- MONKEYS, sheep, pigs and goats are being shot, blown up, gassed and suffocated
with full approval of the Ministry of Defence.
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- Today the Sunday People exposes the horror
of what is happening at top-secret Porton Down research base in Wiltshire.
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- But this is only the tip of the iceberg
of the animal cruelty we have uncovered being done in the name of science.
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- And as the number of grotesque experiments
on defenceless creatures all over Britain increases, we are asking for
YOUR support to halt it.
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- You can help us persuade the Labour Government
to honour their pre-election pledge for a Royal Commission to decide once
and for all whether vivisection should be banned.
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- Our investigation into Porton Down has
revealed that:
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- MONKEYS are poisoned with nerve gas.
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- SHEEP and pigs are routinely blown up
with explosives.
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- GOATS are suffocated in decompression
chambers.
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- PIGS were massacred in a barbaric operation
dubbed Exercise Danish Bacon.
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- THOUSANDS of animals are exterminated
because they are "surplus to requirements".
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- The gruesome tests are supposed to aid
battlefield training.
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- But campaigners say the experiments are
CRUEL, CRUDE and OUT-OF-DATE and UNNECESSARY. They could be done instead
with computer simulation or laboratory test-tubes.
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- Animal Aid director Andrew Tyler said:
"These experiments are an obscenity. They yield no benefit to humans,
given the considerable physical differences between ourselves and the animals
used."
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- The Defence and Research Agency which
carries out the grisly experiments has seven Government "substantial
severity" licences which allow scientists to inflict the maximum level
of pain.
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- In one experiment we uncovered, monkeys
were shot just above the eye to probe the effects of high velocity missiles
on brain tissue. In others, monkeys were used to discover the effects of
deadly nerve gas.
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- Anaesthetised sheep and pigs are strapped
to a moving target and shot at to test body armour.
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- Up to 36 large white pigs were blasted
with plastic explosives in tubes a few feet from their mouths to simulate
wounds caused by mortar and shell-fire.
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- And 28 pigs had their right back legs
shot at with a stainless steel projectile.
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- Adult female Yucatan mini-pigs have been
sprayed with mustard gas to investigate blistering effects on the skin.
Other animal victims at Porton Down include horses, guinea pigs, and rabbits.
At another research base at Alverstoke, Hampshire, goats are starved of
oxygen in decompression chambers - as revealed last month by the Sunday
People.
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- The animals suffer the dreaded "bends"
with pains in the joints, dizziness, paralysis and in some cases death.
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- British army medics have been involved
in some of the most gruesome tests.
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- For 10 years, they took part in bizarre
exercises in which pigs were shot and then taken to hospital and treated
as if they were wounded soldiers.
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- Although the animals were anaesthetised,
they were allowed to regain consciousness and monitored for seven days
before being killed.
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- Porton Down has a new £20 million
breeding centre which churns out rhesus and marmoset monkeys. But if they
are not killed in experiments they still end up dead.
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- In one year 94 marmosets out of 106 were
destroyed simply because they were surplus.
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- Killing methods are gassing, lethal injections
and neck-breaking.
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- Much of the gruesome testing is shrouded
in mystery on the grounds of national security.
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- Porton Down refuses to disclose the number
of animals killed. But MPs have been told that 44,913 experiments were
carried out between 1993-98. And this only a fraction of sickening experiments
done nationwide on animals.
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- A total of 2.64 million creatures were
used last year, including nearly 4,000 monkeys and baboons.
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- Thousands are force-fed huge quantities
of chemicals until they suffer ruptures and haemorrhages in toxicity tests
known as Lethal Dose 50 - so-called because they are carried out until
50 per cent are dead.
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- Cats have part of the brain deliberately
damaged to study the effect of strokes.
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- Some are injected with a feline version
of the HIV virus which produces painful eye conditions, anorexia, jaundice
and stomach pain.
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- Animal welfare Minister George Howarth
told us: "We haven't ruled out a Royal Commission but we are concentrating
on reducing where possible the number of tests.
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- "The problem with LD50 is that some
international regulations still require it."
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- An MoD spokesman said: "We are committed
to looking at the feasibility of alternatives to animal experimentation."
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- Several hundred campaigners marched
through Brighton yesterday in protest at Shamrock Farm, West Sussex, which
imports monkeys for vivisection.
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