Category: Medicine

Anti-gassing verdict

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:
Atlanta–Fulton County Superior Court Judge Cynthia D. Wright
on March 23, 2007 ordered the Georgia Department of Agriculture to
enforce the 1990 state Humane Euthanasia Act, which requires that
animal shelters must use sodium pentobarbital to kill dogs and cats,
and prohibits leaving dying animals unattended. The law allowed
county animal control agencies that used carbon monoxide gas chambers
in 1990 to continue using them, but did not allow new gas chambers
to be installed. It exempted counties of under 25,000 residents.
The case was filed by former state representative Chesley
Morton, author of the Humane Euthanasia Act, and veterinary
technician Jennifer Robinson, whose dog Pacino was gassed by Clayton
County Animal Control after being hit by two cars.

BOOKS: Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:

Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching
by Michael Greger, M.D.
Lantern Books (1 Union Square West, Suite 201, New York, NY 10003),
2006. 465 pages, hardcover. $30.00.

Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching, by Humane Society of
the U.S. director of public health & animal agriculture Michael
Greger, M.D., is at once a meticulously researched timely warning
about the potential threat to humanity from the H5N1 influzenza
virus, and a book that will not be read and heeded by nearly enough
people–even after a strain of H5N1 apparently jumped from factory
farms in Hungary into the facilities of the British turkey producer
Bernard Matthews in February 2007, underscoring most of Greger’s
major points.

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Doc rapped for dog use in sales demo

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2007:
CLEVELAND–The Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute,
a national leader in researching brain aneurisms, on January 19,
2007 disclosed that it has barred from research for two years a
neurosurgeon who used a dog in a January 10 sales training
demonstration.
The neurosurgeon was suspended at recommendation of the
Cleveland Clinic’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, wrote
Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter Sarah Treffinger. The committee
reported the incident to the USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection
Service as a possible Animal Welfare Act violation on January 11.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer and Associated Press disclosed the
use of the dog and the clinic response later the same day.

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How to do pre-euthanasia sedation

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2006:
Further to the discussion in your October article “Could
carbon monoxide gas chambers make a comeback,” I thought I’d wade in
on pre-euthanasia sedation.
There is often confusion of terminology. The word
“tranquilizer” and its verb form “tranq” are used generically. Same
with the word “sedation” and “sedate.”
Here’s what’s what:
Tranquilizer usually means phenothiazine-type drugs such as
acepromazine. Tranquilizers reduce alertness and increase tolerance.
They also reduce inhibition and blood pressure and lower the seizure
threshold in some species. Acepromazine is label approved for dogs,
cats and horses.

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Wyeth wins mistrial to end second Premarin case

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Norman Ackerman on
October 11, 2006 declared a mistrial in the first phase of a
scheduled two-part trial in which Jennie Nelson, 66, of Dayton,
Ohio, contended that she developed breast cancer in 2001 as result
of taking the Wyeth hormone drug Prempro for about five years.
PremPro is a combination of progestin and Premarin, a brand
name derived from “pregnant mare’s urine.” Producing Premarin
requires keeping mares pregnant, breeding a constant surplus of
foals, many of whom are sold to slaughter. Under boycott by animal
advocacy groups worldwide since shortly after ANIMAL PEOPLE published
investigative findings by the Canadian Farm Animal Concerns Trust in
April 1993, Premarin was still the top-selling prescription drug
worldwide in 2001, but sales plummeted after the Women’s Health
Initiative study funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health in
July 2002 determined that the Premarin component of PremPro appears
to be associated with increased risk from heart attacks, strokes,
and blood clots forming in the lungs.

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Elephant birth control introduced in India

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
About a dozen female elephants among the 30 elephants used
for patrol work by the West Bengal Forest Department are soon to
receive birth control implants, senior department official P.T.
Bhutiya told news media in mid-September 2006.
“Our department is suffering a budget cut, so we have been
asked to only maintain those elephants who are useful, and introduce
birth control amongst the whole population,” Bhutiya said. The
forestry department herd formerly produced three or four offspring
per year.
Of the estimated 400 elephants left in West Bengal, about
65-80 are captive work or exhibiton animals.

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One-legged Sweet Nothing stays ahead of killer buyers

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
Sweet Nothing, right, kept by Cindy Wasney & Dick Jackson
of Victoria, British Columbia, is an emissary for Premarin foals,
Big Julie’s Rescue Ranch in Fort McLeod, Alberta, and horses who
learn to live with prosthetic legs.
“I bought her at a feed lot auction,” Big Julie’s Rescue
Ranch founder Roger Brinker told ANIMAL PEOPLE. “She was a $200
horse,” going for little more than the minimum bid.
Conventional belief is that horses who suffer severe leg
injuries must be euthanized, but some especially valuable stud
horses have been saved with prosthetic limbs, typically costing
$6,000 to $8,000.

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Kangaroo contraceptives

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2006:
CANBERRA–The Australian Capital Territory government and
Newcastle University on August 23, 2006 announced plans to jointly
develop a species-specific oral contraceptive for eastern grey
kangaroos.
The contraceptive should be ready for field trials in two to
five years, senior Environment ACT ecologist Don Fletcher told news
media.
“In the coming weeks a research population will be set up in
the empty former kangaroo display area at Tidbinbilla,” said
municipal services John Hargreaves, referring to the scene of
“rocket science” of a very different sort. The Tidbinbilla Nature
Reserve, on the fringe of Namadgi National Park, is best known for
housing the radio telescopes operated by the Canberra Deep Space
Communication Complex, part of NASA’s Deep Space Network.

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