This article is about the British animal welfare charity. For the US-based vegetarianism and veganism organisation, see North American Vegetarian Society.
The National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS) is an international not-for-profit animal protection group, based in London, working to end animal testing, and focused on the replacement of animals in research with advanced, scientific techniques. Since 2006, the NAVS has operated its international campaigns under the working name Animal Defenders International (ADI), and the two groups now work together under the ADI name.
Public opposition to vivisection led the Government to appoint the First Royal Commission on Vivisection in July 1875; it reported its findings on 8 January 1876, recommending that special legislation be enacted to control vivisection. This led to the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876, which reached the statute book on 15 August 1876. This Act remained in force for 110 years, until it was replaced by the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986.[1]
The Victoria Street Society had advocated restriction of vivisection but from 1878 onwards declared total abolition of vivisection.[5] This caused some early members such as George Hoggan the then honorary secretary and vice-president Archbishop of York William Thomson to resign.[5] Cobb commented that the total abolitionist policy of vivisection introduced "a large batch of fresh recruits of new members who had long resented our previous half-hearted policy as they considered it to have been".[5]
In 1897 the growing Victoria Street Society changed its name to the National Anti-Vivisection Society.[1]Stephen Coleridge was the director of NAVS.[6]
In 1969, NAVS formed the International Association against Painful Experiments on Animals (IAAPEA).[7] In 1990 the Society, having outgrown the premises in Harley Street it had occupied since 1964 (a move engineered by the then Secretary, Wilfred Risdon), moved to Goldhawk Road, London, with a subsequent move in 2006 to Millbank Tower, London.
Abolition
From 1878–1898, the National Anti-Vivisection Society had demanded total abolition of vivisection.[5] In 1898, Stephen Coleridge took control of the executive committee and attempted to introduce restrictive legislative proposals. He envisioned progressively more stringent measures leading to total abolition.[5] At a Council meeting on 9 February 1898 the following resolution was passed:
The Council affirms that, while the demand for the total abolition of vivisection will ever remain the ultimate object of the National Anti-Vivisection Society, the Society is not thereby precluded from making efforts in Parliament for lesser measures, having for its object the saving of animals from scientific torture.[1]
The resolution was carried by 29 votes to 23. Cobbe did not want the Society to promote any measure short of abolition. She was living in semiretirement in Wales at the time and was furious with this decision. In response, she founded the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection.[5]
Brown Dog affair
In 1906, a statue was erected in Battersea Park of a brown terrier dog, one of a number of animals described in the journals of two Swedish anti-vivisection campaigners that was reported to have been illegally dissected during a demonstration to medical students at the University of London. The inscription on the statue reads:
In memory of the Brown Terrier Dog done to death in the laboratories of University College in February 1903, after having endured vivisection extending over more than two months and having been handed from one vivisector to another until death came to his release. Also in memory of the 232 dogs vivisected at the same place during the year 1902. Men and women of England, how long shall these things be?"
The statue became the target of animal researchers and London University medical students; students rioted at the site; anti-vivisectionists defended their statue; the elderly Frances Power Cobbe was attacked in her office. After years of conflict, the statue mysteriously disappeared in 1910.
The NAVS and others [citation needed] erected a new statue with the same inscription in 1985, again in Battersea Park, where it remains to this day.
Second Royal Commission on Vivisection
In 1906 the Government appointed the Second Royal Commission on Vivisection. This Second Royal Commission heard a great deal of evidence from the NAVS and other interested parties. It published its findings in 1912, recommending an increase in the numbers of Home Office Inspectors; further limitations with regard to the use of curare (a paralysing drug which does not deaden pain, but can heighten it); stricter provisions as to the definition and practice of pithing; additional restrictions regulating the painless destruction of animals which show signs of suffering after experimentation; a change in the method of selecting, and in the constitution of, the advisory body of the Secretary of State*; and keeping of special records by vivisectors. (*This body, under the new 1986 Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, is called the Animal Procedures Committee).
This was a long way from abolition; it did not deal with the issue of secrecy and public accountability; it left the vivisection community protected from outside control and scrutiny. Although each successive Home Secretary attached ‘pain conditions’ to all experiments, the ‘conditions’ were so worded that they afforded no protection to the animals whatsoever.
The NAVS believes there are good scientific arguments against the use of animals in research, not least because of the misleading results from animal experiments, due to species differences. Thus, they argue, abolishing animal research would be in the public interest. However, to pursue such a case would be prohibitively expensive.
In 1963, with animal experiments running into millions each year and a public deprived of information on the issue, the Government set up a ‘Departmental Committee on Experiments on Living Animals’ to consider the use of animals in research, and whether any changes in legislation were necessary. In 1965 the Littlewood Committee, as it was known, published 83 recommendations, and although none of the recommendations were designed to bring an end to animal experiments, no legislation was passed to put any of them into effect anyway.
Throughout the 20th Century, the NAVS lobbied government and drafted various Bills against a seemingly unstoppable rise in animal experiments ‘reaching almost 6 million per year in the UK by the 1970s’. When the trade in monkeys for use in vaccine tests devastated India's population of rhesus macaques, NAVS representatives went to India and successfully lobbied for a ban on the export of these animals, which was introduced in 1978.
In 1973, the NAVS, now based in Harley Street, London, sought a new strategy and founded the Lord Dowding Fund for Humane Research.[1] The Fund was named after Lord Dowding, the Air Chief Marshal and Battle of Britain WW2 hero. After the war, Lord Dowding became President of the NAVS and in the House of Lords made many impassioned speeches on animal experiments. His wife Lady Dowding was also an NAVS Council member (later becoming President after her husband's death).[1]
This new strategy was to make positive steps to replace the use of animals in research, and to show that animal research is not necessary for medical and scientific progress. The Lord Dowding Fund continues to be responsible for ground breaking medical and scientific research that does not involve animals. Tens of thousands of animals have been saved, through the introduction of techniques and technology funded by the Lord Dowding Fund for Humane Research.[1]
London and Provincial Anti-Vivisection Society
In 1957, the London and Provincial Anti-Vivisection Society (LPAVS) became part of the NAVS. This amalgamation was administered and encouraged by the contemporary Committee Secretary, Wilfred Risdon, who became Secretary of the NAVS thereafter. An earlier active member of the LPAVS was former British Union of Fascists member Norah Elam who had been a member (possibly even founding member) from its very beginnings around 1900. Elam was a prominent suffragette who was put forward as a candidate for the British Union of Fascists for the Northampton constituency in 1937 and who was also part of the Pankhurst inner circle from late 1912 to 1917 (under the name Dacre Fox).
During 1916 and 1917, Elam obtained work as supervisor of a typewriting pool at the Medical Research Council (MRC), gaining a wealth of information she was to use later in articles published under the auspices of the LPAVS during 1934 and 1935. In March 1921, Elam advertised in The Times and chaired a public meeting of LPAVS to discuss 'The Dog's Bill' (Bill to prohibit the vivisection of Dogs) that was being debated in Parliament at that time. The meeting was held at Aeolian Hall in London and as Chair, Elam read out 20 letters from Members of Parliament in support of the bill, and stated that, 'A large majority of the public were strongly in favour of the measure, and she felt sure that victory would be theirs if a determined effort were made, especially if women made proper use of their new political power'.[8]
In 1932, the MRC had produced a paper called 'Vitamins, A Survey of Present Knowledge'. Elam's 1934 response was entitled 'The Vitamin Survey, A Reply' and was a critical appraisal of that survey and its results. This was followed in 1935 by 'The Medical Research Council, What it is and how it works'. The second paper was based on the same arguments about MRC research practices and remits as the first paper, but distilled and argued more cogently on a broader front. Elam's argument was that 'powerful vested interests' had managed to 'entrench' themselves behind 'State-aided research', and had managed to make themselves unaccountable; the public were unable to influence the decisions about what research should be undertaken, and it operated like a closed shop, only answerable to itself. Elam also argued that the research involved the cruel and inhumane use of animals, and that any thinking person had to question how and why research and results based on animal models could safely be extrapolated to humans. Finally, she complained that animal experimentation was doubly cruel because of the unnecessary repetition of experiments to replicate or prove the same point, which in many cases she argued could have been arrived at by simple, common sense. These papers were widely distributed and copies could be found in libraries throughout the UK.[8]
Modern movement
After sustained lobbying by animal welfare organisations and other interested parties, in 1983 the UK Government announced that it intended to replace the Cruelty to Animals Act (at that time still in force despite it being introduced nearly one hundred years previously) and published a White Paper that (after consultation) would eventually form the basis of the new legislation. In light of its perceived weakness of the Government's proposals, and realising that outright abolition was unachievable in the current political climate, NAVS worked with other UK groups such as BUAV, Animal Aid and the Scottish Society, in the drawing-up of a list of key experiments that should be banned under new legislation. This list included a ban on the use of animals in tests for cosmetics, tobacco, alcohol products; warfare experiments; psychological and behavioural tests; a ban on the Median lethal dose and Draize eye irritancy tests, as well as other measures in relation to the administration of the legislation. Although the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act received Royal Assent on 20 May 1986 and was later described as being an important factor in the UK having the "tightest system of regulation in the world",[9] this view was not supported by animal welfare organisations. [citation needed]
It would not be until the late 1990s that a change of Government brought in bans on the use of animals for cosmetics research and a ban on the use of great apes would start the process of change. These were followed by the Freedom of Information Act 2000, which permitted wider public scrutiny of some scientific procedures.
More recently, in 2009, the year in which the European directive on animal testing regulations was being comprehensively reviewed for the first time in over two decades, NAVS and its animal and environmental group, Animal Defenders International, joined a call for a Europe-wide ban on the use of non-human primates in research. Although only minor concessions were secured in this area when legislation was subsequently passed in September 2010, the authors of the directive acknowledged that it was "an important step towards achieving the final goal of full replacement of procedures on live animals for scientific and educational purposes as soon as it is scientifically possible to do so".[10] The authors also recommended that the directive be regularly reviewed so as to reflect the scientific advances made in this area, thereby leaving open the possibility that future legislation will incorporate more safeguards to ensure the protection and welfare of animals used in scientific experiments.
Mission
The NAVS works to educate the public, parliament and researchers about the suffering caused to animals used in research, and how research outcomes are affected by species differences, as well as the biochemical effects of fear, anxiety and stress in the animals. Research results have been known to be affected by an animal’s age, diet, even bedding materials. NAVS promotes the adoption of advanced, scientific, non-animal techniques to replace the use of animals, especially through its non-animal research wing, the Lord Dowding Fund for Humane Research. (See also Animal Defenders International)
Position on animal rights
Jan Creamer the director of NAVS in 2002 at the House of Lords stated that although in "many cases rights and welfare are very much linked", the National Anti-Vivisection Society is not an animal rights organization.[11] She commented that the goal of the organization is unified in ending animal experimentation. According to Creamer "the remit of the people that we are representing today is against animal experiments. Some of our members are vegetarians, some are not. Some oppose fox hunting, some do not. We are representing a group of people who just agree on animal experiments."[11]
Publications
From 1897–1889 the NAVS published The Zoophilist magazine.[12] In 1900 it became known as The Zoophilist and Animal's Defender and later The Animal's Defender and Zoophilist.
NAVS is associated with Animal Defenders International and the Lord Dowding Fund for Humane Research which publish the Animal Defender magazine (latest issue 2017).[13]
Vivisection is surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure. The word is, more broadly, used as a pejorative catch-all term for experimentation on live animals by organizations opposed to animal experimentation, but the term is rarely used by practising scientists. Human vivisection, such as live organ harvesting, has been perpetrated as a form of torture.
In the animal rights movement, cruelty-free is a label for products or activities that do not harm or kill animals anywhere in the world. Products tested on animals or made from animals are not considered cruelty-free, since these tests are often painful and cause the suffering and death of millions of animals every year.
Cruelty Free International is a British animal protection and advocacy group that campaigns for the abolition of all animal experiments. They organise certification of cruelty-free products which are marked with the symbol of a leaping bunny.
Frances Power Cobbe was an Anglo-Irish writer, philosopher, religious thinker, social reformer, anti-vivisection activist and leading women's suffrage campaigner. She founded a number of animal advocacy groups, including the National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS) in 1875 and the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) in 1898, and was a member of the executive council of the London National Society for Women's Suffrage.
The Animals Act 1986, sometimes referred to as ASPA, is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed in 1986, which regulates the use of animals used for research in the UK. The Act permits studies to be conducted using animals for procedures such as breeding genetically modified animals, medical and veterinary advances, education, environmental toxicology and includes procedures requiring surgery, if certain criteria are met. Revised legislation came into force on 1 January 2013. The original act related to the 1986 EU Directive 86/609/EEC which was updated and replaced by EU Directive 2010/63/EU
The Lord Dowding Fund for Humane Research (LDF) – a department of the National Anti-Vivisection Society, the world's first anti-vivisection organisation – awards grants to scientists undertaking medical research which benefits humans, without the use of animals.
The Humane Research Trust (HRT) is a British medical research charity with the aim of spreading the practice of humane research. They work with scientists as well as students to further the commitment of non-animal based research.
Muriel Dowding, Baroness Dowding was an English humanitarian and animal rights activist known for championing anti-vivisection, vegetarianism and the improvement of animal welfare. Like her second husband Lord Dowding, 1st Baron Dowding she was a vegetarian, an anti-vivisectionist, spiritualist and theosophist. She coined the term cruelty-free and was a pioneer of the cruelty-free movement.
Walter Robert Hadwen was an English general practitioner, pharmaceutical chemist and writer. He was president of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) and an anti-vaccination campaigner, known for his denial of the germ theory of disease.
Gillian Rose Langley is a British scientist and writer who specialises in alternatives to animal testing and animal rights. She was, from 1981 until 2009, the science director of the Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research, a medical research charity developing non-animal research techniques. She was an anti-vivisection member of the British government's Animal Procedures Committee for eight years, and has worked as a consultant on non-animal techniques for the European Commission, and for animal protection organizations in Europe and the United States. Between 2010 and 2016 she was a consultant for Humane Society International.
Edward Collis Berdoe was an English physician, anti-vivisectionist and writer. He studied and wrote on the works of Robert Browning. He also campaigned against medical experiments on human patients and animals.
Experiments involving non-human primates (NHPs) include toxicity testing for medical and non-medical substances; studies of infectious disease, such as HIV and hepatitis; neurological studies; behavior and cognition; reproduction; genetics; and xenotransplantation. Around 65,000 NHPs are used every year in the United States, and around 7,000 across the European Union. Most are purpose-bred, while some are caught in the wild.
The Boyd Group is a Britain-based, independent think tank considering issues relating to animal testing.
The Brown Dog affair was a political controversy about vivisection that raged in Britain from 1903 until 1910. It involved the infiltration of University of London medical lectures by Swedish feminists, battles between medical students and the police, police protection for the statue of a dog, a libel trial at the Royal Courts of Justice, and the establishment of a Royal Commission to investigate the use of animals in experiments. The affair became a cause célèbre that divided the country.
Emilie Augusta Louise "Lizzy" Lind af Hageby was a Swedish-British feminist and animal rights advocate who became a prominent anti-vivisection activist in England in the early 20th century.
The Cruelty to Animals Act 1876 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which set limits on the practice of, and instituted a licensing system for animal experimentation, amending the Cruelty to Animals Act 1849. It was a public general Act. The Act was replaced 110 years later by the Animals Act 1986.
Women have played a central role in animal advocacy since the 19th century. The animal advocacy movement – embracing animal rights, animal welfare, and anti-vivisectionism – has been disproportionately initiated and led by women, particularly in the United Kingdom. Women are more likely to support animal rights than men. A 1996 study of adolescents by Linda Pifer suggested that factors that may partially explain this discrepancy include attitudes towards feminism and science, scientific literacy, and the presence of a greater emphasis on "nurturance or compassion" amongst women. Although vegetarianism does not necessarily imply animal advocacy, a 1992 market research study conducted by the Yankelovich research organization concluded that "of the 12.4 million people [in the US] who call themselves vegetarian, 68% are female, while only 32% are male".
The American Anti-Vivisection Society (AAVS) is a Jenkintown, Pennsylvania-based animal protectionism organization created with the goal of eliminating a number of different procedures done by medical and cosmetic groups in relation to animal cruelty in the United States. It seeks to help the betterment of animal life and human-animal interaction through legislation reform. It was the first anti-vivisection organization founded in the United States.
Rise for Animals is a national, registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit animal rights organization which aims to end nonhuman animal experimentation. It has been described as "one of the oldest and wealthiest anti-vivisection organizations in the United States".
World Day For Animals In Laboratories is observed every year on 24 April. The surrounding week has come to be known as "World Week for Animals In Laboratories". The National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS) describes the day as an "international day of commemoration" for animals in laboratories.
1 2 Rappaport, Helen. (2001). Encyclopedia of Women Social Reformers, Volume 1. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 159-160. ISBN 9781576075814
↑ Iriye, Akira; Saunier, Pierre-Yves. (2009). The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History: From the Mid-19th Century to the Present Day. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 44. ISBN978-1403992956
↑ Preece, Rod (2011). Animal Sensibility and Inclusive Justice in the Age of Bernard Shaw. Vancouver: UBC Press. p.113. ISBN9780774821124.
1 2 3 4 5 6 French, Richard D. (2019). Antivivisection and Medical Science in Victorian Society. Princeton University Press. pp. 162-166. ISBN978-0691656625
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