interview in 'chain DLK' 1999.

Page 3 of 4.

Chain D.L.K.: Which is to you the best way to fight the human ignorance about animal abuse and why? What is in your opinion the best approach to face the problem and to try to get people interested in this?

J. Citizen (EYE): While I'm totally supportive of those who fight against things like circuses, bull-fighting, hunting and other forms of abuse, I only focus on 2 issues that involve animal abuse. These are meat-eating and animal research (vivisection). And I'm not just active on those issues because of animal suffering. There are many more aspects to those issues which make them bad. I think a mistake animal welfarists make is they focus only on the animal suffering and forget to challenge the reasons industries exist. For instance, we are told by the meat and dairy industry that their products are healthy. But many scientific studies show this is not true. While animal welfarists talk about "animal rights" many people don't care about the animals. They'll eat meat because they believe the lie that it is healthy. But when they're made aware of the many health benefits of vegetarianism some of them take notice and reduce or stop eating meat. So, I've found the best way to fight ignorance is with facts from scientific studies that show it's in our own self-interest to stop eating, or eat less, animal products.

Similarly, in regards to animal research, many people know that it unavoidably involves great suffering. However, when they believe the myth that it advances human medicine, they will ignore the suffering animals.

My opposition to animal research is not only because of the cruelty, but because it is misleading and unscientific: it damages people and leads to dangerous chemicals being marketed. Each year, as revealed in medical journals, there are around 180,000 medically-induced deaths in just the USA alone. Most of those deaths are due to pharmaceutical drugs. A main contributing factor to why people get damaged by pharmaceutical drugs is that the pre-marketing tests aren't scientific and produce misleading results. For instance, animal tests lead to a wide range of different and conflicting results - depending on the species and the conditions of the experiment. Even really trivial things like the time of day or season can lead to very different test results even on the same individual animal. The result is, you can make any drug or medical procedure look "safe" or "unsafe" (depending on who funds the study) by selecting the particular results which prove your point.

Drug companies also do tests that use non-representative human subjects and then often manipulate the data to support their goal. What I mean by "non-representative" is: the results of testing a cancer drug on humans without cancer, are not relevant for people with cancer. This, and irrelevant animal tests, leads to drugs being marketed that are not properly tested. The effects of drugs and chemicals on people are only really found out when they are marketed. WE are the real guinea-pigs.

Furthermore, when people are damaged by pharmaceuticals/chemicals the corporations claim they are not guilty of consciously marketing dangerous products because their tests showed the product was "safe". Of course, the companies know the drugs are damaging and killing people, but they use the animal tests to defend themselves in court. And law courts have then declared that because the company did the required tests, and these found the product "safe", that the company does not have to pay compensation to human victims. That is what happened in the famous case of Thalidomide.

Like everyone else, I grew up believing the claims about animal research. While I was horrified by what happened to the animals, I thought it was "science" and necessary, for that's what I was taught by the media, at school and university. But once you do independent study into the real truth of medical history, find there are thousands of doctors and ex-animal researchers totally opposed to vivisection for scientific reasons, you learn that the real medical advances actually came from ethical studies on humans. In fact, animal research retarded and delayed medical progress many times and still does.

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Chain D.L.K.: Do you think people have to get shocked or are there other more effective approaches?

J. Citizen (EYE): Sometimes the shock approach is useful but often it backfires. I understand why people focus on the cruelty of animal research but it won't change the minds of most people who believe that animal research is going to save them and their loved ones from nasty diseases (that are mostly due to eating junk). Also, when confronted with gruesome pictures and films, some people go "into shock" and they stop thinking. I've noticed this from doing street stalls and showing films.

I don't support certain artists/bands who use "shock" as a gimmick for it's own sake. They're not really trying to make anyone think, or make the world a better place. They do it because they are immature and on a childish attention-seeking trip or cashing-in on teenage angst.

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Chain D.L.K.: Are you connected with many people of the punk/HC scene who are into this problem and fight?

J. Citizen (EYE): Mainly with a few zines that publish my articles, but not bands, as I haven't come across any that cover issues in an intelligent way.

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Chain D.L.K.: How much is your music affected by your every-day life and how much is your reality affected by your music?

page 4 yields the intriguing answer >>>

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