PAUL MCCARTNEY ON RESEARCH

November 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1998:

Composer and songwriter Paul
McCartney told BBC Radio 2 interviewer
Des Lynam during an October 23 broadcast
that his late wife Linda’s long struggle with
breast cancer and her death last April had
heightened his awareness of the moral dilemmas
associated with animal research.
Though Paul and Linda McCartney
were both vegetarians and animal rights campaigners
for more than 20 years, he said he
had not previously realized how much animal
experimentation is done, nor the extent to
which it is legally required.
“I suppose a limited thing is
unavoidable, but it is very difficult for me to
think like that,” he said, “because I favor the
rights of the animals. Linda and I are just
passionate about these poor creatures that we
often use so cruelly.”

DELIVERED TO SAFETY!

October 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1998:

SAN ANTONIO, Texas– – Fifty-
five stumptail macaques arrived on
September 2 at the Wildlife Animal
Orphanage, after a 35-hour ride from the
Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison, Wisconsin.
Native to Thailand, the stumptail colony is
descended from animals used to breed
research subjects for use by the late Harry
Harlow in his notorious infant deprivation
experiments, conducted from 1936 to 1971.
Remaining property of the University of
Wisconsin Regional Primate Research
Center, the stumptails and two breeding
groups of rhesus macaques had been housed
at the Vilas Zoo since 1963.
The stumptail colony still includes
a 37-year-old female who was among those
transferred out of Harlow’s direct custody.
The arrangement predated a clause of the
American Zoo Association code of ethics,
adopted in 1986, which discourages zoos
from providing animals for research not related
to conserving their own species.

Animals in laboratories

October 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1998:

Bert and Ernie, the first two pigs
whom Pennsylvania State University professor
Stan Curtis taught to play computer
games and adjust their own room temperature
with a joy stick, whose achievements were
described on page one of the June edition of
ANIMAL PEOPLE, arrived on August 5 at
PIGS: A Sanctuary, in Charles Town,
West Virginia. Learning that Curtis had
replaced Bert and Ernie in his experiments
with two pigs of a smaller breed, Dale Riffle
and Jim Brewer wondered if the “retired”
pigs might be sent to slaughter or be used in
other research––so they asked, offered them
a home for life, and won approval from the
Penn State Institutional Animal Care and Use
Committee. “Bert and Ernie are true ambassadors
for advancing the humane treatment of
animals typically used for food,” said Riffle.
“They have contributed greatly to educating
the world that pigs are not stupid.”

BOOKS: The Human Use of Animals

September 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1998:

The Human Use of Animals:
Case Studies in Ethical Choice
by F. Barbara Orlans, Tom L. Beauchamp, Rebecca
Dresser, David B. Morton, and John P. Gluck
Oxford University Press (198 Madison Ave., New York,
NY 10016), 1998. Paperback, 330 pages, $26.50.

“The following,” Orlans et al pronounce
on page 5 of The Human Use of
Animals, “are universal precepts, stated in
the form of obligations, that all morally
serious persons in all moral traditions
accept: tell the truth, respect the privacy of
others, protect confidential information,
obtain consent before invading another person’s
body, do not kill, do not cause pain,
do not incapacitate, do not deprive of goods,
protect and defend the rights of others, and
prevent harm from occurring to others.”

Primarily Primates gets 30 space chimps

September 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1998:

SAN ANTONIO––In the end,
nothing could stop the U.S. Air Force––
except Primarily Primates.
On August 6, two months after the
initial deadline for deciding the fate of the
former National Aeronautics and Space
Administration chimpanzee colony, who
have been kept at Holloman Air Force Base
in southern New Mexico for more than 40
years, Air Force associate deputy assistant
for science, technology, and engineering
Colonel Jack Blackhurst announced at a
Washington D.C. press conference that of the
141 survivors, 111 will go to the Coulston
Foundation, of Alamogordo, New Mexico.
Headed by Frederick Coulston, 84,
the Coulston Foundation has managed the
colony under contract since 1993. It is also
the world’s largest supplier of chimps to labs.
Primarily Primates, the only other
applicant to meet the Air Force criteria to
receive the chimpanzees, will be given 30.

Witch doctors tell Swiss voters what to say: “Ooh-ee ooh ah ah!”

July 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

GENEVA, JOHANNESBURG,
WINDHOEK, LONDON, ATLANTA– –
Swiss voters on June 7 rejected a proposed
moratorium on research involving genetically
modified animals by a 2-to-1 margin.
Swiss referendums have historically
favored animals. The very first, held more
than 100 years ago, banned the slaughter of
livestock without prestunning. However,
Swiss-based multinational drug firms reportedly
spent more than $35 million to defeat the
proposed genetic research moratorium. The
coalition of 50 animal protection groups who
backed the measure spent only $1.3 million.
Swiss citizens may have relatively
little concern about the outcomes of genetic
research, but in Eehama-Omulunga, Angola,
sensational reports of transgenic experiments
fed rumors that goats kept by Mateus Shihelp
and Ricardina Otto have given birth––twice
since March––to creatures with goat-like bodies
but human heads. Neither survived.

Saving frogs saves rupees

July 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

AHMADABAD, RAJASTHAN,
INDIA–– Gulabchand Kataria, minister of
education for Rajasthan state, India, in late
May banned frog dissection in sub-university
level exercises, saving about 100 million
frogs a year––and the cost of obtaining them.
Some rural frog-collectors may
lose seasonal livelihoods, but the business of
providing frogs for laboratory use is now
largely centralized, dominated by a relative
handful of factory-style growers who employ
relatively few people.
Kataria acted in response, he said,
to petitioning from members of Mahjanam,
an anti-violence group founded in 1994 by
retired businessman Phoolchand Gandhi.

Foreign

July 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

British armed forces minister John Reid on
June 12 suspended British participation in NATO exercises
which involve shooting sedated pigs to give
medics practice in treating gunshot wounds, pending
review of the value of the procedure, which is reportedly
often used in training U.S. combat surgeons.
Reid’s action came as the Home Office was
reportedly preparing to release statistics showing that
the number of animals used in British laboratories is up,
for the second year in a row. About 20% more animals
were used in genetic work in 1996 than in 1995, and
that trend is expected to continue, even as the numbers
used in conventional product safety testing continue a
long, slow drop.

AV activism

July 1, 1998 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1998:

Allegedly abusive animal experiments have
occasionally been halted by protest, professional
review, political intervention, and/or legal action, but
Radley Hirsch, founder and owner of San Francisco
Audio, may be the first supplier of research equipment
to delay or even stop an experiment by turning down a
customer. University of California at San Francisco
researchers Marshal Fong and Stephen Cheung want
to deafen six squirrel monkeys, then cut into their
brains to see the damage. Receiving the Fong/Cheung
order on February 11, Hirsch started to build a sound
system to their specifications, then balked upon discovering
what it was for. “It all comes back to you,”
Hirsch told Keay Davidson of the San Francisco
Examiner. “If you’re an evil person, bad things happen
to you. If you’re a good person, nice things happen.”

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