When asked: Would you knowingly donate to a medical research or health charity that funds experiments on animals, or not? an overwhelming 82 per cent of total respondents answered âNoâ. Just 16 per cent answered âYesâ, with 2 per cent falling into the âDonât knowâ category.
Commissioned by Animal Aid, the GfK NOP poll fieldwork was carried out between August 19 and 21. A total of 1000 respondents â weighted for sex, age, social class and geographical region â were questioned.
The results are bound to seriously unsettle prominent charities, such as the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Parkinsonâs UK and the Alzheimerâs Society. The four bodies are the focus of the Victims of Charitycampaign launched by Animal Aid in June. The campaign exposes the appallingly cruel animal research that they fund and calls for the public to withhold from them all financial support until they switch to humane, non-animal methods of research (1).
Unlike a recent government-commissioned poll (2) that sought respondentsâ support for animal research âfor which there is no alternativeâŚas long as there is no unnecessary sufferingâŚand only for life-threatening diseasesâ, respondents to the new Animal Aid-commissioned NOP poll were asked a straightforward âunloadedâ question.
Two key messages to emerge from the stunning poll results are that:
- Given the huge financial support medical research charities that fund animal research currently receive, it is clear that the public has been kept in the dark about these charitiesâ funding of animal experiments.
- While a significant number of people declare support for animal research where they see it as an activity distant from themselves, when asked if they personally wish to fund such research, an overwhelming majority answer emphatically âNoâ.
Animal Aidâs scientific report, Victims of Charity, describes experiments in which charity-funded researchers deliberately damaged monkeysâ brains with toxic chemicals, slowly and systematically destroyed the hearts of dogs, and injected mice with cancerous tissue. The reportâs authors conclude that laboratory experiments on animals produce information that cannot be reliably applied to human medicine â and can even be dangerously misleading.
The NOP poll news comes as Animal Aid posts 30 anti-vivisection billboards in central London, featuring a photograph of heart disease sufferer Joan Court (3) and her statement: âI wonât support the British Heart Foundation until it stops funding animal experiments.â
Located in prominent West End and Central London sites (4), including some within half a mile of the British Heart Foundation headquarters in Hampstead Road, the billboards will stay up for four weeks. The six-by-four-foot telephone kiosk messages will be followed by national newspaper advertisements in September, with more billboards planned.
Says Animal Aidâs Director, Andrew Tyler:
âIt is clear from these dramatic poll results that most people have no idea that some of their money is being used to pay for appallingly cruel animal experiments â and it seems that the charities are happy with that situation. When the public are asked loaded questions by the animal research establishment, they will give qualified support for what they are told is humane and productive animal experimentation. But when you ask them straight-forwardly if they want their money used for animal research, the answer is a clear cut âNoâ. The charities concerned had best heed this message, and quickly.â
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Notes to Editors
- Animal Aid is urging people to give to charities such as the Caring Cancer Trust, the Childrenâs Research Fund, and the Dr Hadwen Trust, which support only modern, humane and effective techniques including MRI scans, human tissue cultures and computer modelling. Medical research charities, in response to Animal Aidâs Victims of Charity campaign, have implied that they are forced to conduct animal experiments because medicines must first be tested in animals before being administered to human patients. But the charities are funding disease research, not drug testing (which is a regulatory process driven by commercial interests). There is no requirement to use animals in disease research.
- Views on Animal Experimentation is an Ipsos MORI poll conducted on behalf of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) in December 2009. Even when respondents were softened up with pro-experimentation comments, support for animal use peaked at 71% and was as low as 50%.
- A document containing Joan Courtâs statement, and those of 19 other contributors, is available on request. Joanâs full statement reads:Â My name is Joan Court. I am 92 years old and I have ventricular heart failure and arthritis. Under no circumstances would I agree to animal experiments being carried out on my behalf, and I do not believe that any animal experiments would have any relevance to my condition, or to my recovery from a slight stroke.