[book] Animal Research Takes Lives by Bette Overell  In 1985 Lazard Securities Ltd exposed the British RSPCA for collaborating with the vivisection syndicate, thus maintaining double standards.  To the Society's extreme embarrassment and detriment, and to the announcement from the combined animal societies that it was "absolutely outrageous" it was exposed that the RSPCA has massive investments in companies which undertake vivisection programmes using hundreds of thousands of animals.  Two of these companies the RSPCA itself had criticised in a report to the Home Office for conducting experiments which run counter to all the Society stands for!  In possession of over eight million pounds sterling collected in public donations and legacies the RSPCA has secretly invested the following amounts in vivisection laboratories:

(Note: ICI (Crop Care Rural Division) is a member of the Agricultural Chemical and Animals Remedies Manufacturers Association of N.Z. (AGCARM)... CO-PUBLISHERS OF ANIMAL RESEARCH SAVES LIVES).

The British RSPCA was also exposed as having, as at September 1983, thirtyfour thousand pounds sterling invested in South African gold mines, and large holdings in a controversial British-based mining giant Rio Tinto Inc.

Though the above may shock the novice it reveals only the tip of the iceberg.  Time Out, May 23 1985, exposed that the collaboration between the RSPCA animal-lovers and the biomedical community was epitomised at a House of Commons cocktail party organised by the Society to which were invited the bastions of the commercial animal trade (those who supply animals to laboratories).  This included the man who had designed the infamous monkey cage which figured prominently in a successful and historic cruelty case against the prestigious Royal College of Surgeons.  (Comprehensive report of which is seen in NZAVS Mobilise! No. 11, March 1985.)  It also revealed with outspoken criticism that the RSPCA Animal Experimentation Advisory Committee was composed of:

• Dr D.B. Morton: Research Defence Society (promoter of the "animal model").
• Terrence Hornett: Animal Superintendent of the infamous Glaxo vivisection laboratories.
• Prof. Patrick Wall: Head of the Cerebral Functions Unit at University College, London.
• A research consultant with a background in testing drugs, cosmetics and toiletries.
• And other vivisectors.

It was around this time that the New Zealand Animal Ethics Advisory Committee was established.  (The composition of which was published in Mobilise! No. 15, July 1986.)  For the benefit of the reader who believes that the British situation should not be dredged up because of geographics, the glaring similarities of the unlikely candidates chosen to advise on animal ethics in New Zealand is predictably repeated:

• Mr I.L. Baumgart: (ex Senior Scientist DSIR) (Chairman Toxic Substances Board 1980).
• Dr P.J. O'Hara: (Animal Health Division MAF).
• Dr C.H. MacLaurin: School of Medicine, University of Auckland (Representing the Royal Society of N.Z.).
• Dr C.S.W. Reid: Applied Biochemistry Division, DSIR, Wellington.
• Prof. A.R. McGiven: Dept of Pathology, Christchurch Clinical School of Medicine, Christchurch Hospital.
• Mrs C.H.B. Smith: (Representing N.Z. Veterinary Assn) Hamilton.
  
  And
   
• Mr N.E. Wells: RNZSPCA Auckland.
• Mrs P.N. Loague: RNZSPCA Taupo.

The RNZSPCA, soliciting support for the vivisectors, with whom this article has revealed it is so blatantly aligned, wrote to NZAVS on August 10 1987 inviting the N.Z. Anti-Vivisection Society to nominate applicants to be appointed to the newly-formed Animal Ethics Committees which were set up to decide which experiments are ethical and which are unethical.  On August 23 1987 the Society declined this dubious honour.  In a letter from John Blincoe, M.P. for Nelson, which resulted from a Parliamentary Question in the House we learn that the $8,130.35 of the taxpayers' money poured into the booklet ARSL by MAF was done so "on the recommendation of the National Animal Ethics Advisory Committee"... on which the RNZSPCA had two representatives!  Demonstrating yet again that instead of dis-associating itself from the vivisectors the respected RNZSPCA working hand in glove with them set its stamp of approval on the publication and distribution of ARSL.

Back to Great Britain and Judith Hampson, "Chief Animal Experimentation Research Officer" for seven years with the RSPCA, and now one of the Society's consultants, was a key figure in defending vivisection in Great Britain by helping draft the infamous Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, which received the Royal Assent on May 20 1986 and came into force on January 1 1987.  The Act controls all experiments carried out on animals in Great Britain which now permits by law, animals to be subjected to micro (experimental) surgery, the LD50 Test, repeated experiments on individual animals... and anesthetics to be used "whenever practicable"!  Consequently, this supporter and promoter of vivisection was in 1984 invited to Australia, her fare paid by the Australia and New Zealand Federation of Animal Societies to write the Submission to the Australian Senate Inquiry into Animal Experimentation.  This policy is now being used by the New Zealand Government to combat advocates of abolition.