AnimalRights.Net

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In a recent newsletter, Americans for Medical Progress pointed out a fascinating exchange of letters between an animal rights activist and the mother of a cystic fibrosis patient in the pages of New Scientist.

On March 23, 2002, Chris Nay of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection wrote a letter attacking a recent pro-animal research campaign by the Research Defence Society. That campaign featured 16-year-old Laura Cowell who suffers from cystic fibrosis, a life-threatening genetic disease.

Nay’s attack is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black. According to Nay,

. . . the RDS is not the first group to realise the potential of such a “campaign mascot” as an effective though predictable choice in their propaganda war. Indeed, such patronizing campaigns where patients are often portrayed as helpless victims eternally indebted to the tireless philanthropy of the pharmaceuticals industry are nothing new.

Given the propensity for the animal rights movement in general and BUAV in particular to substitute pictures of cute animals to hide their severely deficient critique of medical research, this is absurd.

Moreover the patronizing is done here by Nay. It would of course be better for his group if people whose life literally depends on animal research would just roll over and die without raising any sort of objection. Far from being a “helpless victim,” Cowell came across as a fighter who, unfortunately, has to contend not only with her deadly disease but with an animal rights movement that puts the lives of rats and mice on an equal moral plane with hers.

In fact, Nay is not afraid to put the mice and rats in a morally superior position to Cowell. After saying that he has “to questions the validity of” the claim that Cowell’s life has been extended due to animal research (of course he questions this, but never provides any evidence that it is an inaccurate claim), Nay launches into the heart of the animal rights argument,

The RDS claim that people benefit from vivisection. The BUAV believes people will benefit if vivisection is banned. Either way, it is indisputable that throughout history the oppressor has often benefited from the suffering and exploitation of the oppressed, sometimes substantially. The question the RDS seems unwilling or unable to address is whether it is ever morally acceptable for the strong to ameliorate their suffering by transferring it to the weak.

When Cowell seeks to prolong her life by supporting animal research, she is no different from 17th and 18th century colonialists and slave traders who oppressed others simply to benefit their own position.

Cowell, the cystic fibrosis sufferer, is the oppressor. The animals that have provided key insights into cystic fibrosis, the oppressed.

In a response to Nay, Laura Cowell’s mother Vicky, who chairs Seriously Ill for Medical Research, responded to Nay’s points, writing,

If the life of a child is not more valuable than that of a mouse then there is something very wrong with our society. It is because of ongoing research using transgenic mice with cystic fibrosis that the quality of life for thousands of people like Laura is improving. Scientists will one day find a cure for her condition. Surely she deserves the chance to live — and to live a full and productive life?

You bet she does.

Sources:

Emotive campaign. Chris Nay, New Scientist, March 23, 2002.

My daughter deserves the chance to live. Vicky Cowell, New Scientist.

In 1997, a strain of avian flu jumped the species barrier and infected 18 people in Hong Kong, killing 6 of them. When tests found the flu spreading among Hong Kong chickens, the entire population of more than one million chickens was slaughtered in an effort to wipe out the disease.

But the avian flu returned in 2002 and hundreds of thousands of chickens have died and been slaughtered.

Research into samples of the 2001 and 2002 viruses show that the latest virus is indeed based on the pervious year’s version — efforts to eradicate the disease failed.

At least one research in Hong Kong, microbiologist Guan Yi, says the only solution is to close all live chicken farms in Hong Kong and ban the importation of live chickens from China. “I believe we have to get rid of the farms, and the poultry markets, and the import of fresh chickens,” Guan told China Daily.

Peter Wong Chun-kow, the Hong Kong president of the World’s Poultry Science Association, rejected that idea, telling China Daily that, “Avian influenza is just like any human flu — you just cannot get rid of it. However, it does not make sense to get rid of the poultry industry to get rid of the bird flu. That would be an ignorant act.”

The real problem here is China. Almost all chickens sold either live or ready for sale in Hong Kong are imported from China — only about 20 percent of chicken sold in Hong Kong actually originates from Hong Kong.

China is notoriously inept at efforts to track the origination of the influenza outbreaks. Not only does China not keep accurate records of outbreaks that would allow researchers to trace back the source of new strains of influenza, but even when China has a habit of denying that there is any new strain of influenza even to the point of denying that its farmers have been forced to slaughter chickens when it is easy to confirm that such actions have, in fact, occurred.

Time reported that when there were reports of an avian flue outbreak and the slaughter of chickens in China’s Fujian province, the response of the Chinese government was simply to deny everything.

The situation is so bad that if live chickens from China are refused by Hong Kong because the avian flu is detected, the chickens are simply slaughtered, repackaged as frozen, and re-exported back to Hong Kong.

Hong Kong’s problem is less with chickens than it is with the politicians in China who do not want to take responsibility for eradicating the avian influenza.

Source:

Hong Kong’s Fowl Problem: Hong Kong’s latest bird flu scare points to a lack of Chinese cooperation. Davena Mok, Time Asia, February 18, 2002.

Hong Kong chicken flu slaughter “failed”. Emma Young, New Scientist, April 19, 2002.

After all of this talk recently from UK government officials about how they are prepared to get tough with animal rights activists who cross the line, The Financial Times reports that in fact two animal rights activists sentenced to six months in jail for a campaign of harassment were released early several weeks ago.

Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty activists Greg Avery, 35, Natasha Taylor, 33, and Heather James, 34, plead guilty for their campaign of harassment against people who were associated with Huntingdon Life Sciences. The trio published a newsletter that was distributed to 5,000 to 10,000 people that listed the names, phone numbers and addresses of individuals. The newsletter urged people to falsely order products to be delivered to targets in order to harm their credit rating. They also advocated phone blockades against banks, letter campaigns directed at individuals and other actions.

At their sentencing, Judge Zoe Smith told the three that, “The effect was to cause stress and strain. Witnesses have spoken of feeling violated and frightened and ill and it is clear you were aware of the effect and the stress they suffered.”

But the BioIndustry Association is warning that activists will get the message that they will be let off easy for such violations after it was revealed that Avery and James were released early a few weeks ago. According to The Financial Times they were ordered to wear electronic tags and not talk to the press.

New legislation has been enacted in Great Britain, but BioIndustry Association deputy chief executive Aisling Burnand told The Financial Times, “It is too early to say if it was enough. Seven people have been put behind bars and there is a feeling the campaign has run out of steam, but that could change.”

The Financial Times quoted SHAC as saying that the idea that their campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences had lost steam was “rubbish.” The Times quoted SHAC as saying,

We have been targeting financial backers of HLS, not just the pharmaceuticals companies. That is the only reason we’re less visible to the industry. They’ll never stop us. We’ll get worse and worse.

Well, at least the last sentence there is certainly true.

Source:

Drug companies warn of animal rights protests. David Firn and Patrick Jenkins, The Financial Times (London), April 23, 2002.