A Project of Animal People, Inc., 1992-2013
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2013:
TEL AVIV––The Israeli laboratory monkey supplier Mazor Farm “is expected to close down in two years,” Ilian Lior of Haaretz reported on January 6, 2013, “following environmental protection minister Gilad Erdan’s decision to ban the export of animals born in the wild for experimentation. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2013:
SHREVEPORT––The National Institutes of Health Council of Councils Working Group on January 23, 2013 “agreed that all but 50 of hundreds of chimpanzees kept for federally funded research should be retired from labs and sent to a national sanctuary,” summarized Janet McConnaughey of Associated Press. “Already,” McConnaughey reported a day later, “nine chimpanzees have arrived at Chimp Haven, outside Shreveport, Louisiana, “from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s New Iberia Research Center, which no longer has an NIH chimp research contract.” Another 102 chimps were expected to come from New Iberia during the next few months. Four NIH chimps at New Iberia were said to be too ill to relocate. About 230 chimps belonging to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette are to remain at New Iberia. The NIH pledged in 2011 to phase out most invasive research on chimps. An 86-page set of recommendations released by the Council of Councils Working Group suggests that chimps should henceforth be used in research only if there is no other way to investigate a risk to human health. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2013:
MADISON, Wisconsin––Maternal deprivation research appears to be again underway at the Harry Harlow Primate Psychology Laboratory on the Madison campus of the University of Wisconsin. “The research in question is a new type of maternal deprivation research designed to study anxiety by creating adverse early rearing conditions and then exposing the maternally deprived young [male] monkeys to a snake and other frightening stimuli. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2013:
CHENNAI––Seventy beagle puppies bred in China by Beijing Marshall Biotechnology Co., Ltd for laboratory use were instead on December 19, 2012 adopted into homes by the Blue Cross of India. Bought by the Bangalore pharmaceutical firm Advinus Thereapeutics, the beagle pups were flown to Chennai on October 19, 2012 by Cathay Pacific Airways, misidentified as pets on transport documents. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2012:
NEW YORK CITY–More than 10,000 mice and rats drowned or died from toxic fumes released by ruptured generator fuel and exhaust lines at the Joan and Joel Smilow Research Center on October 29, 2012.
Part of the Langone Medical Center at New York University, the Smilow Center occupies a 13-floor building, but the mice and rats were housed in the basement, more than 20 feet below the crest of the surge from Hurricane Sandy. Apparently no one considered trying to evacuate them before the electricity failed and all personnel left on the premises were drafted to help evacuate 215 human patients from nearby Tisch Hospital. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2012: (Actually published on November 1, 2012.)
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2012:
PHILADELPHIA–Dermalogica on September 18, 2012 followed Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Chanel and L’Oreal in losing “cruelty free” certification entitling the company to use the Leaping Bunny logo on their products.
“Dermalogica has had products approved for sale in the People’s Republic of China, which undoubtedly makes the company a party to animal testing,” explained the Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics in a prepared statement. Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2012:
South Korea to resume “research whaling”
PANAMA CITY, Panama–South Korean whaling commissioner Joon-Suk Kang told the 64th annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission meeting on July 5, 2012 in Panama that South Korea will submit a plan to begin “research whaling” to the IWC
scientific committee in 2013. The “research whaling” would target
minke whales in coastal waters. Joon-Suk Kang said South Korean whalers had been told that they would be allowed to resume whaling after the coastal whale population recovered. Relying on non-lethal studies, Joon-Suk Kang contended “has delayed the proper assessment of the resources.” Read more
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2012:
Letters re “Proposal for an Accord Between Animal Advocates and Biomedical Researchers”
HSUS president: “We must work with our traditional adversaries.”
When I got involved with animal protection in the mid-1980s as an undergraduate college student, the use of animals in research, testing, and education was one of the hot topics in our cause. Peter Singer, in his enormously influential book Animal Liberation, put that issue along with factory farming at the top of the to-do list for the new generation of animal advocates. Readers recoiled as Singer described, in his well- researched manifesto, duplicative experiments, protocols involving the use of animals with no relevance to the human health circumstance, and animals enduring extreme pain and distress as routine and normal practices in the laboratory setting. Read more