Big Thorn in Big Pharm’s Side Dies
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Hans Ruesch, author of the bestselling book against animal experiments Slaughter of the Innocent, has died at the age of 94. Born in Italy, Ruesch shared a love of auto racing with PETA’s president: Between 1932 and 1937 he won 27 Grand Prix races. In 1937 he wrote the novel Gladiators, which was inspired by the popular race car driver Rudolf Caracciola. The book was made into a movie. He then wrote Land of the Long Shadows about the Innuit, which sold millions of copies and was also made into a major movie starring Anthony Quinn and Peter O´Toole. At 60, he started his fight against the pharmaceutical industry’s experiments on monkeys and other animals, calling it scientific fraud. He wrote Slaughter of the Innocent, Naked Empress, and The Pharma Story. He had to fight long legal battles with the pharmaceutical industry before he could publish his first book in Switzerland, where he lived. Many people joined PETA in the early ’80s after reading Slaughter of the Innocent, now out of print.
