DINOSAUR TOWN SAYS NO TO EXTINCTION

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

BOZEMAN, Montana––With much less fanfare than in San Franciso, the
Humane Society of Gallatin Valley in mid-1995 introduced no-kill animal control to the
city of Bozeman, a college town of 22,600 best known for its dinosaur museum.
“The challenges were almost overwhelming,” recalls board member Bruce
Jodar. “The staff worked until they were ready to drop as the number of animals in their
care skyrocketed. In the end, the response of the citizenry turned the tide. People came
from all over the county to adopt a pet from Montana’s only no-kill shelter. Hundreds of
animals who would have been killed in the past now share loving homes.”

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Guest opinion: Just killing isn’t humane work

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

by Lynda Foro
(founder, Doing Things For Animals)

In the four years since Doing Things for
Animals began publishing the annual No-Kill
Directory, the number of self-identified no-kill
shelters and sanctuaries known to us has more
than tripled. More than 700 no-kill organizations
are on our mailing list, and those that returned the
directory questionaire will be listed in our soonto-be-published
fourth edition.
In the three years since our first annual
No-Kill Conference, participation has quadrupled
to more than 300.
Within the past month, features on nokill
sheltering have been distributed internationally
by USA Today, the Los Angeles Times syndicate,
and Associated Press.

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Animal control & rescue

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

Potbellied pigs
A study by Linda Lord and Thomas Wittum,
published in the September 1 edition of the Journal of the
American Veterinary Medical Association, found that 802
U.S. humane societies reported receiving 4,380 requests to
accept owner surrenders of Vietnamese potbellied pigs in an
18-month period, taking in 3,149, including 615 found running
at large. The major reasons for owner surrenders of pigs
were large size (58%), zoning restrictions (34%), and
aggressive behavior (19%). Of 485 hog slaughtering plants
surveyed, 255 had been asked to kill potbellied pigs, and
had among them slaughtered 2,640, refusing to slaughter
another 1,407. Commented Jim Brewer of PIGS: A
Sanctuary, “It’s even worse than that. We’re actually
receiving more distress calls these days from would-be pig
rescuers who are in over their heads than from individual
owners––and we’re still getting plenty of those calls, too.”

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Updates on Carroll Cox investigations done for Friends of Animals

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

While employed by
Friends of Animals, Carroll Cox
investigated––among many other
topics––the U.S. Navy practice
bombing of Farallon de Medinilla,
an uninhabited Pacific island used
extensively by endangered, threatened,
and otherwise protected
seabirds; the reason why the
Convention on International Trade
in Endangered Species secretariat
last year rejected the fiscal 1994
U.S. wildlife import/export data
submitted by the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service; the alleged misuse
of a scientific research permit
issued to Albright College professor
Marsha Green, both by Green herself

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Mystery firing at WSPA, too

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

Named special projects director by
the World Society for the Protection of
Animals in June, after 12 years in similar
roles with the American SPCA, Kathi
Travers immediately won headlines with
high-profile rescues of pets from the volcano-wracked
Caribbean island of
Montserrat, but was fired August 20, appare-
ntly – –ANIMAL PEOPLE understood
then––due to conflict with other WSPA staff.

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FoA cancels ads: Cox firing spotlights Friends of Animals’ relationship with Fish & Wildlife Service

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

WASHINGTON D.C.––Friends of
Animals on August 20 fired special investigator
Carroll Cox, notifying ANIMAL PEOPLE
literally as the September edition went to
press. The edition featured two Cox investigations
in separate page one articles, with
two more items on inside pages that were
based on Cox probes.
The firing drew notice to the longtime
cooperative relationship of Friends of
Animals with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service––Cox’s former employer, whom he
has sued––in outfitting African anti-poaching
forces. The African projects are among the
most publicized FoA programs.
At the October ANIMAL PEOPLE
deadline Cox said he had retained prominent
legal counsel to draft a lawsuit alleging civil
rights violations on the part of FoA, whom he
accused of acting in collusion with USFWS.

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GREENPEACE GETS A WHALE

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

NOME––”Alaskan Inuit give warm
welcome to Greenpeace,” the Nunatsiaq News
headlined on August 8. “Members even
helped some villagers get a bowhead whale,”
added a subhead, “as a group of Greenpeace
activists visit Yu’ik and Inupiat villages to
gather information about global warming.”
Continued Nicole M. Braem of the
Arctic Sounder, as a guest contributor to
Nunatsiaq News, “One representative
explained the group does not oppose whaling
or subsistence hunting, and that they wanted
to hear about any changes in sea ice patterns,
snowfall, and animal abundance. ‘We’re here
to stop pollution, not whaling,’ Greenpeace
campaigner Sally Schullinger explained,”
according to Braem. “A community meeting
was postponed until the next day when
Gambell whalers decided to go get a dead
bowhead several miles from the village. The
village requested assistance from Greenpeace,
and crewmen in two inflatable rafts helped an
umiak skin boat tow the whale back to shore.”

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PEOPLE & ORGANIZATIONS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

A week after ANIMAL PEOPLE
exposed the unsuccessful effort of Sierra
Club Cascade Chapter conservation committee
chair Ingrid Hansen to get the
Washington-based chapter to “support the
Makah Tribe’s proposal to take five grey
whales,” and her apparent success in defeating
a counter-proposal that the chapter should
“oppose all taking of whales,” Hansen on
August 28 resigned by e-mail “as Conservation
Chair of the Cascade Chapter of the
Sierra Club, as Sasquatch Group representative
to the Cascade Chapter executive committee,
and as representative of the Cascade
Chapter to the Northwest Regional
Conservation Commitee.” Hansen did not
explain her resignation.

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Learn these words: monoclonal antibodies (they’re a coming issue)

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

JENKINTOWN, Pa.––Monoclonal
antibodies, the American Anti-Vivisection
Society has long quietly gambled, will some
day become as notorious as the LD-50 and
Draize chemical safety tests.
Then, AAVS believes, outcry may
force regulatory and procedural changes in
monoclonal antibody production that could
save a million mouse lives a year, largely
through adoption of an alternate production
method that AAVS funding has helped perfect.
Last April, after years of preparation,
AAVS took the first big step toward
making monoclonal antibodies a public issue,
introducing a campaign titled “Antibodies
Without Animals.” It drew favorable note
from the trade magazine Lab Animal, and
from a variety of scientific, technological,
and legal journals, but none from mainstream
media––and none at the time from A N I M A L
PEOPLE, because we knew we’d need more
space to explain what it was all about than was
immediately available.
“Monoclonal antibodies are used in
essentially every field of human and veterinary
research, and in diagnosing and treating many
cancers, bacterial and viral infections, and
other ailments,” AAVS eventually explained
in a succinct campaign summary. “They are
especially useful because they attack specific
antigens within the body, where they are used
to identify and/or destroy foreign materials.
Unfortunately, many laboratories still use the
outdated and painful ascites method of producing
monoclonal antibodies. When animals
are used,” tumor cells are injected into their
abdominal fluid. This, AAVS continued,
“causes ascites––a painful swelling of the
abdominal peritoneal cavity. It is estimated
that more than one million animals,” most or
all of them mice, “undergo this torment each
year in the U.S.
“Since 1975,” AAVS added, “scientists
have known that monoclonal antibodies
could be produced without the use of animals,
but animal use proliferated in small-scale production.
In the 1990s, the AAVS Alternatives
Research & Development Foundation provided
funds for experienced scientists to develop
an efficient, humane laboratory method of
monoclonal antibody production: gas-permeable
tissue culture bags. These specially
designed plastic bags grow a desired antibody
when the correct cells and culture medium are
placed in them. The bags make more monoclonal
antibodies in less time for less money,
and eliminate the contamination which results
from the use of ascites. Many other alternatives
are available.
“The alternatives are so simple, reliable,
and economical,” the AAVS campaign
summary emphasized, “that the Netherlands,
Germany, and Switzerland have banned the
use of animals. In April 1997, the European
Centre for the Validation of Alternative
Methods published its recommendation that
the entire European Union prohibit animal
monoclonal antibody production. The EU,”
AAVS declared, “is expected to follow the
ECVAM recommendation.”
The U.S. lags behind, AAVS indicated,
in part because Animal Welfare Act
enforcement regulations exclude mice (as well
as rats and birds) from the definition of “animal,”
a bit of bureaucratic gerrymandering
maintained by the USDA Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service to avoid having to
attempt broader enforcement. The exclusion
of mice means, essentially, that ascites monoclonal
antibody production involves animals
who are for the most part not protected by law.
Further, the AAVS campaign summary
said, the AWA “requires all animal laboratories’
Institutional Animal Care and Use
Committees to ask experimenters whether they
considered alternatives before proposing to
experiment on animals. Unfortunately, experimenters
in the U.S. are not required to use
alternatives whenever possible. European law,
in contrast, mandates the use of alternatives
whenever they are valid and obtainable.”
PETITIONS
Trying to expedite progress toward
the universal use of non-animal monoclonal
antibody production, AAVS on April 23 filed
legal petitions with both the USDA and
National Institutes of Health.
The USDA was asked to “Modify
the current definition of animal that excludes
mice, rats, and birds from coverage under the
AWA,” and to issue a new regulation prohibiting
“the use of animals in the production
and use of monoclonal antibodies.”
The NIH was asked to issue a similar
prohibition, to formally confirm the validity
and reliability of alternative monoclonal antibody
methods, to encourage acceptance of the
alternative methods by “proposing a regulation
requiring all NIH scientists and grantees to utilize
the alternatives,” and to “initiate a
training program at NIH to train scientists
in the use of the alternatives.”
Ron DeHaven, USDA Animal
and Plant Health Inspection Service acting
deputy administrator for animal care,
responded first, on August 6.
“In 1990,” DeHaven recited,
“the USDA analyzed the impact of bringing
rats, mice, and birds under regulation.
The USDA concluded that there
were 1,735 facilities registered under the
AWA that use rats, mice, and other
species, and estimated that there were an
additional 2,324 unregistered research
facilities that use only rats and mice.If
these facilities were regulated, they
would represent a 96% increase in the number
of animal research sites under USDA inspection
authority.”
This, DeHaven continued, would
have cost an additional $3.4 million a year,
out of the total 1990 APHIS budget of about
$9 million. APHIS funding in the years since
has not kept pace with inflation. “We are now
inspecting 9.3% more facilities than in 1992
with 15 fewer inspectors,” DeHaven said.
“We believe that the additional workload associated
with the regulation of rats, mice, and
birds would severely compromise our ability
to protect the species we currently cover.”
DeHaven reminded AAVS that, “In
enacting the AWA, Congress specified that
the USDA is not to interfere with the design or
performance of research or experimentation.
To prohibit an often used, proven research
procedure such as monoclonal antibody production
in animals is an action that the USDA
does not have the legal authority to take.”
DeHaven did “concur that in vitro
monoclonal antibody production is fast becoming
the state of the art.”
NIH RESPONDS
NIH director Harold Varmus replied
to AAVS on September 18. “Many in vitro
methods are scientifically acceptable, reasonable
and practically available for the production
of monoclonal antibodies,” he agreed.
“In the U.S.,” Varmus asserted further,
“the NIH has been and will continue to
be a major supporter of the studies that
have led to the development of acceptable
alternative methods for producing
monoclonal antibodies. The NIH has
strongly encouraged the use of alternative
methods for producing monoclonal
antibodies among the investigators it
supports through the world.”
However, Varmus continued,
“Despite many advances in understanding
the process of antibody formation and cell
culture technologies, the state of the science
has not yet reached the point where a total ban
on the use of the mouse ascites method can be
justified, whether or not NIH has the regulatory
authority to issue such a ban.”
Varmus further argued that the existing
AWA and Public Health Service Act regulations
are sufficient to “ensure that in vivo
monoclonal antibody production in mice is not
performed unnecessarily.”
Thus, Varmus concluded, “The
NIH has determined that it is not appropriate
to prohibit the use of mice in monoclonal antibody
production.”
Varmus rejected the AAVS petition
one week before the start of a two-day conference
on “Alternatives in Monoclonal Antibody
Production,” which AAVS executive director
Tina Nelson said “was organized by NIH after
the AAVS petition was filed, and is in direct
response to the actions requested.”
Nelson personally took over public
communications concerning the monoclonal
antibody campaign after former AAVS director
of special projects David Cantor, only
recently recruited from PETA, was laid off in
June. Cantor predicted in the autumn edition
of The Civil Abolitionist, a leading independent
antivivisection newsletter, that the AAVS
“Antibodies Without Animals” campaign “will
do well,” eventually.
First, though, activists must understand
it.

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