantries. The speeches are generally well done, to the point that you would almost agree with the comments on the importance of animal welfare and the rhetorical fallacies repeated excessively.

But if we read between the lines, that which is implicit and remains unsaid is blindingly obvious: we are talking about exploitation, about discrimination so anchored in society that it is no longer even considered an injustice. All year long, these people keep animals captive and make them suffer in various ways.

Propaganda even in magazines

Among the material suppliers and financers present at the congress, we find Ellegaard in particular, a producer of Göttingen minipigs. These minipigs are used to a great extent in various research domains. On the Ellegaard website, you can see a chain of images of cheerful piglets: playing with a ball, being stroked by a laboratory technician and so on. Never a dead pig, never one drop of blood, never the slightest sign of suffering.

Even in their professional journal and in their pamphlets, the rural images follow one after the other and are much the same, except when it talks about experimentation itself. To illustrate a model of heart failure, we must make do with a diagram taken from a scientific article. The worst images that we could find were, in number 60 of the business’ magazine, a tiny image of a blood test and a sutured foot.

Sterilised footage

The pamphlet from the company BASi is of the same ilk: on one side, animals with fuzzy edges cut on a computer and superimposed on a white background; on the other, as a demonstration of the use of sale cages, a figurine of a pig. The photographs were not even available on the manufacturer website.

And there is still the same problem among other manufacturers, who prefer to show inhalation towers and other restraint devices without animals, and to offer drawings or diagrams to illustrate these procedures.

Regarding Fine Science Tools (whose acronym FST is also the acronym for forced swim test), we only see surgical instruments in their catalogue and on their stand. We may be told that these instruments are the same as those used in human surgery – but we allow ourselves to doubt this when it comes to the “decapitation scissors”.

Nauseating indecency

Further, the business representatives smile and joyfully allow us to take a photo of the cuddly toy rats that are particularly cute. Their skulls are kitted out with various instruments and they seem to be there to draw attention to the stand.

And the publicity goes even further in indecency. Tecniplast sings praises for its cages with a photograph that is reminiscent of the famous Creation of Adam painting, showing God and man’s fingers touching. Except it is the gloved finger of someone who practices animal testing and a rat’s paw, pressing against the plastic box in which it is going to spend its life. This rat has certainly been killed by now.

Buttering them up

And it is not over. Because in addition to masking the reality of the experiments and make believing in a special and positive relationship between animals and people who participate in their exploitation, the industry does not forget to present it all as humanitarian work.

In the Afstal journal, Marshall (who we know in France for its dog breeding for laboratories) depicts a small girl embracing her grandmother. The message written is aimed at those who practice animal testing: “Thank you, your work with the ferrets creates cures and saves lives”. Evidently, they are not talking about the ferrets’ lives.

These are not monsters – but their actions are monstrous

With all of this propaganda surrounding us, we can understand that researchers and laboratory technicians think that their work is commendable. To tell the truth, even without this propaganda, we know that the prospect of helping to advance science helps people to put their empathy towards animals to one side.

So there is no need to talk about the violent people and sociopaths (who exist in the animal testing environment as they do elsewhere): force of habit and lack of empathy can prevent almost anyone from seeing the horror of their own actions.

Also, when a document entitled a caring career manages to pass off the image of a person cleaning a plastic box full of mice amongst around ten other identical boxes on a shelf as benevolent, it has to be said that the fight is far from over.

This article is the third in a series which will present different aspects of the FELASA 2022 congress:

1. Transparency and communication strategies in animal testing
2. Language elements and rhetorical fallacies in animal testing
3. The animal testing industry makes propaganda
4. The ethical short-sightedness of animal testing
5. Will there soon be more primates in laboratories?

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

One Voice is campaigning for laboratory dogs in around fifteen towns in France!

One Voice is campaigning for laboratory dogs in around fifteen towns in France!
01.09.2022
France
One Voice is campaigning for laboratory dogs in around fifteen towns in France!
Animal testing

One Voice is organising coordinated national action in around fifteen towns in France against the breeding of dogs destined for laboratories in Mézilles in Yonne and Gannat in Allier.Like every year in the first weekend of September, a rally will therefore happen in front of the Auxerre Prefecture; and in Gannat, the first anniversary of the ‘#FreeTheMBRBeaglesFrance’ will be celebrated in front of the breeding farm from this weekend.For other towns: Dignes, Nice, Troyes, Aix en Provence, La Rochelle, Bordeaux, Montpellier, Blois, Nantes, Metz, Strasbourg, Lyon, and Lille, the address, date, and time of our audience participation events are outlined at the end of the report.

At the Breeding Centre for Biological Matter (CEDS: Centre d’Élevage du Domaine des Souches) in Mézilles near Auxerre and in the Gannat breeding farm, many male and female beagles and golden retrievers suffer in their pens but this is nothing compared with what awaits. These dogs are destined for laboratory scalpels.

In 2017 in Gannat in Allier, the American giant Marshall BioResources (MBR) recommenced beagle breeding, before buying back the biggest dog breeding farm for laboratories in France, the one in Mézilles in Yonne, in 2021.

A purchase justified by the Vice President for Europe at MBR:

“One beagle in ten used in Europe [in laboratories] is imported from the United States[…] The majority of these beagles are Marshall beagles. Nowadays, the logistics are becoming a major problem since, under the pressure from activists, the possibilities of importation are becoming more and more tricky. More and more costly.”

Our proceedings have avoided these breeding farms getting any bigger, and thus avoided this fate for thousands of individuals. Our investigation footage means that year after year the public can see how many dogs suffer in these breeding farms. Our actions have meant that the horror of transporting dogs for laboratories can be highlighted.

Our country is one of the ones that tests the most on dogs in Europe. The figures are increasing.

The collection of signatures on the SaveCrueltyFreeCosmetics ECI has just come to an end; we have succeeded in getting 1,413,383 European citizens involved for a Europe without animal testing! This is a massive initial victory, but the fight is not over. We still need the public to rally at key moments following events on a European level.

France must resolutely look to the future and call for an end to this suffering.

National action listing all participating local One Voice activist branches.

Consult the event before going there.
They are updated live and can be changed up until the last minute.

Department	Town	Online event	Precise Location	Time
03	Gannat – 02 & 03/09	https://www.facebook.com/events/786203849234085	15 Av. des portes Occitanes	From 02 Sept. 3pm to 03 Sept., 6pm
04	Dignes – 04/09	https://www.facebook.com/events/1586861908395824/	Plan d’Eau in Dignes les bains	11am to 1:30pm
06	Nice – 10 /09	https://www.facebook.com/events/1954225988120340	Place Massena	12:15pm to 1:15pm
10	Troyes – 03/09	https://www.facebook.comevents/409220567978979	71 Rue Émile Zola	3:30pm to 6pm
13	Aix en Provence – 04/09	https://www.facebook.com/events/1060952324793429	Allées de Provence	11am to 12:30pm
17	La Rochelle – 03/09	https://www.facebook.com/events/750811346190084	Cours des Dames	2:30pm to 5pm
33	Bordeaux – 04/09	https://www.facebook.com/events/1721999478134043	Mirroir d’eau	2pm to 4pm
34	Montpellier – 03/09	https://www.facebook.com/events/370232428608142	Place de la Comédie	10:30am to 12pm
41	Blois – 04/09	https://www.facebook.com/events/414434970560539	Les 3 Clés	3pm to 4:30pm
44	Nantes – 10/09	https://www.facebook.com/events/763399314774934	Town Centre	11am to 12:30pm
57	Metz – 03/09	https://www.facebook.com/events/1111640606143032	64 Rue Serpenoise	2:30pm to 4pm
67	Strasbourg – 11/09	https://www.facebook.com/events/5290623120975066/	Rue du Corbeau	2:15pm to 4pm
69	Lyon – 24/09	https://www.facebook.com/events/1772838746381806	Place St Jean	3:00pm to 5:00pm
59	Lille – 10/09	https://www.facebook.com/events/1234890957244923/	Place Richebé	4pm to 6pm
89	Auxerre – 03/09	https://www.facebook.com/events/1357352751435732	Rue du Temple	11am to 1pm

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

At this very moment, an airline company based in Malta is sending monkeys to American laboratories!

At this very moment, an airline company based in Malta is sending monkeys to American laboratories!
01.09.2022
International At this very moment, an airline company based in Malta is sending monkeys to American laboratories!
Animal testing

Our partner Action for Primates has been informed that a plane belonging to Maleth-Aero — an airline company based in Malta — has just left Cambodia with 360 long-tailed macaques on board and is heading towards Houston in Texas, destined for laboratories. We think that this airline company, whose parent company is AELF FlightService, has recently stepped in to take over the trade given up by others like Egyptair. We, Action for Primates, One Voice, PETA US, and Stop Camarles, are determined to track and campaign against all airline companies who continue to take part in this cruel and inhumane trade.

During the last week, the same plane carried out another flight from Cambodia and one from Vietnam to the Dulles International Airport in the United States. We suspect that on these two occasions, the airline company transported monkeys for the research industry in order to be subjected in particular to toxicity testing (poisoning). After a stopover in Tbilisi in Georgia, the monkeys were made to take a journey totalling more than 21 hours including several hours on the ground. We have contacted American authorities to take part in our investigations when it comes to the welfare of the monkeys on board these flights.

Numerous airline companies, recently including Egyptair, Air France, and Kenya Airways, have put a stop to their involvement in this brutal worldwide trade. Subjecting sensitive and intelligent animals to the stress of being transported over long distances through numerous climates and time zones in order to send them to laboratories is inhumane.

Long-tailed macaques (native to Cambodia) have recently been classified as being an endangered species. They have therefore been put on the IUCN Red List. What is it that threatens them on an international level? The global research industry, the demand for which comes particularly from the United States, Japan, China, and the EU…

Send an email to Maleth-Aero urging the airline company to stop transporting monkeys for research purposes and for toxicity testing: charter@maleth-aero.com and admin@maleth-aero.com

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Language elements and rhetorical fallacies in animal testing

Language elements and rhetorical fallacies in animal testing
26.08.2022
France
Language elements and rhetorical fallacies in animal testing
Animal testing

Between the new elements of language and the constant recycling of the same rhetorical fallacies, transparency is far from the only thing lacking in the discourse of people who defend animal testing. We are reviewing these lobbies’ new communication strategies and their hypocrisy.

Tuesday 14 June in Marseille. Entering into a massive hall, dedicated to the businesses who sell laboratory ‘materials’, from litter to transgenic animals, cages, experimental equipment, and cleaning appliances. These same businesses, the revenues for which rely exclusively on animal testing for some, are funding the FELASA Congress 2022 on the theme of ‘communication’.

Hardly surprising, in such a setting, that the ‘key messages’ put forward are the importance of this exploitation for human health, the ‘irreplaceable’ character of ‘experimental’ animals, and the constant priority that is ‘animal welfare’.

“Care culture”

The journal by STAL (Sciences et Techniques de l’Animal de Laboratoire) was published by the AFSTAL (French Association for Laboratory Animal Science & Techniques), who co-organised the congress. In Volume 50 of the journal, we found a translation of the document on “care culture”^[1], a ‘comprehensive and demonstrable institution-wide commitment”, going “beyond simple compliance with regulations in force”…

It is difficult to reconcile this new language element from the animal testing lobbies with the practice of animal testing, which confines animals for their whole lives and subjects them to suffering that has no benefit for them or that could largely be avoided if we gave ourselves the means.

Communication strategies: necessary, additional, and normal

To accompany this attempt to present themselves as benefactors, animal testing circles look to pass their practices off as trivial and clear activities that we do not need to question.

Thierry Decelle (Sanofi) therefore encourages his colleagues to hijack the debate on substitute methods by integrating them into everything, which also includes animal testing:

«We must change the ‘exit strategy’ paradigm as proposed by animal rights activists with a strategy of inclusion of non-animal methods.» Thierry Decelle / Sanofi, STAL n° 49

After all, why talk about research into substitution methods and the end of animal testing when we can ignore the problem?

Kirk Leech (Executive Director of the European animal testing lobby) maintains that in his opinion, it is better to talk about successes in animal testing rather than care or substitute methods. His goal: to influence public opinion by deluging the media with hopes of new treatments, voluntarily ignoring the horrors of animal testing and its incompatibility with moral consideration.

Apparently, the fact that these types of declarations have been made for decades to simply disappear in the archives of history without having helped anyone does not matter.

The pot calling the kettle black

In this game of bad faith, France has won the gold medal at the FELASA Congress. A special mention to a representative from CHU in Lille, who, in a dismissive manner, compared the idea of granting rights to non-human primates with animal trials in the Middle Ages.

He goes on to argue that since more than 80% of Nobel prizes have awarded research using animals, research cannot happen without animals. We wonder what he thinks of the fact that more than 90% of Nobel prizes have rewarded men…

After these enormities which did not make the experimenters react on the spot, it is difficult not to laugh grudgingly when a lobbyist for the umpteenth time reproaches their bad faith in the animal activists who film practices of abuse in laboratories to reveal only a few minutes of video to the general public.

Bad faith is wrong – but only when it comes from their opponents.

^[1]The word care has several meanings. To care about means to be interested in or concerned about someone or something. To care for and to take care of, mean to be concerned about something or to take care of someone. As a noun, care can bring attention to a task to be done correctly, or the care necessary for health or for protecting someone.

This article is the second in a series which will present different aspects of the FELASA 2022 congress

1. Transparency and communication strategies in animal testing
2. Language elements and rhetorical fallacies in animal testing
3. The animal testing industry makes propaganda
4. The ethical short-sightedness of animal testing
5. Will there soon be more primates in laboratories?

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Transparency and communication strategies in animal testing

Transparency and communication strategies in animal testing
22.08.2022
Marseille
Transparency and communication strategies in animal testing
Animal testing

From 12 to 16 June an international congress on animal testing (FELASA 2022) is being held in Marseille, gathering together those who practice animal testing throughout the world. Listening to what is being said, we understand that claims of transparency put forward in the last few years are just a communication strategy to attract public favour.

Monday 13 June in Marseille. Two buildings, around fifteen rooms, a huge exhibition hall, and more than one thousand people. The FELASA 2022 congress, co-organised in Marseille by the French Association of Science and Technology in Laboratory Animals (Afstal), has clearly been a success. One Voice was there in order to hear what is being said on the most talked about topic of the year: ‘communication’.

Origins of ‘transparency’

Since February 2021, you have probably heard of the “transparency charter” on animal testing, produced by the Interprofessional Group of Reflection and Communication in Research (Gircor, a French animal testing lobby group). This charter is not a French invention, since a document of the same type was released in England in 2012 and numerous other countries followed.

If you think this is good news, think again: these charters look to change public opinion, which has become more and more negative towards animal testing in recent years. As the slogan of the congress says well, “it’s all about communication”.

‘Transparency’ methods

In fact, the president of the European lobby on animal testing insisted on the benefits of being ‘proactive’ in processing information during the open session. For example, the figures on animal testing can be obtained, negotiated, and broadcast quickly by lobbies, which allows them to put forward a message favouring their interests. Animal rights associations, who will take longer to communicate, therefore have no reverberation in the media.

At the heart of the lobbies’ message is the idea that animal testing is ‘vital’, ‘necessary’ for health and science, ‘well regulated’, and ‘managed’ by the ‘ethical’ principles of the 3Rs (Replacement, Reduction, Refinement). Affirmations that we find in transparency charters and on the websites of the majority of those who have signed these charters, with no more information.

Convince, convince, convince

Throughout the congress, a speaker from the University of Washington in Seattle defined transparency as ‘engaging’ the public on the subject of animal testing. But as was seen on the slides, the goal was in fact to win them over to their cause. Hence the project by this University to appoint a full-time person to work on its communication strategy on this subject.

After all, why spend money on developing alternatives when we can use it to manipulate public opinion?

Transparency… in private

Even though the common problems of animal testing are never mentioned in public, the context of the congress, between colleagues, loosens some tongues. The person responsible for an “organisation responsible for animal welfare” acknowledges for example that some colleagues still tell him regularly that they see no problem with mice being caught by their tail (something which causes stress for these animals).

And the informal discussions with French people present on site are just as interesting, in particular concerning the significant deficiencies in the evaluation and project authorisation systems…

Thus, after having scratched the surface of empty public speeches that aim to be reassuring, we still have a bitter taste in our mouths when it comes to those who still dare to talk about transparency in animal testing… in particular when we must systematically go through tribunals to obtain public documents.

This article is the first in a series which will present different aspects of the FELASA 2022 congress:

1. Transparency and communication strategies in animal testing
2. Language elements and rhetorical fallacies in animal testing
3. The animal testing industry makes propaganda
4. The ethical short-sightedness of animal testing
5. Will there soon be more primates in laboratories?

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Forced swimming: the businesses moving forward and the industry that resists

Forced swimming: the businesses moving forward and the industry that resists
16.08.2022
International
Forced swimming: the businesses moving forward and the industry that resists
Animal testing

After our denunciation of electric shock procedures and forced swimming authorised in France this year and us bringing to light the images and practices of forced swimming in France, the Ministry of Research did not react. Elsewhere in the world, businesses and universities are abandoning this test, while anglophone lobbies defend it and pass it off as being essential to the general public, even if it means making muddy comparisons and abandoning any critical thinking.

Image: screenshot of « Animal Models of Depression – Chronic Despair Model (CDM) »

For several weeks, you have rallied with us on social networks to appeal to the Ministry of Research and ask them to ban forced swimming tests. You can keep the pressure on with the model tweets and the letters presented in our previous articles and encourage businesses and French universities to join in with the model tweets proposed at the end of the article.

Interrogated by the media, the Ministry limited itself to repeating the usual clichés on the regulations and ethics committees, failing to comment on the suffering of these animals and to mention the letter that we sent them asking for them to communicate the details of the project reported in order to be able to verify how the existence of alternatives has been evaluated — a letter that they only recently responded to with the same clichés they gave to the media.

Leaders in research are abandoning the forced swimming test but the industry is resisting

Abroad, the PETA association has been campaigning since 2018 against the use of the forced swimming test by large research companies. Between 2018 and 2021, around fifteen companies confirmed that they would no longer use these tests. When Johnson & Johnson, Roche Pharma, AstraZeneca, Sage Therapeutics, Pfizer, Bayer, or GlaxoSmithKline have gone in this direction, we have to ask why this test does not purely and simply disappear from authorised practices.

In reaction to these campaigns and their broadcast in the media, the United States lobby Speaking of Research (SoR) did not hesitate in writing a post at the beginning of 2020 to condemn ‘irresponsible journalism’, while the British lobby Understanding Animal Research (UAR) published a summary sheet in October 2020 (unpublished since but recorded on the web archive), then a new article and video in Spring 2021 on this subject. This supported the English University of Bath’s refusal to stop forced swimming tests in particular (condemned by PETA in a video published at the end of 2020, below).

Animal testing lobbies ruin their own credibility

As usual with animal testing lobbies, their content talks more about depression and good practice than the animals and the impact of this test on them. SoR maintains that animal advocates exaggerate their suffering and UAR explains that the animals are not left in the water until exhaustion and that they float naturally.

The two lobbies however carefully avoid finding out why the animals give up fighting and what this involves psychologically for them.
The summary sheet by UAR was content in saying that this test stresses the animals “in the same way as when a wild rat finds itself in a cold climate in winter”… based on a 1979 study that compares leaving rats in a cold room at 4°C for hours and making them swim five times for one minute at thirty minute intervals in 10°C water. Nothing to do with this subject, which may explain why their 2021 post just does not address the issue of the stress inflicted upon these animals.

And SoR’s credibility regarding strict methodology is not the best: the post cites a study from 2012 saying that they were making the mice swim for six minutes and the rats for fifteen minutes… while the fifteen minutes mentioned in the study relates to a ‘pre-test’ carried out the day before, and not the test itself (which lasts five minutes for the rats). When we know that there are these organisations that regularly criticise animal associations and present themselves as specialists available to the media, we are right to ask questions on their motivations…

Help us to put a stop to these tests

It is unacceptable that these tests carry on nowadays. We have no right to make these animals suffer for our own interests. Over the next few weeks, we will tell you more about the alternatives worth considering to help people suffering with depression.

You can act by supporting PETA France’s petition which asks Sanofi to stop forced swimming tests, and by soliciting major universities on Twitter and French businesses who have participated in these tests in recent years:

A request for engagement

I am asking the @PierreFabre company to lobby against forced swimming tests – rodents are not laboratory equipment! #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting #AnimalTesting https://bit.ly/3T5XLv1 via @onevoiceanimal

I am asking the @activinside company to lobby against forced swimming tests – rodents are not laboratory equipment! #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting #AnimalTesting https://bit.ly/3T5XLv1 via @onevoiceanimal

I am asking the @GustaveRoussy company to lobby against forced swimming tests – rodents are not laboratory equipment! #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting #AnimalTesting https://bit.ly/3T5XLv1 via @onevoiceanimal

Development of alternative methods

I am asking @InsermIDF to lobby against forced swimming tests at the Institute of Psychiatry and Neuroscience of Paris and to develop alternative methods! #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting #AnimalTesting https://bit.ly/3T5XLv1 via @onevoiceanimal

I am asking @INSB_CNRS and @Inserm to lobby against forced swimming tests and to develop alternative methods! #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting #AnimalTesting https://bit.ly/3T5XLv1 via @onevoiceanimal

I am asking @IBPS_Paris to lobby against forced swimming tests and to develop alternative methods! #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting #AnimalTesting https://bit.ly/3T5XLv1 via @onevoiceanimal

Research on prevention

I am asking @NCMagendie to lobby against forced swimming tests and to favour research on the prevention of depression! #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting #AnimalTesting https://bit.ly/3T5XLv1 via @onevoiceanimal

I am asking @unistra to lobby against forced swimming tests and to favour research on the prevention of depression! #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting #AnimalTesting https://bit.ly/3T5XLv1 via @onevoiceanimal

I am asking @UnivParisSaclay and @InsermIDF to lobby against forced swimming tests and to favour research on the prevention of depression! #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting #AnimalTesting https://bit.ly/3T5XLv1 via @onevoiceanimal

Development of serious training in psychology

I am asking @AgenceRecherche to no longer support forced swimming tests and to support the development of training in psychology deserving of the 21st century! #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting #AnimalTesting https://bit.ly/3T5XLv1 via @onevoiceanimal

I am asking @APHP to no longer support forced swimming tests and to support the development of training in psychiatry deserving of the 21st century! #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting #AnimalTesting https://bit.ly/3T5XLv1 via @onevoiceanimal

 

This article is the third in a series of five on forced swimming:

1. Electric shocks and forced swimming in France in 2022
2. Forced swimming: footage
3. Forced swimming: the businesses moving forward and the industry that resists
4. Forced swimming: other approaches are possible
5. Forced swimming: a long-term battle (to come)

Translated from the French by Joely Justice