Month: June 2005

BOOKS: Getting Lucky

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

Getting Lucky by Susan Marino with Denise Flaim
Stewart, Tabori & Chang (c/o La Martiniere Groupe, 115 West 18th St.,
New York, NY 10011), 2005. 144 pages, hardcover. $18.95.

Susan Marino founded and runs the Angel’s Gate Animal Hospice
at her home on Long Island. Her nursing career, allied to a
dedication and commitment to unselfish giving of love, has given her
the ability to care for the countless ailing and injured animals who
are carried to her door.
Her door is open to all animals, regardless of species, and
here they find a loving sanctuary until death eventually claims them.
Getting Lucky is beautifully bound in glossy paper with color
portraits of the animals the book introduces. Each gets a chapter.
The result is somewhat processional, as one animal after another is
paraded before the reader. But the stories are charming and well
written, centering around a Great Dane called Lucky. The thematic
binding thread is that all life is precious, and should be preserved
as long as the animal would want it. Terminally ill animals are not
euthanized but instead are nursed until death occurs naturally.

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Elephants source of Marburg & Ebola?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

LUANDA–The World Health Organization and Angola Ministry of
Health are optimistic that the worst outbreak on record of the
Ebola-like Marburg hemorrhagic fever may be close to burning itself
out, after 423 known cases through June 5, 357 of them fatal,
including 346 of the 412 cases that occurred in the city of Uige,
where the outbreak was first recognized.
The Uige outbreak may never be clearly traced to a source,
since the first persons exposed apparently all died before sharing
details about how they fell ill. Once either Marburg or Ebola
occurs among humans, it spreads chiefly through human contact.
Investigators are more optimistic about finding the origin of
an Ebola outbreak that struck the Cuvette-Ouest region of the
Republic of Congo in April, killing at least 10 people. The first
victims were “five hunters who became ill after emerging from the
forest,” Wildlife Conservation Society field veterinary program
director William Karesh posted to the International Society for
Infectious Diseases’ ProMed newsgroup.

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Activist Court Calendar

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

The European Court of Justice on May 24 rejected a French
attempt to overturn a European Union requirement that animal testing
of cosmetics cease in the 25 member nations by 2009, along with
imports of animal-tested cosmetic products. The French government
argued unsuccessfully that the E.U. regulation would unjustly harm
the competitive position of French cosmetics manufacturers.

Australian Federal Court Judge James Allsop, of Sydney, on
May 27 dismissed an attempt by Humane Soceity International Australia
director Michael Kennedy to sue the Japanese whaling firm Kyodo
Senpaku Kaisha Ltd. for killing whales inside the Antarctic Whale
Sanctuary, declared by the Austral-ian government but not recognized
by Japan. Allsop accepted the argument of Australian attorney
general Philip Ruddock that it cannot enforce a territorial claim not
recognized by all parties to international agreements. Allsop
allowed HSI, the global arm of the Humane Society of the U.S., to
appeal to the full bench of the Federal Court.

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British lab review findings

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

LONDON–A two-year review of British animal experiments by
the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, released on May 25, 2005,
concluded that proprietary concerns and anxiety about physical
security inhibit the exchange of findings which could reduce animal
use.
British labs used 2.8 million animals in 2004, up from recent
years, but half the numbers used in the 1970s, according to Home
Office figures.
The Nuffield Council criticized the Home Office for
insufficiently determining how many animals are killed, how many die
in care, and how much suffering they endure.
The Nuffield report was compiled by a panel of 18 animal
advocates, ethicists, and scientists from both academia and private
industry. It followed a 2002 House of Lords select committee report
and a 2003 report by the Animal Procedures Committee, an advisory
body created by the Scientific Procedures Act of 1986.

Airlines will not fly lab animals

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

LONDON–Outsourcing animal research to nations where it
remains lightly regulated and non-controversial may accelerate with
the May 2005 decisions of British Airways, Air Mauritius, and Air
China to stop carrying animals who may be used in laboratories.
“I can confirm that Air China does not fly any laboratory
animals into the U.K. Our European offices also do not carry
primates and other animals destined for vivisection. There are now
no Air China flights worldwide carrying live animals for this
purpose,” said Lorna Allen, Air China marketing manager for Britain
and Ireland, in an e-mail posted at the Stop Huntingdon Animal
Cruelty web site.
Like other such policy decisions by national airways, the
Air China policy tends to encourage building labs and doing
experiments where the animals are, instead of moving animals to
existing labs which are often due for upgrade or replacement anyway.
As biotech work already draws heavily on personnel recruited
from Asia, the British Department of Trade & Industry is becoming
anxious about losing both breaking-edge research and routine animal
testing to Asian nations.

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Covance lab monkey care exposed again

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

NORFOLK–PETA research and investigations chief Mary Beth
Sweetland told news media on May 17, 2005 that undercover
investigator Lisa Leitten between April 26, 2004 and March 11, 2005
“secretly videotaped repeated violations of the federal Animal
Welfare Act,” at a Covance Research Products laboratory in Vienna,
Virginia.
Alleged violations, Sweetland said, included “punching,
choking, and taunting injured monkeys; recycling sick monkeys into
new experiments; failing to administer veterinary care to severely
wounded monkeys; failing to euthanize monkeys who were in extreme
distress; and failing to properly oversee lab workers,” who
allegedly “tore monkeys from their cages and violently shoved them
into restraint tubes.”
Sweetland said Leitten’s undercover video also showed Covance
staff “performing painful and stressful procedures in full view of
other animals, monkeys with chronic rectal prolapses resulting from
constant stress and diarrhea,” monkeys suffering from “daily bloody
noses” as result of harsh intubation, and “monkey self-mutilation
resulting from failure to provide psychological enrichment and
socialization.”

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“Madness” in Karachi rabies response

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

KARACHI, Pakistan–“Karachi mayor
Niamatul-lah Khan is about to go on a rampage,
poisoning 500,000 stray dogs in total disregard
of alternatives presented by the Pakistan Animal
Welfare Society, along with a large number of
doctors, health officials, and Karachi
citizens,” Engineers and Scientists for Animal
Rights founder Syed Rizvi warned on Friday, May
13, 2005, in an e-mail quickly distributed
worldwide by pro-animal newsgroups.
Born and raised in Karachi, Rizvi now
lives in San Jose, California, but maintains
close contact with Pakistani animal advocates.
“The City of Karachi is preparing 500,000
strychnine capsules,” Rizvi charged. “I have
been in constant touch with Mahera Omar of the
Pakistan Animal Welfare Society, who is asking
that e-mails and letters from the international
community be sent to the authorities, asking
them to refrain from this barbaric practice.
“Please e-mail to General Parvez
Musharraf, the President of Pakistan, who is a
dog lover himself,” Rizvi asked. “Some might
have seen his picture in Newsweek recently,
holding his two little dogs close to his heart.”

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University of Nevada fined

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

RENO–Substantiating complaints filed by University of Nevada
at Reno associate professor Hussein S. Hussein, the USDA Animal &
Plant Health Inspection Service in May 2005 cited the university for
46 violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act allegedly committed
between May 25, 2004 and March 21, 2005.
The university agreed to pay fines totaling $11,400 to avoid
going to court.
“The violations included repeatedly leaving 10 research pigs
without adequate water between May and September and improperly
housing the same pigs, frequent poor sanitation of animal care
facilities, lack of veterinary care, improper oversight of research
activities, failing to investigate complaints of animal neglect and
poor record keeping, and failing to properly train university farm
employees,” wrote Frank X. Mullen Jr. of the Reno Gazette-Journal.
Mullen made the case public in a December 2004 three-part
investigative series, after the university pursued disciplinary
action against Hussein. A faculty panel in April 2005 held that the
charges against Hussein were without merit.

British fur seller quits

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

LONDON–“Selfridges has reviewed its policy on fur and will
no longer be selling any fur products,” the upscale department store
chain announced in mid-May 2005.
“Selfridges closed its fur department in 1990 but continued
to sell items such as rabbit fur-trimmed gloves and clothes,” wrote
social affairs correspondent Maxine Frith of The Independent.
The strategy of claiming to sell only fur produced as a
byproduct of the meat industry worked for 15 years, until awareness
spread that much “rabbit fur” coming into Europe from China might
actually be dog or cat fur.
Selfridges, with stores in London, Glasgow, Birmingham,
and Manchester, was among the last major British retailers to sell
fur goods.

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