Archive for 2001
Prison Guard Convicted for Crushing Kittens in Trash Compactor
Ronald Hunlock, 47, was found guilty this week of aggravated cruelty to animals for crushing to death five kittens in a trash compactor at Sing Sing prison where he was a guard.
Hunlock discovered the kittens during a search of an inmate’s cell. Hunlock ordered the prisoner to put the kittens in the trash compactor as a punishment, but when the prisoner refused to do so, Hunlock placed the kittens in the machine and started it himself.
Hunlock’s defense argued that the facts were largely irrelevant since New York’s Felony Animal Cruelty Laws was excessively vague and overly broad. The judge in the case, Peter M. Leavitt, disagreed, finding the law consistent with New York’s constitution.
Hunlock faces sentencing on March 19, 2002, and faces up to two years in prison.
Sources:
Conviction applauded by animal activists. Zachary R. Dowdy, Newsday, December 19, 2001.
Guard convicted of crushing kittens. Associated Press, December 18, 2001.
Tags: Cats, Law Movement, Miscellaneous
Number of Human Victims of Mad Cow Disease May Be Small
At one time, estimates were that upwards of 100,000 people in Great Britain might die from Mad Cow Disease — the first time I ever heard of the disease was in a speech given by Howard Lyman in which he claimed the disease would prove worse than AIDS. These estimates have been steadily revised downward, and a recent study by French scientists suggests that the disease may peak at a couple hundred deaths.
The current research is based on a computer model of the disease that incorporates new assumptions about the disease.
One of the striking things about the variant CJD that is believed to originate as a result of Mad Cow Disease is that young people seem especially susceptible to it, as compared to the non-variant CJD — which is unconnected with Mad Cow Disease — which generally afflicts people over the age of 50.
The average age at death of victims of vCJD is only 28, while 93 percent of people who die from CJD are over the age of 50. This leads some researchers to conclude that for some reason, young people are especially susceptible to vCJD, and that as time goes by this will result in a fall-off of the number of cases and deaths.
The study, published in Science, says, “Our prediction of the epidemic of vCJD lies in the ‘optimistic’ end of the ranges of previously published figures, and this low value is in favor of a large species barrier between cattle and humans.”
Add to that, the fact that susceptibility to the disease seems to affect only a specific genetic subpopulation of individuals, and it may turn out that only a tiny number of people ever exposed to Mad Cow Disease ever have a chance to contract vCJD.
The study suggests that the total number of vCJD deaths is likely to be somewhere between 205 and 403, although these estimates are highly dependent on current information about vCJD and could change with new information.
Still, it is encouraging that the worst scenarios seem extremely unlikely at this point, and vCJD is unlikely to become a massive epidemic in Great Britain.
Sources:
CJD deaths ‘may have peaked’. The BBC, November 23, 2001.
Worst of Mad Cow May Be Over. Paul Recer, Associated Press, November 22, 2001.
Tags: Cows, Howard Lyman, Mad Cow Disease
Animal Liberation Front Recounts 2001 ‘Accomplishments’
There is a lot of back and forth over whether or not animal rights terrorism is really terrorism. Fortunately the folks at the Animal Liberation Front have been kind enough to provide a laundry list of their assorted crimes which might be a nice eye opening look at what the terrorist group considers to be a good year. Here’s the complete text of the press release from the Frontline Information Service,
Here are some totals for the year of 2001 from actions on the frontlines for animal liberation. Please remember this list is far from complete; it simply represents the crude numbers of actions known by the ALF Press Office. Numerous actions, especially minor property destruction ones, typically are never reported on or claimed by anyone. The following actions were claimed by either the Animal Liberation Front or similar organizations or anonymous individuals. ELF actions are included when they targeted animal abuse businesses.
Business targeted:
6 Bank of New York offices or facilities
5 research labs
4 Bank of America offices or facilities
4 animal breeders
3 Stephens Inc. offices or facilities
3 fur farms
3 McDonalds
3 Dairy Queen
3 meat stores
2 Burger King
2 Pizza Hut
2 factory farms
1 fur store
1 hunting store
1 pet store
1 wild horse facility
1 circus animal trainDamaged property:
approx. 70 windows or glass doors
approx. 10 vehicles and 1 yacht
3 fires setAnimals rescued or released:
3000 mink
1030 ducks and unknown numbers of ducklings
468 chickens
200 horses
62 pigeons
50 geese
42 beagles
28 rabbits
10 ferrets
Source:
Animal Liberation totals for 2001. Frontline Information Service, Press Release, December 16, 2001.
Tags: Animal Liberation Front, Terrorism
Britney Spears Wants to Work with an Animal Rights Group that Does Not “Distort the Truth” (Good Luck!)
The on again, off again relationship between Britney Spears and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is once again off as the entertainer’s spokeswoman accused PETA of falsely claiming that Spears would pose nude for a PETA promotional effort.
This whole episode began when PETA threatened to protest Spears over her use of live animals onstage. Spears agreed to stop using the live animals in her act and also agreed to lend her image to a PETA poster.
Then media reports surfaced claiming that Spears would pose naked for PETA’s “I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur Campaign.” Spears’ publicist Lisa Kasteler told the BBC that the singer only agreed to provide a photograph of herself, fully clothed, for a PETA poster at a New York night club that excludes people who wear fur.
Kasteler accused PETA of falsely spreading the rumor that Spears would appear in the nude, and told the BBC, “Notwithstanding the meaningful work that PETA does, we cannot be involved with an organization that would distort the truth.”
Kasteler said Spears is still very interested in animal rights, but I suspect she’ll likely run through her 15 minutes of fame long before she is able to find an animal rights group that doesn’t distort the truth.
The best part of the controversy, though, was seeing PETA’s Dan Mathews (the same Mathews who admires serial killer Andrew Cunanan) telling the BBC that, “We’ve never distorted anything. We simply confirmed that we planned on doing a poster with her — we never said anything about nudity.”
PETA? Distort something? How could the press even think such a thing, given PETA’s track record? Oh yeah, right. Scratch that.
Source:
Fur flies over Britney posters. The BBC, December 14, 2001.
Tags: Dan Mathews, Fur, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
Federal Officials Tried to Fake Lynx Data
An ongoing point of controversy in the western part of the United States is the protection of lynx habitat. Environmentalists claim that lynx habitat is endangered and want new restrictions on private and public lands, while developers and others argue that lynx habitat is not endangered and new regulations are not needed. In the midst of this controversy comes word that federal employees of the U.S. Forest Service and The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service apparently tried to plant evidence indicating lynx were present in a federal forest that is currently part of a three-year study of the species.
The research in question was a three-year study authorized by the Clinton administration to study the habitat of the lynx population in and around the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and the Wenatchee National Forest in Washington state. The study used rubbing posts in the forests which were then examined for the presence of lynx hair.
But at least seven government officials were disciplined for planting at least three samples of lynx hair on the posts. When the DNA of the lynx hair was analyzed, two of the samples matched a lynx living in an animal preserve, and the third sample match that of a lynx that had been held by the government until its owner reclaimed it. The government officials had taken hair from those animals, and affixed it to the rubbing posts to make it appear as if lynx had been in the area.
Had the ruse succeeded, this could have led to restrictions on human activity within the two parks.
When caught, the three Forest Service employees, two U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials, and two Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife employees claimed they were simply trying to “test” the lab’s DNA expertise. Those who participated in the scheme have been banned from any further participation in the survey, although the government will not release their names citing privacy issues.
Source:
Rare lynx hairs found in forests exposed as hoax. Audrey Hudson, The Washington Times, December 17, 2001.
Tags: Lynx, Miscellaneous
Jeff Nelson is Either “Stupid or Intellectually Dishonest”
A study by researchers at the University of Minnesota made headlines this week because it found that teenagers who were vegetarians were actually less healthy than teenager who were meat eaters. Jeff Nelson of VegSource.Com wrote a reply arguing that this claim was contradicted by very data collected by the researchers and that, therefore, “the researchers conducting the study are either stupid or intellectually dishonest.” As usual, though, it is Nelson who is village idiot.
Nelson complains that the researchers relied on self-identified vegetarians who do not meet his definition of what a vegetarian is. Nelson write,
A mere 78 of the 215 “vegetarians” reported on in the study are actually vegetarians. Looking at the data of actual vegetarian kids against the rest of the group, there are little or no statistically significant differences in most categories, except that the vegetarian kids score better than the non-veg kids in a few — the opposite of what the researchers are trying to argue with the data.
Not surprisingly, given VegSource.Com’s track record, this is mostly a lie. The study did include 215 teenagers who self-described themselves as vegetarians. Of those 215 teenagers, researchers divided them into two groups: 78 restricted vegetarians, which included vegans and lacto- and lacto-ovo vegetarians); and 137 semi-vegetarians, who self-describe themselves as vegetarians but also indicated they ate chicken or fish.
Where Nelson outright lies, however, is in his claim that “there are little or no statistically significant differences in most categories.” In fact, the semi-vegetarians were more likely to engage in both healthy and unhealthy behaviors. But the research also found that the restricted vegetarian teenagers were twice as likely to be at risk for being overweight (and with a 95% confidence interval which is typically the bar set for statistical significance).
It is a little absurd for Nelson to whine that some of the “vegetarians” were still eating fish or chicken, since as the researchers note, people who move from meat eating to vegetarianism are likely to go through a transitional period where they gradually give up meat,
It may also be that semi-vegetarianism, for some, is the first step toward a more stable, restricted vegetarianism, and that once the transition is made or the vegetarianism is maintained for over 2 years, there might be fewer health-compromising weight control behaviors exhibited.
Nelson’s attack on the research is also a bit odd considering that the researchers are anything but hostile to vegetarianism. They do suggest that one approach might be to intervene with adolescent females who are using vegetarianism as an unhealthy weight loss technique, but they also add that,
Another approach may be to consider the choice of vegetarianism as an opportunity, and recruit adolescents to programs focussing on how to become a healthy vegetarian. Since adult vegetarians appear to be leaner and healthier than their nonvegetarian counterparts, learning how to become a “healthy” adolescent vegetarian may be one avenue for long-term and healthful changes in dietary patterns for adolescents.
Apparently, that’s Nelson’s idea of dishonest research. Pretty typical for VegSource.Com.
Source:
Characteristics of vegetarian adolescents in a multiethnic urban population. Cheryl L. Perry, Maureen T. Mcguire, Dianne Neumark-Sztainer and Mary Story, Journal of Adolescent Health, December 2001.
Tags: Jeff Nelson, Vegetarianism, VegSource.Com
Camel Antibodies and Human Disease
Could antibodies from camels fight human disease? A United Arab Emirates researchers thinks so and wrote an article for the British magazine The Biologist on the medical research potentials of camels.
Dr. Sabah Jassim argues that camel antibodies would make a good research tool since camels are highly resistant to a wide variety of diseases. Camels obviously evolved in an extremely harsh environment and are immune to diseases such as rinderpest and foot-and-mouth that afflict other mammals.
Moreover, because camel antibodies are both smaller and much simpler than human antibodies, Jassim argues they could be reproduced easily and could penetrate parts of the human body that antibodies from other species could not.
As it turns out, there is already some research being conducted in this area, including research to test the feasibility of using modified camel antibodies to create new generations of protease inhibitors. One of the diseases camels are immune to is river blindness, and research is also underway to clone the antibodies which provide this protection and develop a treatment for the disease in human beings.
Source:
Camels could help cure humans. David Bamford, The BBC, December 10, 2001.
Tags: Camels, Medical Research
Harvard Study: Risk of Mad Cow Disease in the United States is Low
On November 30 the U.S. Department of Agriculture release a study concluding that the risk of a Mad Cow disease outbreak in the United States is very low. The three-year study, conducted by the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, concluded that current regulations governing the import of cattle as well as bans on feeding meat and bone meal to cattle make it extremely unlikely that U.S. cattle will become infected with the disease.
According to the report,
There appears to be no potential for an epidemic of BSE resulting from scrapie, chronic wasting disease or other cross-species transmission of similar diseases found in the U.S.
The current major debate over Mad Cow disease in the United States is whether or not cattle herds should be tested for the disease. So far, the United States has test only 12,000 head of cattle out of an estimated population of 100 million. In 2002, the USDA plans to expand that testing to 12,500 more animals.
In its coverage of the report, The New York Times quoted Mad Cow researcher Thomas Pringle as saying that such limited testing was a mistake. Pringle noted that nations claiming to be BSE-free had, in fact, found cases of the disease after ordering testing of cattle herds. Japan, for example, recently discovered several cases of Mad Cow disease after believing the disease had not reached its shores.
Still, American Meat Institute president J. Patrick Boyle argued that, “America’s B.S.E.-free status is not luck. The U.S. is free of many animal diseases that plague other nations, testaments to the success of government-industry efforts.”
Sources:
U.S. Mad Cow Risk is Low, A Study by Harvard Finds. Elizabeth Becker, The New York Times, December 1, 2001.
Report has final word on mad cow disease. Kay Ledbetter, The Amarillo Globe News, December 9, 2001.
Tags: Cows, Mad Cow Disease
No Bow Hunting on Sundays?
One of the most ridiculous appeals this writer has seen from an animal rights group was issued recently by the League of Animal Protection Voters which wants to make certain that bow hunters in New Jersey cannot kill deer on Sundays.
Apparently, at the moment it is illegal to bow hunt on Sundays in New Jersey, which is absurd. I’ve heard of places where you can’t buy alcohol on Sundays, but hunt? Stuart Chaifetz, a co-founder of the League of Animal Protection Voters, claims that the ban on Sunday bow hunting is needed because Sunday is, “The only day in which they [families] have to walk peacefully on our woods.” Chaifetz notes that two people were recently killed in hunting accidents in New Jersey.
But if the goal is to save the lives of innocent people just trying to enjoy themselves, New Jersey would be better off banning a truly dangerous activities like swimming on Sundays, rather than bow hunting.
The League of Animal Protection Voters’ real agenda, of course, is an outright ban on hunting, period. In its press release opposing a bill that would eliminate the no hunting on Sundays rule, the LAPV argues that,
Bow hunting is barbaric entertainment that best deserves to reside in the dark ages, not in the 21st century and not in a country that deems itself humane. We must not only defeat the Sunday hunting bill, but we must as a people turn our eye and conscience to this most bloody and unnatural ’sport’ and defeat it as well.
Source:
League exposes brutality of bow hunting, opposes bill that allows bow hunters to kill on Sundays. League of Animal Protection Voters, December 6, 2001.
Tags: Deer, Hunting, League of Animal Protection Voters, Stuart Chaifetz
New Look, But RSPCA Up to Its Old Tricks
A recent article in the Independent (London) reported that the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has recently moderated some of its rhetoric in order not to be associated with violent activists targeting Huntingdon Life Sciences, but this is still clearly an RSPCA that is beholden to the animal rights ideology.
Currently about 1,500 non-human primates are imported into Great Britain every year for medical research, and the RSPCA is laying out a plan to gradually phase out such research (it is already illegal in Great Britain to conduct research involving on chimpanzees).
In a new campaign against primate research, the RSPCA sets out three goals: make it illegal to import primates into Great Britain; strictly regulate the transportation of animals within Great Britain; conduct a “critical review” of the role of primates in medical research.
Sources:
RSPCA demands monkey import ban. The BBC, December 7, 2001.
Time to stop monkeying around with animal rights. The Independent (London), December 7, 2001.
Tags: Medical Research, Primates, Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals