Animals key in Le murder & Dugard kidnap cases

September 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut; ANTIOCH, Calif.– Animals were

central to two of the most sensational crimes against humans coming
to light in late summer 2009.
Yale University lab animal technician Raymond Clark III, 24,
was on September 18, 2009 charged with killing Annie Le, 24, a
pharmacology Ph.D. candidate. Le disappeared on September 8. Her
remains were found on September 13–scheduled to have been her
wedding day–hidden behind a wall in the lab where she and Clark both
worked.

Nepal halts monkey exports to labs

September 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:

KATHMANDU–Nepalese animal advocades on August 27, 2009
celebrated success in preventing Nepal from entering the fast-growing
traffic in exporting monkeys from developing nations to research labs.
“Around 300 monkeys who were to be exported to the U.S. will
be able to find their food in freedom, in their own country,”
headlined the Kathmandu Post.
“We have decided not to allow the monkeys to be exported,”
announced Nepal forestry minister Deepak Bohara. “We will ask
Pravesh Man Shrestha,” the prospective monkey exporter, “to release
the monkeys within a week.”

Animals are among losers of “War on Terror”

July 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2009:
BARSTOW, JACKSONVILLE– Wars are lost by losing lives and
land. Thus whales, burros, pigs, and desert tortoises far from
any battlefield are among the losers of the War on Terror,
informally declared in 2001 by then-U.S. President George W. Bush.
The Barack Obama administration in March 2009 abandoned use
of the phrase “War on Terror” to describe what are now called
“overseas contingency operations,” and are no longer rhetorically
linked, in recognition that U.S. troops are fighting different foes
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But changing terminology has not changed the issues. Even
before “War on Terror” was used to drum up support for the U.S.
invasion of Iraq, it was used to quell opposition to military
training exercises that harm animals and habitat. Military projects
harmful to animals that began or expanded in the name of the “War on
Terror” are still underway, often bigger than ever.

“Mice are lousy models,” says leading scientist

January 1, 2009 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2009:

STANFORD–Many people have asserted that
mouse studies are poor models for human disease
research. But few have had the stature within
the biomedical research field of Stanford
Institute for Immunity, Trans-plantation and
Infection director Mark M. Davis, Ph.D., and
few have said so in a leading medical journal.
“We seem to be in a state of denial,
where there is so much invested in the mouse
model that it seems almost unthinkable to look
elsewhere,” Davis wrote in the December 19,
2008 edition of Immunity, in an essay deemed
noteworthy enough that both Immunity and the
Stanford University Medical Center issued press
releases to publicize his statements.

Michelson won case against U.S. Surgical

October 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2008:
(Actual publication date 11-5-08.)
Animal advocates may enjoy the irony that some of the money that Gary Michelson has posted to promote developing a non-surgical method of sterilizing dogs and cats came from U.S. Surgical, via Michelson’s successful 1995 lawsuit against the company.
U.S. Surgical founder Leon Hirsch, who retired and sold the company in 1998, was for more than a decade a frequent target of animal rights protests led primarily by Friends of Animals, for using dogs in sales demonstrations of surgical products. Hirsch in response founded the pro-animal research organization Americans for Medical Progress in 1992 and helped to fund it for six years.

Shelter manager sold cadavers for lab use

September 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2008:
VISALIA, Calif.–After an eight-day trial and two days of
deliberation, a Tulare County Superior Court jury on September 24,
2008 convicted former Tulare County Animal Control Shelter manager
William Harmon of two felony counts of accepting bribes, a felony
count of embezzlement and a misdemeanor charge of accepting an
unlawful gratuity.
“The jury found him not guilty of falsifying public
documents,” reported Brett Wilkison of the Visalia Times-Delta.
“The jury found Harmon accepted and requested restaurant gift
certificates from Michael Sargeant,” allegedly in exchange for
providing Sargeant with the remains of dogs killed at the shelter.
Sargeant’s business, Wholesale Biologicals of Bakersfield, sells
animal carcasses to laboratories. The transactions allegedly
occurred from 2002 through 2006.

What became of the puppies after cloning client didn’t pay?

September 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2008:
The bizarre backstory to the reported first-ever commercial
dog cloning, reported in the July/August 2008 edition of ANIMAL
PEOPLE, gained another chapter on September 24, 2008 when Joyce
Bernann McKinney, 58, repeatedly called Friends of Animals
president Priscilla Feral at her home and then spent nearly two hours
on the telephone to ANIMAL PEOPLE.
McKinney sought help in a last-minute effort to win
possession of the five pit bull terrier puppies whom RNL Bio of
Seoul, South Korea claimed in August 2008 to have cloned from the
frozen ear of McKinney’s deceased pet Booger.

RSPCA asks EC to publish new lab regs

September 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2008:
LONDON, BRUSSELS–Royal SPCA of Britain
chief executive Mark Watts on September 11, 2008
asked European Commission president José Manuel
Barroso to expedite publication of proposed
changes to the European Union rules governing
animal experimentation, now long overdue.
“We are repeatedly told that publication
of the proposals is imminent, only to find it
has been put back–and put back again,” said
RSPCA senior European campaign manager Peter
Craske. “Legislation needs to be debated fully,
but this debate seems to have gone on forever.”
EU nations use about 12 million animals
per year in experiments; Britain uses about
three million of the total.

Arsons boost bill that would inhibit access to info about animal research

July 1, 2008 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:
SACRAMENTO–Firebombs detonated on a porch and in a home
belonging to University of California at Santa Cruz researchers in
the early morning of August 2, 2008 are believed to have given a big
late-in-session boost to AB 2296, a bill which would allow
universities to withhold the names of animal researchers from public
documents.
Introduced in February 2008 by state assembly member Gene
Mullin (D-San Mateo) at request of the University of California
system, AB 2296 “would make it a misdemeanor to harm or intimidate a
researcher who works with animals, including publicly posting the
names, photographs, home addresses and home telephone numbers of
researchers online or elsewhere. Anyone convicted under the
legislation could face up to a year in county jail and fines up to
$25,000. The bill also allows researchers or their employers to seek
an injunction against animal rights advocates or web sites publishing
their photos or personal information,” summarized Santa Cruz
Sentinel staff writer J.M. Brown.

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