Editorial: Listen, talk, dicker
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1993:
Members of the ardently pro-vivisection Foundation for Biomedical Research got
quite a shock with their January/February 1993 newsletter. On pages four through six, the
editors extensively, respectfully, and congenially interviewed Henry Spira, the most effec-
tive antivivisection activist of our time and perhaps of any time. He’s not a household word,
because he doesn’t do big direct mailings touting his accomplishments, nor does he head a
multimillion dollar organization, or go on television regularly to shout about victories he
barely acknowledges, because he believes gloating is counterproductive. Still, working
virtually alone, with a miniscule budget, Spira has accomplished more over the past 17
years toward getting animals out of laboratories than any of the national animal rights
groups and antivivisection societies; perhaps more than all of them put together. The bio-
medical research establishment certainly knows his name, and significantly, some of the
most influential people in that establishment thought it was high time to open public,
friendly dialog––even if they got bashed for it by colleagues conditioned to view animal
use/protection as a war zone, a Manichean struggle between good and evil in which one
side or the other must ultimately be annihilated.