FETAL EXPERIMENTATION
From the book: Vivisection or Science - a choice to make
Prof. Pietro Croce, MD. (See biography below), Part 1, p. 99-108.
CIVIS, 1991, Hans Ruesch Foundation, ISBN 3 - 905280 - 06 - 7OVER THE TOP
We are now at the top of the mountain. The ascent, begun with Galvani using a frog, through a series of mammals, monkeys and apes, has taken us to the summit with experimentation on man. Before commenting, however, let us eliminate a possible misunderstanding.
We are not talking here of clinical experimentation, the final and indispensible testing of any drug. Clinical experimentation is an obligatory step which is both logical and legitimate, provided that it is entrusted to competent doctors in a well-equipped environment where every observation made directly on the patient by the traditional semeiotics (i.e. relating or belonging to the symptoms of disease) is followed up by laboratory analyses capable of rapidly showing any changes which a drug, still imperfectly known, can bring about in various organs. Thus, also those side effects which give doctors cause for concern, reminding them constantly of the need for caution, can be discovered.
But, we repeat, this is not the peak of experimentation which vivisectionists have longed for and now reached. What is it then? At this point we must acknowledge a certain embarrassment at entering into the heart of the matter. What we are about to denounce is too monstrous to be credible, too far from the idea of man "created in the image of God". Nevertheless, the fact is this: small beings "created in the image of God" are removed from the womb of the mother to be deep frozen or preserved in formalin while still alive, decapitated, cut into pieces, ground into pulp, spun by centrifugal force and pressed to extract "the juice" from them. However, to make this incredible truth believable, we shall take one thing at a time.
March 1981 - At the frontier between France and Switzerland customs officials examine a refrigerator lorry. The countries of export are Hungary and Yugoslavia and the buyers of the merchandise are some French cosmetics firms. The suspicions of the French officials are aroused by the high freight charges of the goods concealed within the metal walls of the vehicle. The big door of the truck is opened and the refrigerator compartments are found to contain many hundreds of deep-frozen human fetuses.
One might suppose that this madness, which seems to grip our imagination and conscience, started with the l980s as if to fulfill the prophesies of the novel "l984" by George Orwell.
But it is not so. The "business" had started before that.
1977: The Japanese newspaper "Asahi Shimbun" exposes a trade in fetuses between South Korea and the U.S.A., with Japan being a transit country. (*1) The price is a moderate 25 dollars per fetus, the same as the price of a suckling pig.
And before 1977? We do not know. How long had the trade in fetuses been going on between South Korea and the U.S.A.? How long had the trade been going on in Europe? Another disturbing question arises. Is it not likely that the buyers, to save costs in outlay and transport from abroad, would seek (and have already found!) the "raw material" in their own countries, that is France, Italy, Great Britain and the U.S.A.? Here is a well-documented news item from the U.S.A. and published in the French newspaper "Liberation" of 8 February 1982.
In Santa Monica, California, a container aroused attention in the vicinity of a disused clinic which formerly belonged to a certain Mel Weisberg. It was later established that that gentleman had paid the suppliers of the goods with a cheque which had bounced. The firm which had hired out the container opened it and found: "...more than 500 human fetuses preserved with formalin in plastic containers and labelled with the names of the donors (or "mothers" as they used to be called)."
The accounts cited here are journalistic items of a rather sporadic and fragmentary kind. It seems that a veil of "discretion" has been drawn over them by relegating them to small notices on inside pages. Why? Clearly considered as front page material are items such as "Discovery of a Plot to Kidnap Falcao" (Corriere della Sera, 26 January, 1985, page 1. Falcao was Italy's top soccer star); but not so are headlines to shake the general public out of its apathy, which is ultimately responsible for leaving the way open for activities so far outside the criminal law that its provisions leave them untouched. Evidently the legislators, however expert they may be in dealing with real or potential criminal activities, have not succeeded in foreseeing criminal activities which surpass the limits of the imagination - their imagination, of course, not that of the vivisectors which, perhaps because it is fuelled by a strongly sadistic element, seems to be limitless. I see on the reader's face a questioning look which perhaps also expresses a timid hope: "But after all, this is a matter of dead fetuses or rather embryos, that is, of products of conception which have not yet reached the eighth week of life in the womb..." Here we need to digress.
Is not the fetus alive before the eighth week? And why not? Perhaps because it doesn't move? Should we descend to such a level of conceptual crudeness as to identify life with movement?
The law recognises in the human being the attribute of "being alive" only after the 180th day of pregnancy. Does this mean that a fetus, so far perfectly formed and capable of further, normal development, can be killed because it is only 179 days old? (*2) And going back in time, day by day, to the moment of conception, at what moment can we allow ourselves morally and not just legally to bring its life to an end? Professor Pierre Paul Grasse (*3) on 15 November 1982: "Life begins at the very moment of conception. The embryo, however young, is a person, rich in all the potentialities of its species"... Thus we are alive well before the 180th day which is recognised by the Law. Alive, capable of feeling pain, but silent.
These words reflect a problem as important as life. But they mean nothing to the experimenters who have got stuck at a much lower, more pragmatic and profitable level. The experimenters on fetuses and their suppliers ignore this "philosophising'; they don't care about "when life begins". They do not want embryos but well-developed, healthy fetuses, able, unless the possibility is denied to them, of growing and developing to the point of reaching fully independent life. And this is how they are obtained:
There are clinics which specialise in abortion. Women who go to them are introduced to skilled persuaders who convince them to carry on with their pregnancy as long as possible (*4). The more mature the fetus, the higher the price that will be paid. As soon as the pregnancy comes to the end which has been agreed upon, the fetus is removed by Caesarian section. As that happens in many cases at the 28th week (i.e. between six and seven months), at the moment of release from the amniotic fluid and the inhalation by the little thorax of its first breath, one is no longer talking of a fetus but of a baby which moves and utters cries.
Here is an account by two journalists (*5) of an interview they held with an English gynaecologist who procured fetuses:
"One morning four of them were born, one after another. They cried, but I didn't have time to kill them at once because I had too much to do that morning. I am not a hard man but a realist. You need to be a MAN OF SCIENCE and unemotional if you want to avoid having your judgment clouded by sentiment." (*6)
Let us compare the words of this "man of science" with the following:
"I dismiss everything that can be associated with the word "HUMANITARIAN" (Professor George Wakerlin of the University of Illinois, Chicago) (*7)
Are not these two utterances of the same kind? And now let us compare the two people:
The first is an avowed murderer.
The second is an avowed vivisector. Sheer coincidence?The foregoing could make one think that the craving for the vivisection of human beings is a recent phenomenon arising from the realization that experimentation on animals is useless. But that is not so.
Already in the last century, vivisection of human beings was explicitly prophesied even if, in the words of those who uttered it, a certain regret is discernable for "a coveted but unattainable goal". Claude Bernard advocated the "vivisection of human beings as the ultimate goal of experimental medicine." (Bernard, C., "Princípes de Médicine Experimentale" (work published posthumously). Later, E.E. Slosson, a vivisector and professor at the University of Wyoming, declared:
"A human life is nothing compared with a new fact. The aim of Science is the advancement of human knowledge at any sacrifice of human life. If cats and guinnea-pigs can be put to any better use than to advance science, we do not know of what it is. We don't know of any higher use we can put man to." (From "The Independent", New York, 12 December 1895.)
So the two prophets, Claude Bernard and E.E. Slosson, at the end of the last century delivered to a "fin-de-siècle" humanity the golden calf of a new religion which demands human sacrifices: that 'scientism' which longs for "the advancement of knowledge at the cost of any sacrifice of human life." And now a final question: "But, after all, what are those tissues used for?"
Our answer will be disappointing: "We still know very little about it."
We know little about such things because everything happens behind the locked doors of institutes, of pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries, of "scientific" laboratories where the watch-word is SILENCE! Nevertheless, something does leak out and it is enough, at least for the moment.
Here is an experiment carried out on mature, living human fetuses, (i.e. infants), to study the metabolism of glucose in the human brain. The stages in the experiment are as follows:
1. The large blood vessels in the neck (carotid arteries, vertebral arteries and jugular veins) are prepared anatomically and tubes of adequate width are inserted into them. All this has to be done WITHOUT ANAESTHESIA to avoid the metabolism of the brain being altered by the anaesthetic.
2. The child's head is cut off. The blood is collected, treated with anti-coagulants and put into a pump which functions like a "heart". The pump, connected to the aforementioned system of tubes and cannulas, makes the blood circulate in the baby's head. The blood flows, being oxygenated and deprived of carbon dioxide by means of an apparatus which functions as a "lung".
3. Samples of venous and arterial blood are collected, and the "glycaemia" is measured. The difference between the glucose content in the arterial and the venous blood shows how the brain uses up glucose in a given period of time.
The head of the child, throughout the experiment, is ALIVE. When it dies it becomes useless because, at death, the metabolism of glucose stops, together with all the other biochemical functions. However, while living it perceives painful stimuli from the rest of the body, despite being separated from it. The stimuli derive from sensitive nerves which have been cut and the brain "projects" them towards the periphery as if the body were still there (cf. the phenomenon of "ghost" joints in amputations).
For worshippers of that Moloch, "Scientism", the justification for the treatment inflicted on these creatures may be found in the myth of "the advance of knowledge". But is this excuse valid when the intention is to try (without success) to smooth out the wrinkles of a face ravaged by age and whisky or to remove some excess fat from the buttocks or to make hair grow again in follicles long dead?
In short, can there ever be any real justification for using tender human flesh in research or for cosmetic therapies? Nevertheless, it happens, and it seems that the greatest demand for fetuses comes from the beauty industry. The only extenuating circumstance is that the cosmetics industry apparently contents itself with the use of dead fetuses. Soon after birth they are immersed in liquid nitrogen at 150 degrees Celcius below zero. In other words, deep-frozen like Findus cod steaks. The tissues are then expertly mixed with vaseline, glycerine, lanoline and heaven knows what else, finishing up in fancy packaging as skin creams "to be massaged gently into the face on retiring for the night".
Finally, we don't want to wrong those eccentric collectors, not lacking in a certain sense of the macabre, for whom parts of human fetuses (the most expensive being the head, followed by the hands and all the rest) are embedded in clear plastic and used as paper weights - status symbols to show to friends and business rivals.
We are sorry to shatter that "faint hope" in which certainly many readers seek refuge against a truth too upsetting for their sensibility: the hope that fetuses used in biomedical and cosmetics research come from spontaneous abortions. If that were really true, one could also compromise with certain "ethical" considerations: once they are dead, why not use them. But that does not seem to be the case, as explained by Gonzalo Herranz (*8), professor of Histology and General Embryology at the University of Navarra, Spain. Professor Herranz refers to the use of embryo tissues for cell cultures in vitro:
"..... to obtain embryo cells, embryos from spontaneous abortions cannot be used nor can those obtained by means of abortions performed via the vagina: in both cases, the embryo will be contaminated by micro-organisms. The correct way consists in having recourse to Caesarian section or to the removal of the uterus. Only in this way can bacteriological sterility be guaranteed. In either case, then, to obtain embryo cells for culture, a programmed abortion must be adopted, choosing the age of the embryo and dissecting it while still alive to remove tissues to be placed in culture media."
Given these premises we find ourselves facing the following dilemma: can we justify on ethical grounds the deliberate, systematic destruction of a human creature to obtain cell material, even though it is recognised that this is of great interest in fundamental research and for the diagnosis of some human illnesses? In other words, are research and diagnosis of such great value as to jusfify the destruction of human beings? A declaration of the Permanent Committee of Medical Doctors of the European Community and of the World Medical Association, published in November 1985 states:
"A human embryo, cannot be considered as laboratory material but rather as a potential human being. The respect which is due to it implies, in consequence, that any research should be subordinated to the Helsinki and Tokyo Declarations, adopted in 1975 by the World Medical Association." Here is an extract:
"Concern for the individual should always prevail over those of Science and Society... The medical doctor has the duty to protect the life and health of persons undergoing biomedical research."
"It does not seem to me", Professor Herranz continues, "that these principles are compatible with programmed abortions carried out to obtain cell cultures. I cannot repudiate this negative view even if the women themselves want a termination and despite the fact that scientific, diagnostic and commercial interests have combined to create a climate of opinion which make it seem desirable. The Geneva Declaration affirms that the doctor has the duty to take the greatest care to safeguard the life of a human being from its conception and will not, even under threat, use his knowledge to infringe humanitarian laws. Human embryos are the weakest members of the human family. They are the object of unjust discrimination in the case of abortion. In contrast to what happens to other minorities that are discriminated against, human embryos have hardly anyone to defend them." (*9)
Before commenting on the statement by Professor Herranz we would like to express our respect and admiration for the moral sense with which he confronts the problem. However, more pragmatically, wishing to make a critical assessment of the situation in which we are placed by those circumstances, we can at least establish that:
1. seeing that animal experimentation is fallacious and misleading;
2. seeing that it is unethical to use human fetuses obtained in a "programmed" way;we are obliged to conclude that we should abandon all culture in vitro of human embryo tissues, recognising nevertheless that this kind of research is scientifically valid.
At this point the objection raised is logical: is it legitimate to deprive Science of a method of research that even some anti-vivisectionists consider to be not only of great value at the present time but also very promising for the future? Considered objectively, the situation does not appear as dire as it is presented by Professor Herranz: To obtain a cell culture (a "cell strain"), only a small quantity of tissue is required. Thus from an embryonic organ (liver, connective tissue, epidermis, etc) many cultures can be obtained. A single fetus, then, can provide abundant material - PROVIDED THAT IT IS USED RATIONALLY.
However, two problems remain unsolved:
1. The problem of the vitality of the embryonic organs.
2. The bacteriological sterility of the embryonic organs.
Concerning the first point, we agree with Professor Herrans in rejecting the option of cutting up the embryo while it is still alive. Whatever its stage of development may be (first, second or third month), we must remember that it is still a living human being and the fact that it is destined to die one day does not permit us to cut it up. This view is supported by the Catholic Church in a statement contained in the Vatican document on bio-ethics entitled "Respect for emerging human life and the dignity of procreation" published on 10th March 1987. The document affirms: "(all research and experimentation on humans...) would not be permissible whenever methods used or the effect induced might put at risk the physical integrity or the life of the embryo."
And it later says: "The cadavers of embryos or human fetuses, whether voluntarily aborted or not, should be respected in the same way as the remains of other human beings".
However, if it has been established that the death of the embryo has already occurred naturally, a new logic comes into play and is the same as allows us to perform an autopsy. If we find this idea unacceptable we should also renounce the practice of performing autopsies as prescribed, and that would be a leap in the dark... at any rate while we live in a cultural climate, which can be discussed, but not obliterated all at once. Perhaps one day these ideas underlying the scientism so deeply rooted in our culture will, in turn, be criticised and rejected. But in order to reach that point a new civilisation must arise, based on nobler principles than those which we today consider such as cannot be abandoned.
The second problem is the contamination by bacteria of the embryo. But this problem does not seem to us insoluble either because:
1. Contamination by bacteria which occurs during the passage of the embryo through the vagina concerns outer covering tissues (the skin, the mucous membranes of the body's orifices) but not the tissues of internal organs.
2. At the same time in which we sow cell culture media with samples of tissue, we can also easily sow bacteriological media with the same samples, in order to make sure that no bacterial contamination has occurred: in the latter case, it is easy to dispose of the contaminated cell cultures and await another occasion to prepare new ones.
Let us bring this chapter to a close on a disturbing note to illustrate how deeply absurd habits, that are a heritage of vivisectionist custom, are rooted in our culture and scientific practice: perhaps due to the difficulty outlined above of obtaining human embryonic cells, cell cultures are made in laboratories and even by certain specialised industries from the embryos of other animal species to be used in experiments intended to provide answers to human health problems. Thus the methodological error which lies at the root of all vivisectionist thinking is perpetuated and extended. The error remains despite the focus being shifted from the whole animal to its cells - and with the same results and with the same mistakes which, it seems, some researchers are unwilling to renounce.
References:
** Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand, known as "the Mahatma" ("the great spirit"), born in Porbandar 1869, died in New Delhi in 1948. He uttered these words at the inauguration ceremony of the Medical Academy of New Delhi shortly before his death.
*1. It later became known that the traffic had been going on for six years and that about 4000 fetuses a year were being transported. The aircraft belonged to Japan Airlines. The Nobel Prize winner George Wald declared that between 1970 and 1978 approximately 12,000 kidneys from human fetuses were imported into Western countries from South Korea. In the same period, in South Korea the number and percentage of deliberate abortions increased considerably: in 1970 the number of induced abortions was slightly less than the births; in 1977 the number of abortions was three times greater than that of births (statement by George Wald, reported in the book "Le fruit de vos entrailles", by Rolande Girard, published by Suger, Paris).
*2. In the U.S.A. a baby girl, born at 22 weeks (154 days), survived. At birth she weighed 552.8 grammes and was 26.7 centimetres long. When discharged from the Rackensack Hospital, New Jersey, she weighed 2400 grammes and was 48 centimetres long. (From an article by Dr. Monique Vigny, in "Le Figaro", 16 July 1983.)
- Thanks to modern methods of treatment fetuses born weighing between 1000 and 1500 grammes survive in 82% of cases. Fetuses weighing between 500 and 1000 grammes survive in 50% of cases (Dr. Francoise Lebrun, pediatrician, cited by C. Jaquinot and J. Delaye).
- Italian law permits terrnination within the first 90 days of pregnancy (12 weeks and 6 days) when there is "a serious risk of the mother's physical and mental health being in danger".
- At eight weeks the embryo is twenty five millimetres long. When stimulated, it stretches out its arms, which shows the existence of elementary reflexes.
At eleven weeks the fetus swallows when its lips are touched.
- At twelve weeks it is seventy five millimetres long and kicks its feet about either spontaneously or in response to stimuli.
- At fourteen weeks, if touched on the face, it moves its head away from the stimulus, moves its arms to its head and moves its hips, trying, by these movements, to remove itself from the stimulus. (From an article by Alberto Oliviero, Reader in Psychobiology at the University of Rome, in "Corriere della Sera", 19 February 1985.)*3. Prof. Pierre Paul Grasse, former President of the French Academy of Sciences.
*4. From an interview with M.Geyselings, Deputy of the Belgian Parliament, on 23rd January 1982, quoted by C. Jaquinot and J. Delaye.(111)
*5. The two journalists, introduced to the gynaecologist as representatives of a potential buyer, namely a cosmetics company, are Michel Lichtfield and Susan Kentish.
*6. From "Bebets au feu" by M. Lichtfield and Susan Kentish (Apostolat des Editions).
*7. From "The National Magazine'; June 1954.
*8. Professor Gonzalo Herranz is the President of the Committee of Medical Ethics of Spanish Doctors and Vice-President of the Permanent Committee of Medical Ethics of the European Community.
* 9. From an article by Professor Herranz in the weekly periodical "Il Sabato" of 26 April - 2 May, 1986 in reply to a previous article in the same journal by Paolo Cucchiarelli and Marina Ricci (No.15 6f "Il Sabato").
The immortal Hippocrates never experimented on animals and yet raised the art of medicine to such a level that we, despite our great discoveries in medicine, have still not attained it. (Dr. Salivas, French medical historian)
Animal studies are done for legal reasons and not for scientific reasons. The predictive value of such studies is meaningless - which means our research may be meaningless. (Dr. I.D. Gallagher, Director of Medical Research, Lederle Laboratories, in the "Journal of the American Medical Association", 14 March 1964).
Animal experiments tell us nothing with regard to the efficacy or harmlessness of medicines for people. (Dr. Herbert Hensel, Director of the Institute of Physiology at the University of Marburg, in the "Neue Juristische Wochenschrift"; December 1975).
The path of science is paved with abandoned theories which were once considered to be demonstrated. (K. Popper)
Only in the contemporary era do the undesirable side effects of peaceful organisations start to compete with war in their ability to sow destruction in areas of physical, social and mental life. (Ivan Illich, Medical Nemesis, Mondadori 1977, p.279.)
Other medical works by the same author:
Broncospirometria - Macri, Firenze, 1954.
Vita e morte dei micobatteri - Macri, Firenze, 1956.
La broncospirometria (in Spanish) - Editorial Cientifico Medica, Barcelona, 1962.
La sputo - Minerva Medica, Torino, 1963.
Citologia bronchiale - Piccin, Padova, 1970.
Prof. Pietro Croce, M.D. is a luminary of medical science. Born in Dalmatia in 1920, he graduated at the famed University of Pisa, Italy. His curriculum includes: Fulbright Scholarship, Research Department of the National Jewish Hospital of Colorado University in Denver, Research Department of Toledo Ohio, Research Department of Barcelona, Spain. From 1952 to 1982, head of the laboratory of microbiological-pathological anatomy and chemo-clinical analyses at the research Hospital L. Sacco of Milan, Italy. A member of the College of American Pathologists, he is also a prolific author of medical books, scientific papers and press articles. Still professionally active, he now lives in Vicenza, northern Italy, with his Swiss wife and their teen-age son.
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