Biomedical research

March 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

A 13-member panel appointed

by the National Research Council’s

Institute of Laboratory Animal Resources

is presently revising the NRC Guide for the

Care and Use of Laborary Animals – – the

standard reference upon which Animal

Welfare Act regulations tend to be based.

The revision is expected to profoundly influ-

ence the shape of forthcoming new regula-

tions on the housing and care of dogs and

nonhuman primates, which have been the

subject of intense lobbying and repeated

court battles ever since an amendment to the

AWA mandating improved dog and primate

care was passed by Congress sans enforce-

ment regulations in 1985. If the NRC stan-

dards are stricter than those mandated by the

AWA regulations, those of the NRC will

nonetheless prevail in any research funded

by the National Institutes of Health. “The

current committee represents only scientists

and academicians, and includes no represen-

tation from the animal protection movement

nor from the public,” objects F. Barbara

Orlans, Ph.D., who as author of In The

Name of Science: Issues in Animal

Experimentation, is both a prominent

researcher and a leading humane advocate.

Birds

March 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

The January/February edition of World Watch, the journal of the

Worldwatch Institute, postulated that wild birds are the “canaries in the coal mine”

whose decline warns of forthcoming ecodisaster. The article cited studies finding that

1,000 of the 9,600 known bird species are endangered or threatened; 70% of known

species are decining in numbers; and 2,600 species are involved in international trade.

Under pressure to provide targets for hunters and faced with crashing

populations of most migratory waterfowl, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is consid-

ering lifting a ban on goose hunting along the Pacific Flyway. The ban was imposed to

protect the cackling Canada goose and the Pacific white-fronted goose, whose num-

bers dropped from 300,000 to 28,500 and from 500,000 to 93,900 during the 1980s,

but are now back up to 164,300 and 275,100, respectively.

Marine mammals

March 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1994:

S. 1636, the present Marine

Mammal Protection Act reauthorization

bill, has cleared the Senate Commerce

Committee and at deadline was expected to be

passed any day by the full Senate, with House

ratification likely in April. The Humane

Society of the U.S. has asked members to

write Congress opposing S. 1636 because it

“has no provisions for effective enforcement,”

and “would allow the accidental killing of

endangered species (currently prohibited) and

the intentional shooting of seals and sea lions

solely to protect fish commercially caught or

raised.” HSUS seeks amendments that will

“ensure that marine mammal mortality in com-

mercial fishing operations reaches insignifi-

cant levels approaching zero, mandate specif-

ic punitive consequences if kill reduction goals

are not met on schedule, prohibit the capture

of wild whales or dolphins for public display,

prohibit swim-with-the-dolphin programs and

petting pools, prohibit public feeding of both

captive and wild marine mammals, prohibit

the issuance of permits to kill endangered

species in commercial fisheries,” and “prohib-

it the intentional killing of seals and sea lions

solely to protect fishing gear, catch, or net

pens.” The Animal Welfare Institute has

issued a similar appeal for action.

BOOKS: Humane Innovations And Alternatives & Between the Species

January 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1994:

Humane Innovations And Alternatives,

Volume Seven, published by Psychologists for the

Ethical Treatment of Animals (Box 1297, Washington

Grove, MD 20880-1297.) 547 pages, paperback, $20.

Between The Species, Volume 9, #2, published

by the Schweitzer Center of the San Francisco Bay

Institute/Congress of Culture (POB 254, Berkeley, CA

94701.) 120 pages, paperback, $5.00.

Some day soon, Humane Innovations And

Alternatives must decide whether it wants to be a serious

journal or the Gong Show of animal protection literature.

The 14-member editorial board includes plenty of doctor-

ates from a variety of disciplines, and plenty of worthwhile

material appears in this thick annual, as well, but scientific

probes of fine points in toxicology appear alongside infor-

mal essays on “How I run my animal shelter,” and “The

most unforgetable chicken I ever met.” Even if every item

genuinely deserves print somewhere, few researchers will

ever find the scientific articles, while most of the audience

for shelter how-to and unforgetable chicken stories isn’t like-

ly to be drawn to a publication that calls itself a journal.

Biomedical research

January 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1994:

Despite a warning from senior radi-

ation biologist Dr. Joseph Hamilton that the

experiments had “a little of the Buchenwald

touch, “ the Atomic Energy Commission con-

ducted extensive radiation research on unwitting

human subjects from the mid-1940s into the

early 1970s, according to newly declassified

documents released in December by Energy

Secretary Hazel O’Leary, who battled her own

bureaucracy for nearly a year to obtain them. In

one experiment, 19 mentally retarded teenaged

boys at a state school in Fernald, Mass-

achusetts, were given radioactive milk with

their breakfast cereal from 1946 until 1956. In

Diet & Health

January 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1994:

Three new health studies rein-

force the arguments for vegetarianism

––especially for men who hope to remain

sexually active after the age of 40. A study

of Hawaiians of Japanese ancestry whose diet

consists mainly of tofu and rice, published in

the November edition of the British medical

journal The Lancet, suggested that tofu may

contain an ingredient that combats prostate

cancer. The study confirmed the findings of

an earlier study of U.S. Seventh Day

Adventists (more than half of whom are ethi-

cal vegetarians), which found that men who

eat a lot of legumes and fruits have a conspic-

uously low death rate from prostate cancer.

Prostate trouble is a leading cause of sexual

impotence––and the January 1994 issue of

The Journal of Urology includes the results of

the largest study of impotence ever. High

cholesterol consumption, heart disease, and

high blood pressure were confirmed as factors

frequently correlating with impotence; all are

closely associated with meat-eating.

AGRICULTURE

January 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1994:

World meat production is up from

177.2 million tons in 1990 to 184.2 tons in

1993, says the Intergovernmental Group on

Meat, an industry task force. Cattle produc-

tion slid from 54.3 million tons to 52.8, but

pork is up from 69.7 million tons to 73.8, and

poultry is up from 39.9 million tons to 44.2.

Total production in developed nations fell

from 104.2 million tons to 100.6, due mostly

to declines in the former USSR, but produc-

tion in developing nations jumped from 73

million tons to 83.6 million––an expenditure

of soil and water resources many of them can-

not afford to make.

Are purebreds really more prone to genetic disease?

January 1, 1994 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1994:

Purebred dogs may be increasingly susceptible

to genetic disease due to inbreeding, but one apparent

proof the Humane Society of the U.S. presented in the

September 1993 edition of its Shelter Sense newsletter

was not necessarily any such thing.

A special edition on “Purebreds and pet over-

population,” the issue featured articles by assistant editor

Julia Miller and HSUS vice president for farm animals

and bioethics Michael Fox, who backed the recent HSUS

call for a voluntary moratorium on dog and cat breeding

by linking the pursuit of breed standards to congenital

health problems. Illustrating their articles was a table

compiled by the Canine Genetic Disease Information

System at the University of Pennsylvania entitled

“Number of Genetic Disorders or Genetic Susceptibilities

to Disease Recognized in the Dog 1928-1988.”

BOOKS: The Human Nature of Birds

December 1, 1993 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1993:

The Human Nature of Birds, by Theodore

Xenophon Barber. St. Martins Press (175 Fifth Ave,

New York, NY 10010), 1993, 226 pages, hardcover

$19.95 US, $26.95 in Canada.

What if we all woke up one day to discover the world

around us filled with alien intelligences? Theodore X. Barber

has, and he wants this revelation to become commonplace.

Young children and so-called primitive cultures take

for granted that all creatures on earth share the same fears and

desires, that we are all intelligent in our own way––at least

they do until convinced otherwise by self-styled authorities. In

The Human Nature of Birds, Barber attempts to reverse our

beliefs by examining our “closest wild neighbors, the birds.”

From a lifetime’s experience in psychological research and six

years’ study of birds in nature and in the scientific literature,

he concludes that, “not only are birds able to think simple

thoughts but they are fundamentally as aware, intelligent,

mindful, emotional and individualistic as ordinary people.”

« 1 … 34 35 36 37 38 … 41 »