AnimalRights.Net

The British Advising Standards Authority ordered Vegetarians International Voice for Animals! to rewrite a leaflet it published after the ASA found that the group’s claims were alarmist and not supported by the evidence.

The leaflet claimed that, “Eating animals is one of the main reasons why heart disease, clogged arteries, high blood pressure and strokes are at epidemic proportions . . . Vegetarians, on the other hand, are much less likely to develop these killer diseases and face the prospect of living longer than meat eaters — largely because of the protective effect of vital nutrients found only in fruit and vegetables.”

VIVA! submitted studies that it said backed up its claim, but the ASA ruled that, “The advertisers had not supplied adequate evidence to show that eating animals caused the listed diseases or that vegetarians were much less likely to develop the listed diseases. The Authority considered that the claims exaggerated the likelihood of eating meat in a balanced diet causing the listed diseases.”

The bottom line is that vegetarian and vegan activists have yet to find any convincing evidence that a diet low in fat, and high in fruits and vegetables that also includes lean meat is inferior to a vegetarian diet. So far, the sort of studies that VIVA! cites merely demonstrate that diets high in fat and low in fruits and vegetables are inferior to diets low in fat and high in fruits and vegetables.

Source:

Vegetarian shock tactics slammed. The BBC, August 14, 2002.

In July, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine published a study detailing their efforts to create a gene therapy treatment for congestive heart failure.

The research involved hamsters who have a naturally occurring genetic defect that leads to eventual heart failure in much the same way that congestive heart failure does in human beings. In congestive heart failure, the heart’s ability to pump blood gradually declines. The scientists wondered if there might be a way to restore the heart’s vitality using gene therapy.

Using a virus they delivered a genetic mutation to the hearts of the hamsters that corrected a defect in the gene that regulates the way calcium is cycled through the heart. This sort of problem has been linked to heart failure in human beings. With the mutated gene in place, the hamsters showed a dramatic improvement in the ability of their hearts to pump blood throughout the seven month long experiment.

Having proved the concept in hamsters, the UCSD researchers are now conducting similar experiments on pigs, with human trials likely in the next 12-18 months assuming that the findings in the pigs are as positive as were the results in the hamsters.

Source:

Congestive heart failure: Treatment shows success in animal model. Heart Disease Weekly, August 25, 2002.

When Jeff Nelson and the rest of the folks at VegSource.Com split with Robert Cohen, they claimed it was because (among other things) Cohen had a habit of exaggerating his claims which would ultimately undermine the vegan argument. As opposed, of course, to those reasonable, level-headed folks at VegSource who make such non-sensationalist claims as this:

That’s right folks, step right up and drink the magic vegan elixir and make yourself heart attack proof. Yeah, that Jeff Nelson sure has a lot of integrity.

Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating this week signed an executive order placing an initiative to ban cockfighting on the ballot for the Nov. 5 general election.

Oklahoma, Louisiana and New Mexico are the only states left where cockfighting is legal.

Keating endorses the cockfighting ban saying,

Cockfighting is cruel, it promotes illegal gambling and it is simply embarrassing to Oklahoma to be seen as one of only a tiny handful of locations outside of the third world where this activity is legal. I will vote yes for State Question 687, and I encourage all Oklahomans to do the same.

Keating’s act resolves a long-fought battle by anti-cockfighting forces that began back in 2000 when they collected 100,000 signatures in the Fall of 1999 to place the initiative on the November 2000 ballot. Signatures on that ballot were challenged in court by cockfighting supporters, however, which led to the two-year delay in the initiative being added to the ballot.

Also appearing on the 2002 ballot is an another initiative that was a reaction to the cockfighting initiative. State Question 698 would, if passed, require initiative backers to obtain signatures from registered voters equal to 15 percent of the total number of voters in the previous election. Currently, the requirement is only 8 percent.

Source:

Cockfighting issue on ballot. John Greiner, The Oklahoman, August 20, 2002.

Ryan Kleinert, 17, of New Jersey, and Lisa Lotts, 23, of Iowa, were arrested in Massachusetts this week and charged with stalking, criminal harassment, and attempted extortion of a manager for Marsh Insurance, Robert Harper Jr. According to media reports, Kleinert and Lotts are allegedly members of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty and were among a number of activists who regularly protested at Harper’s home.

A press release from the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office said,

An investigation found that Kleinert and Lotts allegedly participated in activities including:

• Threatening to burn down the apartment building where the victim and others live
• Demanding that the victim quit his job if he wants to stop the threats
• Vandalizing the building where the victim lived with red paint
• Visiting the home at all hours of the day and night, screaming threats and demands, sometimes with a megaphone. Kleinert and Lotts allegedly called the victim a “puppy killer” and “animal torturer” and would make references to the victim’s 2-year-old son.

Kleinert and Lotts also allegedly posted “Wanted for Murder” posters in Harper’s neighborhood that featured his photo.

Obviously there are plenty of actionable crimes here assuming the state can prove its case, but the really interesting charge is the attempted extortion. Apparently the state is going to argue that since the alleged SHAC activists engaged in a pattern of harassment while promising said harassment would end only if Harper’s company stopped doing business with Huntingdon Life Sciences, that this constitutes attempted extortion.

Sources:

Two Arraigned On Charges They Stalked And Harassed A Boston Family. The Office of the Massachusetts Attorney General, Press Release, August 19, 2002.

Pro-animal duo busted in terror siege. Jessica Heslam, Boston Herald, August 20, 2002.

Animal activists charged with stalking. Joe Spurr, Boston Globe, August 20, 2002.

Many public schools these days have vending machines that sell soda beverages, so in March 2002 Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) launched an initiative to urge New York schools to add milk vending machines as well. Schumer is now working with the USDA to offer incentives for all public schools to add milk vending machines. And, of course, this means that Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is out trying to rally activist to stop schools from adding milk vending machines.

An e-mail message sent to an animal rights list this week by animal rights activist Mary Max complained that,

Members of PCRM have had very disappointing meetings with Senator Schumer’s federal office regarding his proposal to put milk vending machines in all U.S. public schools. It seems that Schumer is committed to moving forward.

Somebody doesn’t buy PCRM’s nonsense about milk? Simply amazing. According to PCRM, of course, milk contributes to everything from asthma and ear infections to diabetes and cancer. Whereas PCRM just continues to contribute to excess ignorance and selective citing of studies.

Source:

Call! No Milk Vending Machines. Mary Max, e-mail, August 20, 2002.

What’s Wrong With Dairy Products. Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

Group opposes milk vending machines in schools. Associated Press, April 3, 2002.

Rutgers law professor Gary Francione and Fund for Animals legal director Lee Hall wrote a scathing critique of the animal rights movement for the San Francisco Chronicle. The op-ed defended Chronicle columnist Debra J. Saunders who recently criticized a California proposal for a “humane education” curriculum in schools.

Francione and Hall raise some points which this author fully agrees with, but in general they disapprove of the mainstream of the animal rights movement because they do not think it is radicalized enough. In Francione and Hall’s view, a group like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is composed of a bunch of sellouts who are little better than cattle ranchers.

Francione and Hall agree with and expand on Saunders’ criticism that the animal rights movement tends to be inconsistent. They note, for example, how quickly people rushed to defend Peter Singer’s qualified defense of sex between humans and non-human animals. Francione and Hall write,

Remarkably, a large number of prominent animal advocates rushed to defend singer. Those advocates who did criticize Singer found themselves reprimanded for “divisive” conduct. Such a response befits a cult, not a social movement.

Francione and Hall also agree with Saunders that Singer does openly advocate infanticide — as is obvious to anyone who reads his writings on the topic — and express contempt at those in the animal rights movement who label as “animal enemies” (their term) those who criticize Singer for this and other absurd positions.

But it is their wholesale attack on the humane education proposals that show Francione and Hall’s true perspective — they consider any attempt at improving animal welfare to be collaborating with the enemy that ultimately undermines the entire movement. Francione and Hall write,

Saunders correctly perceives the meaninglessness of such [humane education] legislation. Who disagrees with the position that we ought to be “kind” to animals? The problem is that as long as animals are our property, as long as we can buy them, sell them, kill them and eat them, it does not matter whether we call ourselves “guardians” or how much we ramble about “humane” treatment. In reality, we are still their masters and they are our slaves.

. . .

It is our view that animals should not be brought under the control of human owners in the first place and, therefore, that humans should stop producing domestic animals for human use.

With Francione and Hall, the problem then is not that procedures for slaughtering cattle is inhumane, but rather that animal rights activists seem to accept things like human beings having pets or abominable practices such as the provision of guide dogs for the blind.

Rather than advocate for humane treatment of non-human animals, Francione and Hall argue for essentially a complete separation and end all contact between humans and animals (except, perhaps, where humans are simply unnoticed observers).

Source:

A deeply confused animal rights movement. Gary L. Francione and Lee Hall, San Francisco Chronicle, August 21, 2002.

Four Florida men were charged this month with three counts of animal cruelty after police discovered dead chickens, pigeons and doves that the men had killed apparently as part of a Santeria sacrifice. A 17-year-old minor was also arrested.

Santeria is a combination of Roman Catholicism and west African beliefs. The religion first took hold in Caribbean nations and has hundreds of thousands of followers in the United States.

In reporting on the arrest, both the Tampa Tribune and the Associated Press wrongly claimed that a 1993 U.S. Supreme Court ruling held animal sacrifices as protected under the Constitution. But that is not at all what the U.S. Supreme Court held.

Instead, what the Court said was that cities and states could not single out ritual animal sacrifice and make it illegal. So a city that allowed people to kill chickens within the city limits, could not pass a law making it illegal to kill chickens as part of a religious ceremony.

But the upshot of that ruling is that if a municipality or state has an existing animal cruelty statute that is applied across the board and the religious sacrifice of an animal violates that statute, then the city or state can prosecute that act. If the animals in this case were killed in a way that violates Florida or Miami’s existing anti-cruelty statutes, then the defendants will not be able to fall back on the First Amendment as a defense.

Source:

Ritual killings rate as cruelty, police charge. Jennifer Bars, Tampa Tribune, August 18, 2002.

Prosecutors in the Netherlands recently outlined their case against Volkert van der Graaf who is charged with murdering Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn. Van der Graaf is a vegan animal rights activist who as a teenager founded a branch of the Animal Liberation Front and had spent his adult life fighting animal agriculture in court.

In a televised hearing, prosecutors offered what seems like overwhelming evidence of van der Graaf’s guilt. Van der Graaf was seen by multiple witnesses fleeing the scene. When he was caught, there were gun powder stains on his coat and on the latex gloves he was wearing. Ballistics tests of the gun found in his position establish that it was likely the murder weapon, which was strengthened by the fact that blood from Fortuyn was also found on the gun.

A search of van der Graaf’s house turned up maps of the area where Fortuyn was killed as well as evidence that van der Graaf had been accumulating information about Fortuyn’s movements for months.

Police also turned up bomb-making material in van der Graaf’s home. Investigators found sulphuric and hydrochcloric acid, condoms filled witih potassium chloride and sugar, and a timer.

Police also announced they are seeking a second possible suspect. Analysis of the gun turned up not only DNA for Fortuyn and van der Graaf, but also a third man who is known to police and has previously committed a crime. The prosecutor did not identify the man in court, but said it was pursuing the lead to avoid conspiracy theories later (the implication being that police believe that van der Graaf purchased his weapon from a known criminal).

Van der Graaf’s trial is expected to start in about three months.

Source:

‘Second figure’ may have been involved in Dutch assassination. Andrew Osborn, The Guardian (London), August 10, 2002.

Accomplice sought in Fortuyn murder. Andrew Osborn, The Guardian (London), August 10, 2002.

Dutch watch case against Fortuyn suspect on live TV. Marie Devine, The Independent (London), August 10, 2002.

VegSource.Com maintains that it provides advice for living a healthy vegan lifestyle but more often than not it simply promotes the same old lame quack health advice that has been debunked over and over again but never fails to find adherents alternative health circles. Exhibit A is a bizarre article by Roopa Chari, M.D., “The Key to Longevity: Cleansing the Colon.”

To get a firm idea of the quackery involved in Chari’s article it is necessary to start reading in the middle with these two sentences,

Many people’s colons are packed with a lifetime of old, hardened feces leading to toxemia or the accumulation of poisons. Dr. Tilden said that diseases were crises of toxemia.

The first sentence is a claim that was long ago disproven through analysis of the colons of people undergoing surgical procedures and autopsies (although simply disproving a hypothesis is never enough for the true believers).

But Dr. Tilden is the real focus of interest. She is referring to Dr. J. H. Tilden, a world-class quack who became moderately famous in the early part of the 20th century for his view that, as Chari gleefully repeats, all disease was caused by “toxemia.” What did this mean in practice?

Tilden rejected the germ theory of disease, arguing instead that all diseases were caused by toxins that were normally evacuated from the body but that which, in diseased persons, were retained in the body and polluted the blood. In fact, Tilden rejected the idea that there were different diseases. In his view, everything from cancer to the common cold to syphilis was but the outward manifestation of a single phenomenon — toxemia.

Consider a disease such as diptheria. Tilden dismissed the idea that diptheria was a bacterial infection and advised against vaccination. Rather, Tilden believed that diptheria was caused when children were overfed and that the only sensible treatment was washing out the bowels 2-3 times per day “using as large enemas as can be put into the bowels.”

VegSource.Com gives Chari a platform for warmed-over Tilden-style views. According to Chari,

Often the main cause behind sickness and disease is the retention and reabsorption of this toxic waste. A major benefit of a good cleansing program is that you digest food better, eat less and smaller quantities of food are more satisfying. A pot belly and bloating is another indication of an expanded and inflated colon that is full of fecal matter.

Chari also repeatedly cites Dr. Richard Schulze and recommends his herbal methods of bowel cleansing. Schulze, like Tilden, maintains that just about every disease known to man can be cured with such methods. He claims, for example, to have had patients reverse their Alzheimer’s by taking his herbs. Schulze has even gone so far as to claim that AIDS can be cured by a regimen of juice and enemas.

Perhaps Nelson should change VegSource.Com’s tagline from “All are welcome” to “All types of quacks and frauds are welcome.” That would certainly be more accurate if Nelson is going to continue to publish nonsense like this.

Source:

The Key to Longevity: Cleansing the Colon. Roopa Chari, M.D., VegSource.Com, August 2002.