Dear :

I am writing to inform you that I will not support your organization as long as you continue to fund cruel experiments on animals.

There are many reasons why I oppose vivisection. Enormous physiological variations exist among human and nonhuman animals. In many cases, animal studies do not just hurt nonhuman animals and waste money; they harm and kill humans, too. The drugs thalidomide, Zomax, and DES were all tested on animals and judged safe but had devastating consequences for the humans who used them. A General Accounting Office report, released in May 1990, found that more than half of the prescription drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration between 1976 and 1985 caused side effects that were serious enough to cause the drugs to be withdrawn from the market or labeled differently. All of these drugs had been tested on animals.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine reports that sophisticated non-animal research methods are more accurate, less expensive, and less time-consuming than traditional animal-based research methods. Patients waiting for helpful drugs and treatments could be spared years of suffering if companies and government agencies would implement the efficient alternatives to animal studies. Fewer accidental deaths caused by drugs and treatments would occur if the more accurate alternatives were used.

Many noted physicians have spoken against vivisection. Dr. Albert Sabin, who developed the oral polio vaccine, testified at a congressional hearing: "[p]aralytic polio could be dealt with only by preventing the irreversible destruction of the large number of motor nerve cells, and the work on prevention was delayed by an erroneous conception of the nature of the human disease based on misleading experimental models of the disease in monkeys" (Stoller, Kenneth, M.D., "Animal Testing: Why a Doctor Opposes It," The Orlando Sentinel, June 25, 1990.). Dr. Charles Mayo, founder of the Mayo Clinic, stated, "I abhor vivisection. It should at least be curbed. Better, it should be abolished. I know of no achievement through vivisection, no scientific discovery, that could not have been obtained without such barbarism and cruelty. The whole thing is evil" (Quoted by William H. Hendrix, New York Daily News, Mar. 13, 1961).

Vivisection is immoral. Non-human animals are not research tools. They are individuals capable of experiencing not only crude emotions like fear, but far more subtle and complex emotions such as love, grief, pride, shame, joy, and loneliness. The cognitive psychologist, Bernard Baars stated, "The basic facts have come home at last. We are not the only conscious creatures on earth."

Many health charities meet their research needs with exclusively non-animal research methods. I will support these organizations instead of those that continue to fund animal experiments. I will encourage my family, friends, and business associates to do the same.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

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