Korean animal researcher clones human stem cells

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

SEOUL––“I never destroy any life
during my process,” Seoul National University
stem cell research laboratory director Woo Suk
Hwang recently told New York Times corre-
spondent James Brooke.
Woo Suk Hwang on May 20, 2005
announced that he had become the first scientist
to successfully clone human stem cells––“a
major leap,” wrote Brooke, “toward the dream
of growing replacement tissues for conditions
like spinal cord injuries, juvenile diabetes, and
congenital immune deficiencies.”
Said Woo Suk Hwang, “We use only
a vacant [unfertilized] egg, with no genetic
materials” from which to form an embryo.
Trained as a veterinarian, Woo Suk
Hwang, 52, was raised by a widowed mother
who supported six children as a dairy hand.
“I could communicate with cows eye
to eye,” Woo Suk Hwang told Brooke.
Woo Suk Hwang is a devout practic-
ing Buddhist, wrote Apoorva Mandavilli in a
profile for the journal Nature Medicine.
But in conversing with Brooke, Woo
Suk Hwang appeared to refer only to never
destroying any human life. His past achieve-
ments have included producing the first cow
conceived in South Korea through in vitro fer-

BOOKS: Endangered Parrots

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:
Endangered Parrots
Revised edition, by Rosemary Low.
Blandford (distributed in the U.S. by Sterling Publishing Co.,
387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016-8810), 1984 and 1994.
200 pages; 21 color and 77 black-and-white photos; $24.95 paperback.
Extinction in the wild is inevitable
for many species of parrot. In this revised
edition of her 1984 original, Rosemary Low
paints somber scenes of fading beauty. From
the last Spix macaw left in Brazil to the
unique flightless kakapo of New Zealand,
the beautiful parrots enjoy few safe havens.

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BOOKS: A Practical Guide to Ferret Care

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

A Practical Guide to Ferret Care
by Deborah Jeans, with medical editor Susan A. Brown, DVM.
Ferrets Inc. (POB 450099, Miami, FL 33245-0099), 1994.
146 pages, hardbound, illustrated, $22.95.
Michigan and Minnesota recently
legalized ferret ownership, while as A N I-
MAL PEOPLE goes to press, a bill to lift
the ferret ban California imposed in 1987 is
expected to clear the state legislature any day
now. That would leave Hawaii as the last
state with a ferret ban still in place. For bet-
ter or worse, ferrets have become part of the
American pet menagerie, and animal shel-
ters must learn to cope with them––as many
already have. Thirty-three states now have
their own ferret rescue networks, loosely
linked by Shelters That Adopt and Rescue
Ferrets, 7402 Joseph Court, Annandale,
VA 22003; 703-354-5073.

BOOKS: Is Your Cat Crazy?

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

Is Y our Cat Crazy?
Solutions from the Casebook of a Cat Therapist
by John C. Wright, with Judi Wright Lashnitz. MacMillan Publishing USA
(15 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10023), 1994. 227 pages, cloth, $18.00.
Here is a book that may save
many a cat from being cast outside to live as
a quasi-feral because of undesirable,
unfathomable, and intractable indoor con-
duct. A behaviorist, not a “shrink” for ani-
mals, Dr. Wright stresses that this is not a
how-to book, because each cat is an indi-
vidual whose actions are actually reactions
to specific situations within each particular
household.

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BOOKS: The Animal Research Controversy

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

The Animal Research Controversy
Protest, Process and Public Policy. An Analysis of Strategic Issues,
by Andrew N. Rowan and Franklin M. Loew, with Joan C. Weer.
Tufts Center for Animals and Public Policy (200 Westboro Road,
North Grafton, MA 01536), 1995. 210 pages, quality paperback, $30.00.
A decade after publishing the most
reliable resume of the vivisection issue to that
point, Of Mice, Models, & Men ( 1 9 8 4 ) ,
Andrew Rowan et al have done it again. The
Animal Research Controversy presents and
evaluates every significant fact and factual
claim made by either side––and like Of Mice,
Models, & Men, won’t please any of the
noisier partisans, as Rowan once more
demolishes popular fallacy.

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BOOKS: Circles of Compassion

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

Circles of Compassion, edited
by Elaine Sichel. Voice & Vision
Publishing (12005 Green Valley Road,
Sebastopol, CA 95472), 1995. 226
pages, paper. $14.50.
“Know the difference between a
fairy-tale and a war story?”, asks a grunt in
Tom Suddick’s 1974 Vietnam War classic A
Few Good Men. “A fairy-tale begins,
‘Once upon a time.’ A war story begins,
‘This is no shit.’”

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REVIEWS: Paws, Claws, Feathers & Fins

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

Paws, Claws, Feathers & Fins, 30-minute video from KidVidz
(618 Centre St., Newton, MA 02158). $14.95 (video only); $34.90 with
Leader’s Guide, 50 activity guides, and license for public performance rights.
Here’s help for humane educators
who can’t bring controversy into the class-
room. Directed at children ages 4-12, but
probably most effective for primary grades,
Paws, Claws, Feathers & Fins succinctly
explains all that goes into keeping a pet, and
tosses in an operatic song about how every
kind of animal poops, sure to please most
young boys without offending most parents.

BOOKS: Little Brother Moose & The Tree in the Ancient Forest

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

Little Brother Moose, by James Kasperson, illustrated by Karlyn Holman.
The Tree in the Ancient Forest,
by Carol Reed Jones, illustrated by Christopher Canyon.
Each $6.95/paper or $14.95/cloth, from Dawn Publications
(14618 Tyler Foote Road, Nevada City, CA 95959), 1995.
Attractively and imaginatively
illustrated, Little Brother Moose is modeled
on the Native American tradition of the
Vision Quest, a solo journey in search of
self-understanding that marks the passage
into adulthood––this time made by a moose.
It also resembles the story of an early settler
on the future site of Boston, who moved
west when it got too crowded. Invited back
for a visit by the civic authorities, decades
later, he rode in on a bull, trotted disgusted-
ly through the busy streets, and galloped
west again without even stopping for a drink.

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OBITUARIES

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

Morarji Desai, 99, former prime minister of India, died April 9 in Bombay.
Current Indian prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao memorialized Desai in a joint session of the
Indian Parliament as “one of the most devoted disciples of Mahatma Gandhi, an able adminis-
trator and one of the finest human beings,” who often accompanied Gandhi to jail during the
struggle for Indian independence. Shirley McGreal of the International Primate Protection
League remembered Desai warmly for a different reason. “In 1977,” she recalled, “IPPL
amassed documents about the U.S. use or misuse of imported Indian rhesus monkey use in mili-
tary experiments,” in violation of the terms of a 20-year-old export agreement. Desai had been
elected prime minister in 1977, and McGreal knew that, like Gandhi, “Desai was a lifelong
vegetarian [in fact, a strict vegan] and animal lover.” She appealed to him. On December 3,
1977, Desai’s government barred monkey exports. “He saved a species and hundreds of thou-
sands of individual animals from suffering and death in foreign laboratories,” McGreal said.
“Powerful users exerted heavy pressure on Desai. He stood firm,” as have his successors. “In
an attempt at historical revisionism,” McGreal continued, “claims were made by U.S. scientists
that the Indian ban resulted from conservation concerns and the dwindling numbers of rhesuses.
IPPL contacted Desai, by then retired, for clarification. In a handwritten letter dated April 16,
1985, Desai stated, ‘You are quite correct in saying that I banned the export of monkeys on a
humanitarian basis and not because the number was lessening. I believe in preventing cruelty to
all living beings in any form.'” But the monkeys had become scarce. “Later,” McGreal con-
firmed, “a survey by the Zoological Survey of India determined that there were only 200,000
rhesus monkeys left in India. The trade had taken a heavy toll. The teeming millions of former
days had disappeared. Those monkeys left owe their lives and freedom to Morarji Desai. They
are his living monument.”

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