DLRM's decision to acquire medico-legal status grew out of recognition of the increasingly close ties between the medical and legal professions. With respect to the former, lawyers have proven to be a formidable bulwark against irresponsible pharmaceutical companies for example, by winning huge settlements for their clients both in and out of the courts, thereby demanding greater public and social accountability. What we have suggested in the Austrian Parliament is a basic right to health, so that there is a legal right to go to court if a new procedure or substance is introduced which might endanger health. It is only, I believe, by consolidating the link-up of doctors against animal experiments with lawyers and politicians that we have a fair chance of achieving real progress. DLRM's legal members and consultants may occasionally represent doctors who have faced discrimination from prospective or current employers as a result of their anti-vivisectionist views.
Lawyers are in a position to challenge unjust laws and help to pass new ones.
These are issues that DLRM plans to address in the coming months, beginning with the call for a moratorium on inter-species transplants at a press launch on April 30, 1996. DLRM is now actively soliciting affidavits from scientists with expertise in the fields of transplant surgery, immunology, virology, bacteriology and epidemiology, in preparation for the eventuality of legal proceedings as the only effective avenue left to call a halt to transgenic transplants involving human beings. DLRM will continue to disseminate information and facts to the media, the general public, professional groups, regulatory agencies, and Members of Parliament. The organization's doctors and lawyers will grant television, radio, magazine and newspaper interviews, address public meetings of organised groups and societies, lectures at universities, colleges, and schools, and participate in debates. Their efforts will surely contribute to the goal of a better standard of medical research.