Monthly Archives: April 2002

Farm Bill Turning Into a Rout for Animal Rights Activists

Posted on by
Reply

Last week I reported that Sen. Jesse Helms\’ office was saying that the provision to exempt birds and rodents from the Animal Welfare Act had been approved for the final version of the Farm Bill that it was attached to. On Friday, the National Animal Interest Alliance reported that the House-Senate conference committee jettisoned the Puppy Protection Act from the final bill.

In a NAIA press release, Patti Strand said,

The PPA was inspired by special interest groups that fundraise using emotional animal welfare issues. As such, it was base don sound bites and depended on evidence from those who aim to restrict all dog breeding. While strongly supporting the elimination of substandard breeding operations and thereby improving animal care, NAIA believes that any legislation designed to do so should be grounded in science and reason as well as good intentions.

NAIA, along with the American Veterinary Medical Association and the American Kennel Club, opposed the bill for being unenforceable and misguided. It would have charged the federal government with making decision on breeding frequency and proper socialization of animals. It also contained a \”three strikes\” provision that NAIA argues would have actually hampered the USDA\’s ability to revoke licenses of noncompliant breeders.

In its press release, NAIA argues that the real problem that needs to be addressed is that of commercial kennels who violate without a license from the USDA and in direct violation of the Animal Welfare Act. According to NAIA,

Current interpretation of the law hinders USDA from tracking pet store puppies back to their suppliers, a situation that hampers the agency\’s ability to locate illegally operating kennels. The number one priority for people who want bad kennels closed is to identify the illegal operations that currently duck USDA licensing requirements.

NAIA would also like to see Congress tackle the problem of the increasing sale of puppies from Eastern Europe and other sites abroad. Today there are no regulations that set out any standards for the conditions under which such puppies are raised.

Source:

Good Intentions are not Enough! National Animal Interest Alliencae, Press Release, April 26, 2002.

Share

Romania Institutes Breed-Specific Bans

Posted on by
Reply

The BBC recenlty reported that Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Nastase announced an emergency decree banning breeds of dogs considered dangerous.

This is the result of several high profile attacks upon children by dogs, including pit bull terriers.

But the ban highlights the problem with breed-specific bans. The problem is not the breed but rather that owning aggressive dogs is apparently considered a status symbol among some Romanian men.

Source:

Romania bans dangerous dogs. The BBC, April 26, 2002.

Share

Should Animal Rights Advocates Start Promoting Beef?

Posted on by
Reply

Earlier this week I mentioned that I though the veggie burger being offered by Burger King was doomed to failure — despite claims by some overenthusiastic vegans and vegetarians, there is no great movement among the general population to foreswear meat. This is confirmed, ironically, by statistics from animal rights activists themselves.

Alex Hershaft, who had posted to an animal rights e-mail list about the importance of Burger King veggie burger, also recently posted statistics to the same e-mail list demonstrating why the veggie burger will fail.

In 1980, per capita consumption of meat in the United Stats was 196 pounds. By 1990, that had risen to 201 pounds, and in 2001 hit 209 pounds, according to the USDA Economic Research Service.

Consumption in beef and pork products are expected to decline somewhat over the next 10 years, but largely because people are expected to eat more chicken and turkey.

Hershaft tries to spin the change as also being due to increased vegetarian/vegan options,

Consumption is now leveling off, reflecting market saturation and increase consumer interest in meat alternatives like veggie burgers, soy dogs, and soy lunch \’meats.\’

The reality is, however, that after 20 years of trying to convince Americans to adopt vegetarian lifestyles, the animal rights movement hasn\’t even made a small dent in meat consumption, with the biggest consumer change being eating more chicken and turkey rather than beef and pork.

Ironically, the switch to chicken and turkey will mean a massive increase in the total number of animals killed. Assuming the USDA is correct in its estimates here is how the numbers would change over the next ten years (these are very rough estimates intended only to show the magnitude of change):

Cows killed: -4.2 million
Pigs killed: -4.7 million
Chickens killed: +639 million
Turkeys killed: +31 million
Net: +661.1 million animals

If the animal rights movement really wants to minimize the total number of animals killed for meat, it should start with a campaign addressed to American consumers to the effect that if they are going to eat meat, the most humane option is beef. Just don\’t hold your breath waiting.

Source:

2002 Death Statistics (PDF). Farm USA, Winter/Spring 2002.

More than 10 billion animals killed for food in the U.S. Alex Hershaft e-mail, accessed April 24, 2002.

US animal flesh consumption at 209 lbs. Alex Hershaft, e-mail, Accessed April 24, 2002.

Share

U.S. Researchers Clone Calf From Cells of Dead Cow

Posted on by
Reply

Researchers at the University of Georgia announced this week that they had successfully cloned a calf from the cells of a cow that had been dead for 48 hours before her genetic material was extracted.

This is the first time a cow has been cloned from cells of a dead animals. European researchers last year announced they had cloned a sheep from cells taken from an animal that had been dead 18 to 24 hours.

The researchers claim that this will allow cattle producers to select the best beef stock from their herds to clone (since it is impossible to judge how suitable a given cow is for meat until after it has been killed).

Further down the road, this technique could allow for the cloning of cows from meat that is tested for low susceptibility to diseases such as Mad Cow.

Source:

Scientists Clone Calf from Dead Cow. Erin McClam, Associated Press, April 25, 2002.

Share

U.S. Researchers Clone Rare Pig

Posted on by
Reply

Wisconsin-based company Infigen announced recently that it had successfully produced clones of a rare pig. More importantly, it claims to have developed advances in cloning that allow it to produce clones with just one round of embryo implantations rather than the several rounds that have been required up until now.

The pig was the last female in one of four remaining bloodlines of Gloucestershire Old Spots in North America. Robyn Metcalfe, founder of the Kelmscott Rare Breeds Foundation in Maine, had unsuccessful tried to get the animal to reproduce via natural breeding and artificial insemination.

Infigen offered its services for free to prove its technology. Pigs have been cloned perviously, but typically two or three pigs are implanted with hundreds of embryos in order to achieve a single successful pregnancy.

Infigen has been able to eliminate the need for implanting multiple animals. In February it released results showing that it had produced three successful pregnancies from three implantations in pigs, and in this case managed to produce a successful pregnancy from a single implantation.

As cloning researcher Randall Prather told NewScientist.Com, \”Sounds like they got it working pretty well.\”

Source:

Rare pig cloned in single cycle. Sylvia Pagan Westphal, NewScientist.Com, April 23, 2002.

Rare pig breed cloned. The BBC, April 24, 2002.

Share

Has Montel Williams Flown the PETA Coop?

Posted on by
Reply

In a recent newsletter, Americans for Medical Progress noted that Montel Williams seems to have quietly ended his association with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. According to AMP,

Talk show host Montel Williams, who has multiple sclerosis,
last year joined comedian Richard Pryor, another MS patient,
in promoting PETA\’s campaign to discourage contributions to
health charities that fund animal-based research.

Now, there is no mention of Montel on PETA\’s website–the
anti-health charities campaign page features a photo of
Paul McCartney and his late wife Linda, and quotes him,
actress Linda Blair and Richard Pryor as opposing the use
of animals in research. But no Montel.

The Montel Williams Foundation last donated $300,000
and this month will donate an additional $100,000
to organizations focused on finding a cure for MS. While
much of the funding is going to clinical investigations,
there is specific mention of work with a new rat model of
MS and other preclinical work in the online news release
from the Montel Williams Foundation:
http://www.montelms.org/news/News2.asp

Last week, Williams devoted his entire program to the
search for a cure and new treatments for MS. He
included biomedical researchers on the panel of experts.

Good news, but I would hope that Williams would also speak out to set the record straight on where he stands on animal research and how he came to change his mind about PETA\’s anti-animal research position.

Source:

Has PETA lost another celebrity? Americans for Medical Progress, AMP News Service, April 19, 2002.

Share

First Instance of Gene Therapy Causing Cancer Spotted in Mice

Posted on by
Reply

Researchers in Germany recently reported in Science that while conducting research on mice designed to look at possible ill effects of gene therapy errors, they observed mice who developed leukemia after a gene therapy treatment.

The researchers were using a retrovirus designed to introduce altered genes into the bone marrow. The virus ended up inserting the altered gene into a known cancer causing gene, however. This particular gene serves an important role in initial development of organs, but is not supposed to be active in cells that develop bone marrow. The altered virus ended up switching the gene on, causing the mice to develop leukemia.

A known risk of gene therapy is the possibility that the altered genetic information might end up in the incorrect place, but this is the first time ever that animals have contracted cancer and died as a result of a faulty application of gene therapy.

This is actually very good news. On the one hand, while the risk of this sort of effect is real, it is extremely low. Ten mice dead of cancer out of hundreds of thousands of animals who have been treated with this sort of retrovirus amounts to a pretty good track record.

On the other hand, this is precisely why researchers use animal models. It is much better to find out in animals the circumstances which cause retroviruses to target the wrong chromosome, so that they can minimize this possibility before widely deploying such treatments in human beings.

Animal rights activists keep saying that all of this sort of research can be accomplished without animals, but I\’d like to see their plan for duplicating this line of research without animals.

So far, very few human beings have been treated with retroviruses. The only current therapeutic use of retroviruses in humans involves treating infants born with severe combined immunodeficiency.

Source:

Gene therapy causes cancer in mice. Andy Coghlan, New Scientist, April 18, 2002.

Share

Canadian Cat Killer\’s Sentence Sparks Controversy

Posted on by
Reply

Anthony Wennekers, 25, and Jessie Power, 21, were sentenced this month after pleading guilty to animal cruelty charges after police found a videotape of the two torturing and killing a cat.

Judge Edward Ormston of the Ontario Court of Justice earned catcalls in the courtroom when he announced that he had sentenced Wennekers to time served and Power to 90 days in jail, to be served on weekends. Power will then face 18 months of house arrest and three years of probation. Both men could have faced up to 2 and a half years in jail.

Prosecutor Robin Flumerfelt told the Toronto Star that a decision would be made by the end of May on whether or not the prosecution would appeal the sentence.

Ormston\’s explained that Wennekers had already severed 10 1/2 months in jail while awaiting trial, and traditionally courts double the amount of such time when considering sentencing. So, under that formula, Wennekers had already served the equivalent of nearly two years in jail.

But what apparently set off the crowd of onlookers in attendance was not so much the sentence but Ormston\’s inexplicable statement that, \”There are worse ways that this cat could have died.\”

On the one hand certainly it is possible to take almost any death and conceive of ways in which that death could have been worse. On the other hand, Wennekers and Power hung the cat by its neck from a telephone cord, slit its throat, stabbed, kicked and then skinned the animal. Yes, this writer can conceive of an even worse death, but that\’s already a pretty damning roster of acts already.

The sentence would have made more sense had Wennekers and Power divulged the name of a third man who is depicted in their videotape of the cat torture but who has so far remained unidentified. Their guilty plea can, as Ormston noted, be used to infer remorse and regret, but surely their failure to name their accomplice mitigates against this explanation.

Source:

Cat torturers\’ sentences anger activists. Nancy Carr, Montreal Gazette, April 19, 2002.

Cat killers\’ sentence draws anger. Nick Pron, Toronto Star, April 19, 2002.

Share

ALF Claims It Contaminated Shampoo Bottles in New Zealand

Posted on by
Reply

The Frontline Information Service distributed a release from the Animal Liberation Front this week claiming that it had contaminated 38 bottles of Pantene Pro V shampoo in New Zealand. The bottles were contaminated with ammonia and hydrogen peroxide and were randomly mixed with uncontaminated bottles.

According to its communique taking credit for the act, the ALF said,

This action was done to coincide with World Week for Laboratory Animals and aimed specifically at Procter and Gamble, manufacturers of the shampoo. Why? An estimated 50,000 animals suffer and die at the hands of Procter & Gamble every year in unscientific \’product testing\’.

This action is dedicated to Barry Horne, whose life\’s work brought attention to the suffering of animals in laboratories everywhere, and whose actions inspired people who care about animals to act on their behalf, even if it means risking your freedom for theirs.

The dedication to Barry Horne is apropos since what Horne did was risk other people\’s lives for his own insane ideology. Contaminating a consumer product is the sort of cowardly act typical of the Animal Liberation Front.

Source:

NZ Animal Liberation Front Contaminate Bottles of Shampoo. Frontline Information Service, April 24, 2002.

Share

PETA Produces Lab Footage Just in Time for Debate Over Regulations

Posted on by
Reply

What a coincidence — the U.S. Congress is currently trying to reconcile Senate and House bills that contain an amendment that would exempt rodents and birds from the Animal Welfare Act. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals just happened to release footage on April 18 purporting to show abuses at laboratories at the University of North Carolina.

PETA had someone work undercover at the animal research facility for the last 6 months shooting footage. Most of the footage shows lab technicians not ensuring that animals are properly euthanized and at least one instance of a researcher apparently violating the protocol of a study with baby rats.

PETA, of course, claims that this shows that the Department of Agriculture should have regulatory authority over rodents and birds. But, of course, the animals that its operative videotaped are already covered by regulations from the National Institute of Health.

Not surprisingly, the National Institute of Health reported that in the six months that this undercover operative was videotaping alleged acts of cruelty, PETA never bothered to file any sort of formal complaint with the NIH.

Nor did PETA formally complain to the University of North Carolina. Less than 24 hours after PETA released its videotaped footage, however, the university had already started an investigation into the allegations.

As for the amendment that Sen. Jesse Helms added to farm legislation to exempt rodents and birds from USDA oversight, according to Helms spokesman Jimmy Broughton that amendment is secure.

\”That\’s been put to bed,\” Broughton told the Raleigh News and Observer. Broughton said that the conferees had already agreed to keep the Helms amendment and that the new PETA video would not lead to any re-opening of discussions on the amendment.

Sources:

UNC Starts Investigation of Labs, Animal Treatment. Meredith Nicholson, The Daily Tarheel, April 24, 2002.

Of mice and Helms. John Wagner, The News and Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina), April 20, 2002.

PETA says tape shows rat research violations. Rick Weiss, Washington Post, April 19, 2002.

Share