India shuts cruel horse serum plants
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2002:
CHENNAI, India–“We are now, with the help of e Supreme
Court of India, closing down the wretched serum institutes,” Indian
minister of state for animal protection Maneka Gandhi e-mailed to
ANIMAL PEOPLE on January 16, a year and six weeks after ANIMAL
PEOPLE visited and photographed one of the oldest, the King
Institute, at Guindy, Chennai.
A maker of snakebite antivenin, the King Institute injects
snake venom into a resident herd of 140 to 150 retired Indian Army
horses and mules, waits until the horses form antibodies to the
venom, and then draws blood serum from which the antivenin will be
extracted.