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dictatorship of the drug industryDrug Companies and Government Conspire to Evade Vivisection Regulations
The Electorate votes for parties on the basis of the policies they say they will implement, such as the animal research policies that Labour promised [copies of these available from Uncaged]. In a democratic society, those promised policies that the public has endorsed through its choice of a governing party are then implemented. This is the essential core of democracy - Government represents the will of the people. Question:
Answer:
Lord Sainsbury chaired the working group that discussed how to weaken vivisection regulations (Section V - Science Base and Biopharmaceuticals). Just one of the astonishing things about this clique of industrialists and politicians is that it has made unilateral decisions on areas of policy that are the responsibility of other bodies such as the Home Office and the Animal Procedures Committee. Despite the implications for animal experiments, animal protection groups were systematically excluded from even participating in these discussions. It is this Task Force, and the working group chaired by Lord Sainsbury, which is responsible for subverting Government policy on animal experimentation. Rubber-stampingThroughout the PICTF discussion of animal experimentation regulation, it is presumed that the regulatory framework is nothing more than a process for simply granting licences rather than a process that actually scrutinises whether licences should be granted or not, as the law stipulates. Thus both the drug industry and the Government have inadvertently confirmed what anti-vivisectionists have been saying for years: the laws are systematically ignored, and the regulatory process is a rubber-stamping process, rather than the stringent, objective or rigorous process the public is lead to believe. The "increasing complexity" that the drug companies complain of refers to the Labour pledges and policies to:
Blocking progressNone of these measures address what we believe to be the fundamental moral and scientific imperative for the abolition of vivisection. But what they did represent was the potential for a gradual increase in the level of consideration given to the interests of animals when licences to vivisect were being considered. After all, the core element of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 is the cost/benefit assessment (Section 5(4)), which requires the harms that animals will suffer from an experiment to be weighed against the supposed benefit that would accrue to humans from the research. More animal sufferingThe Report claims that "streamlining licencing procedures" will lead to improvements in animal welfare. This is dishonest propaganda which insults the intelligence of the reader: there is no attempt to explain quite how such improvements would be achieved. In fact, by railing against even the tiniest improvements in the regulation of animal experiments, the drug industry in collaboration with the Government has:
The PICTF also recommended that the ABPI should be consulted whenever any Government policy that might affect the interests of the drug industry, such as vivisection policy, was being considered - a so-called "no surprises" policy (para 9.7). Another agreed action plan (no. 50, Appendix 1) was for the drug industry to see how it could dismantle animal welfare regulations blocking the establishment of "whole animal pharmacology course in the UK." Tony Blair wrote the Foreword to the PICTF report (see above). He stated:
The unparalleled access to and influence over political power enjoyed by unelected, unaccountable drug company executives is a chilling example of how democracy is being destroyed by corporate power. The PICTF aimed to pervert policy in a number of important areas in addition to animal testing, such as the way in which the NHS buys drugs, the structure of education, clinical research, and the assessment of the safety and effectiveness of new drugs. Not only will animal testing policy be dictated by the drug industry, but health, education and economic policy are also formulated in the corporate interest rather than the public interest. We don't remember Labour promising that before the last election. Membership of the PICTF
Source: p. 17 of PICTF report, and Department of Health Press Release 2001/0155, 28/3/01 "Prime Minister announces results of Pharmaceutical Industry Competitiveness Task Force - jointly published by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI)" RELATED LINKS
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