Seeking the psychological well-being of primates

May 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1996:

NEW YORK, N.Y.––Even before Congress in 1985 amended the Animal Welfare
Act to mandate that laboratories are responsible for the “psychological well-being” of nonhuman
primates used in research, Henry Spira may have known that resolving the long impasse
in the 200-year-old debate over the ethics of using animals in biomedical research would
come down to accommodating primate behavior.
No primatologist himself, Spira brought to animal advocacy a background including
a multinational childhood, waterfront union organizing, and 22 years of teaching English
in inner city schools. Throughout, Spira noticed that what most people want most in any
conflict is not the goal itself, but rather, not to lose.
Losing means losing stature in the troop. Loss of stature means loss of security.
Goal-oriented negotiating, Spira realized, means finding a way for both parties to gain
stature: to achieve important objectives without sacrificing principle.
Read more

Animal health

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

Amid the mad cow disease panic, Britain barely
noticed the death of an 11-year-old Moslem girl from anthrax
after a two-day stay at the Poitier’s University Hospital in
London. Anthrax, a disease of known epidemic potential, hits
about 100,000 people a year. It can be treated with antibiotics, if
recognized early, but otherwise kills through the combination of
high fever, pneumonia, and internal hemorrages. Sixteen days
before falling ill, the girl helped her father kill an infected sheep
at an unlicensed slaughterhouse during the Ramadan religious
holiday. She then ate a lightly cooked piece of the liver. The rest
of her family, fasting according to the rules of Ramadan, waited
until the end of the holidays before boiling and eating the rest of
the meat. None of them became ill.

Breeding & biotech notes

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

The United Nations Food and Agricultural
Organization warns that about 30% of the world’s 3,882 known
breeds of domesticated animal species are in effect endangered
or threatened species, as factory farming with standardized
breeds takes over husbandry. The greatest loss of diversity
looms in Asia, where 68 domesticated mammals and 37 domesticated
birds are at imminent risk of extinction, while 865 mammals
and 131 birds are represented by fewer than 1,000 females
or fewer than 20 breeding males. “In Europe,” FAO geneticist
Keith Hammond says, “half of the breeds that existed at the turn
of the century have become extinct; 41% of the remaining 1,500
breeds are in danger of disappearing over the next 20 years. In
North America, over a third of the livestock and poultry breeds
are rare or in decline.”

Mad cow disease panic hits beef-eaters

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

LONDON––British health secretary
Stephen Dorrell touched off global panic on
March 20, telling the House of Commons that
an advisory scientific committee had advised
him that consumption of cattle afflicted with
bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) a
decade or more ago was “the most likely
explanation” of the origin of a seemingly new
variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. Both
diseases cause the formation of sponge-like
holes in the brain.
Within days British government officials
seriously discussed the possible costs and
consequences of slaughtering the entire national
herd of 11 million cattle, in a gamble that
this would facilitate the recovery of the British
beef industry rather than its demise.
BSE, also known as “mad cow disease,”
has killed more than 160,000 cattle in
Britain since 1985––some directly, most in
government-ordered slaughters intended to
keep BSE from spreading. Over the same
time, British beef sales have fallen 12%; 40%
of Britons say they have cut down on meat
consumption; 11% say they don’t eat red
meat; and 4.3% are now vegans.

DIET & HEALTH

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

More veggies, less fat fights cancer
WASHINGTON D.C.–– A 20-member National Research Council panel reported
February 16 that about a third of the 1.35 million new cancer cases detected in the U.S. each
year are attributable to diet; that excess calories and fat are far more likely to contribute to
cancer than either natural or synthetic chemicals in food; and that the best way to avoid cancer
is to eat more fruits and vegetables, but less fat.
That’s a tall order for meateaters, as recent studies have found that fat is the part of
meat they most crave. The National Cancer Institute reported in January that U.S. children and
teenagers eat the right volume of vegetables, but that french fries account for a third of their
consumption, while intake of dark green and yellow vegetables with cancer-fighting properties,
such as spinach and carrots, tends to be low.
The NRC report was critical of the use of animal studies to predict human health risk
from chemical consumption, pointing out that test animals typically ingest far more of a suspect
substance in a short time than most humans would ever encounter.

STANDARDS OF CARE

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

The European Commission on
January 24 proposed a veal crate ban with a
12-year phase-in. Starting from January 1,
1998, minimum space allowances would apply
to all new or renovated veal barns, sufficient
that each calf “should be able to groom itself
properly, turn around, stand up, lie down normally,
and lie with its legs stretched out,” as a
European Commission advisory committee
recommended last December. All veal operations
would have to be in compliance with the
EC standards by 2008. The EC member
nations currently raise about 5.8 million veal
calves per year. Per capita consumption has
fallen from about 2.8 kilograms per capita i n
1987, two years before the first of two previous
attempts to ban veal crating failed, to 2.3
kilograms per capita now––still twice the U.S.
per capita consumption.

Hogwash

April 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

Pork barrel politics came into the American lexicon
through the political campaigns of North Carolina-born lawyer and
war hero Andrew Jackson, U.S. President 1829-1837, who helped
Tennessee break off from North Carolina and then built a political
empire by allegedly passing out salt pork at the polls.
Off the pig! popped up in the 1960s. In inner city slang,
it meant “kill the police,” but when ANIMAL PEOPLE asked
activists at the recent Midwest Animal Liberation Conference if
they recognized it, none under age 35 did. They guessed, instead,
that it had something to do with living downwind or downstream of
a hog farm.
In the old days, before antibiotics, almost every farm
kept a hog or two, who ate slops––a mixture of kitchen wastes and
barnyard offal––and wallowed at will in a mucky outdoor pen.
Hardly anyone imagined that hybrid corn, motor vehicles, and
penicillin might make possible the use of standardized methods in
rearing the creatures who inspired the expression, “Independent as
a hog on ice.”

Horse notes

March 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

Nationally ranked equestrian
and heir to millions George Lindemann
Jr. drew 33 months in prison on January 18
for killing a horse to collect $250,000 in
insurance. His trainer, Marion Hulick,
drew 21 months. The two were among the
most noted defendants among 18 people
convicted to date in connection with a horsekilling
ring that also included the killers of
13 humans over 25 years. The last victim
was heiress Grace Brach, who vanished in
1977 after becoming suspicious of horse
transactions arranged by Richard Bailey,
convicted in connection with her murder last
year. His close associate, stable owner Jerry
Farmer, on January 22 drew 10 years for his
part in selling Brach and other wealthy
women worthless horses at premium prices.
Brach’s estate formed the Brach Foundation,
a major sponsor of animal-related projects.
The crime ring was exposed by a federal
reinvestigation of her disappearance.

Animal health

March 1, 1996 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

University of Minnesota researcher Dr. Jesse Goodman and team announced January 24 that they have managed to isolate and grow the bacterium that causes human granulocytic ehrlichiosis, a newly identified and sometimes fatal disease borne by the same ticks as Lyme disease.

Having apparently gotten away with a wind-assisted premature release of the rabbit-killing calcivirus during field tests last September, without apparent harm to species other than rabbits, Australia is now hoping to halt the advance of South American cane toads through the use of the Irido virus, which apparently kills both toads and tadpoles in Venezuela. The cane toads were themselves introduced about 60 years ago, in hopes they would eat insects who plagued sugarcane growers.

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