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Sacred Cows and Golden Geese: The Human Cost of Experiments on Animals

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Finally, voices against animal experimentation that the medical establishment will not successfully derogate! In this book, scientists and science-minded readers will find exhaustive proof that research and testing that uses animals is not only cruel, but also senseless and dangerous. It's high time someone uncovered how often funds allocated to useless animal-modeled research keep people sick, and how often animal-modeled data make people suffer and even die. Written by a doctor and a veterinarian, Sacred Cows and Golden Geese addresses the topic comprehensively, intelligently, and in a style most readers will appreciate. The Greeks' book should upend misinformation perpetrated by the many, many organizations and businesses that profit from this wholly unscientific convention. As the book explains, delirium over dollars perpetuates animal experimentation. The Greeks write that they regularly debate animal experimenters and animal experimentation lobbyists. Maybe this book will put one of those debates on national television so the public can appreciate the scope of danger and deception animal experimentation exposes us to. I look forward to the Greeks' next book, which they say will cover even more medical disciplines. Everyone should read Sacred Cows and Golden Geese.

This book stands virtually alone as a well-reasoned defense against vivisection (a.k.a. animal research). The authors make no appeals to emotion. They do not deny that animal research is sometimes cruel. However, compassion and cruelty have nothing to do with their argument.

Greek and Greek-a medical doctor/ veterinary team-argue that animal research hurts people. They point out the countless ways in which animals differ from humans. Veterinarians know that, although the same drugs are used in multiple species, these drugs behave differently and achieve different results in different kinds of animals. Mammals are alike only on the level of gross anatomy. Biochemically, even rats and mice differ enormously, to say nothing of humans and mice.

Tracing the history of western medicine, Greek and Greek show how animal models for disease became part of the expected protocol. They show how these models have hindered doctors and scientists far more than they have helped. They point out that nearly all major breakthroughs in medicine have been initiated not by study in animal models, but by autopsy and clinical studies. Careful observation of human beings by doctors and caretakers has, time and again, led to medical breakthroughs which are later "confirmed" or "substantiated" by animals research. The vivisectionists then claim the laurels for these discoveries when the animals were, in fact, superfluous. Greek and Greek also point out the tremendous harm that animal models have caused. Such models lead to a sense of false confidence that drugs will not be harmful or that the risk is low. In fact, the recall rate for drugs is 50%. Fifty percent have adverse, unexpected side affects after they are loosed on a population that has trusted in animal models. 50% is the toss of a coin! Millions upon millions of dollars are poured into animal tests yearly.

In addition, animal models have slowed the recall of harmful drugs. Thalidomide is one of many examples. This drug causes hideous birth defects in humans, but no birth defects in rats, mice, most rabbits, guinea pigs, and other animals. Doctors realized that the drug was causing birth defects and warned the company, but thalidomide could not be recalled until an animal model was found in which the drug caused birth defects! So thalidomide remained on the market, causing children to be born with flippers, until an obscure species of rabbit was found who also produced deformed kits when given the drug. Only then could thalidomide be recalled!

Greek and Greek show how the idea of the animal model is based on greed and bureaucracy, not good science. They explain that, while scientists of the past were primarily wealthy people doing a hobby they enjoyed, today's scientists are required to continually produce statistically significant results in order to keep their jobs. Just to graduate with a PhD requires a candidate to perform meaningful research. Under these conditions, the temptation to reach for something quick, easy, and difficult-to-disprove are enormous. Rats and mice fit the bill. They breed rapidly, are easy to house, and it takes a long time to show that the result of research in rats does not actually have any useful application for human beings. Clinical students in human beings, on the other hand, can take decades. In addition, human beings are far less corporative than rats, and there are limits to what you can legally do to them and what they will allow you to do. The catch, of course, is that clinical studies in human beings actually produce useful results, whereas animal models very often lead nowhere. Yet university professors anxious to keep their jobs and young students desperate to get their degrees continue to reach again and again for cheap and easy research models. In addition, huge companies manufacture expensive equipment for miniature surgeries on rats, dogs, cats, birds, mice, monkeys, goats, guinea pigs, rats, and all manner of other beasts. These creatures require all manner of housing, some of it vary expensive, and human-type surgeries on them require very specialized and expensive instruments. Animal models are a multimillion dollar industry.

With today's technology, even many clinical studies could be circumvented by using invetro methods. Human cells can be cultivated on a Petri dish or in a test tube and then exposed to various drugs. There is no reason to keep using the clumsy and inaccurate barometer of four-legged creatures.

Greek and Greek fill much of their book with one example after another. Their research is superb. I began the book as a skeptic and ended it as a believer. I have a degree in biology, and I could find nothing wrong with their research. I passed the book on to one of my college biology professors. He was impressed and decided to start including the material in his ethics course.

Whether you are a member of the medical community or merely a consumer, I strongly recommend this book. Whether you agree with all of the Greeks' conclusions or not, they certainly make some valid points and have taken pains with their research. Read the book.

This book is a FIRST. Backed by facts, not perpetuated by myth, Dr. Greek, et al have finally addressed a subject that has been concealed for too long. His "Just show me the data" approach has illuminated (not favorably) many research misdirections. Medical science has been hindered because of ignorance and greed. Money that could have gone to meaningful research has lined the pockets of pseudo-scientists. I am a medical doctor who was formerly involved in research, and I know that what Dr. Greek says is true. Progress can only be made through awareness, and now it is here. If you want to keep your head in the sand and believe the lies and subterfuge surrounding medical research, do NOT read this book. The first book I have read non-stop since Hunt for Red October. A MUST!

I am conservative in my politics but like to approach life with an open mind. I never questioned the need to use animals in research until I stumbled across this enlightening book! The Greeks explain, in easily digestable terms, how you need not care about animals to be disgusted with animal testing. I'm not convinced easily and I checked into many of their references- every one checked out! My head is still spinning from the implications of this book- but reading is believing!

The authors uncover a troubling reality: that truly effective methods of medical research - such as autopsies, epidemiological studies, and clinical observation - don't pay. Whereas experimenting on animals generates not only lots of useless data, but lots and lots of money. The book is extremely readable and will take its place among other classic exposés which have blown the lid off of institutionalized deceit. Armed with this information, the American public can - and must - rightfully demand reform.

Finally! Doctors with the courage and persistance to tell the true history of the self serving agendas that have lead to the derailing of clinical research in medical science. Through seamless documention, Sacred Cows and Golden Geese details how animal experimentation harms humanity. With their work, Dr.s Greek will likely rock the foundations of this multi-billion dollar industry that has a misguided death embrace on the animal model, with a singular motivation- money. A must-read for anyone who values human health.

This book is not the easiest read, but it does methodically reveal both the faulty logic in play as well as the very powerful economic motives that really drive medical research. I recommend this to anyone considering donating money to any charity or organization for the purposes of "finding a cure" for any disease. Our tax dollars are mostly funding useless ego-enhancing science projects for which many animals are being tortured and killed. Whether you care about animal suffering or care more about where your tax dollars go, you will find reason to question the status quo in this book.

It is rare that established physicians and veterinarians have the courage to speak out against the entrenched majority in their fields, even when that majority is wrong and responsible for fraud, waste and deceipt in our health care system. The Greeks responsibly spell out in well-referenced chapters why animal research is responsible for our lagging quality of health care despite massive research spending.

Animal research seldoms translates into useful clinical data; instead it contributes only to animal-husbandry profits and academic advancement of pseudo-scientists entrenched in an ancient and disproven system. As a former animal researcher and current clinician, I applaud the efforts of Drs. Greek in educating the lay public around this sensitive issue.

Hopefully the establishment scientific community will awaken to the massive waste of research dollars, and concentrate instead on dis-ease prevention and healthy lifestyles. The current state of Americans' poor health is a direct result of what we eat, smoke, and absorb from our polluted environment. Lets clean it up and leave the animals alone!

A must-read for anyone who wants to know where their tax money ends up and why, despite billions of dollars in grants issued by National Institutes of Health, we still don't have a cure for cancer. Sacred Cows and Golden Geese: The Human Cost of Experiments on Animals opens our eyes to the corruption and graft that pervades the medical research industry. It kept me turning the page with fascinating stories of good research, and unbelievable tales of expensive animal experiments out of control. Easy to read, yet chock-full of carefully referenced factual information, this book reveals how animal experiments have failed medical science. I was amazed to learn how my tax money is funding dead-end, even ludicrous experiments, while less glamorous, but promising research goes unfunded. Definitely an entertaining and educational book, Sacred Cows and Golden Geese: The Human Cost of Experiments on Animals will blow the lid off of some of NIH's dirty little secrets.

This book may just provide the impetus that finally topples the animal model in disease research. Leaving aside passion, the Greeks present hard facts to support the ever-widening realization that animals make poor surrogates for humans, and that animal testing is at best poor science, and at worst, dangerous. This is information the public needs. Given that the costs of prescription drugs are accelerating with the momentum of a runaway train, anyone who pays taxes or makes charitable contributions to disease research organizations should be asking whether trillions of dollars have been wasted on pseudoscience just to win grant money and hide from lawsuits.