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Why Is Defending the Earth Considered Extremist?
Mainstream media stories, and many members of the public, will often refer to the efforts of small bands of people who want to stop some defenseless animal from being killed or who want to end the destruction of the Earth's forests and oceans as being "extreme."
"The question is not whether we will be extremists,
but what kind of extremists we will be . . .
The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."
-- Reverend Martin Luther King
To live content with small means,
To seek elegance rather than luxury,
and refinement rather than fashion,
to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich,
to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly,
to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart, to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never - in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony.
-- William Ellery Channing
but what kind of extremists we will be . . .
The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."
-- Reverend Martin Luther King
To live content with small means,
To seek elegance rather than luxury,
and refinement rather than fashion,
to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich,
to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly,
to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart, to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never - in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony.
-- William Ellery Channing
For more information:
http://ens-news.com/ens/jul2003/2003-07-11...
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It scares them because they believe their greed for wealth, power, and privilege is more important than the environment, animals, or even other people's lives.
You are extreme because you state that animals kill other animals for food, yet humans are "savages" for eating meat.
You are extreme because you have broken into medical labs which are producing human cures and hybrid crop plants that enhance human life, and you sabotage their work.
We are afraid that enviros will attempt to kill valid science and the people performing that research.
We are afraid because you have committed murder at ski lodges, logging sites, fish hatcheries, and museums.
.
see http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vines/9901/
Including a “real audio” recording taken from the video tape of the obscene shouts the logger made before murdering Gypsy. So take your vague slanderous lies about eco-defenders elsewhere, the truth about the courage of eco-defenders shall prevail in this forum.
donations and corporate status. environmental groups are going corporate in droves, reaping donations intended for use to preserve wilderness and forests and using the money to buy business and diversify holdings. (the membership at large is not being informed of this) as only a select few will be allowed to become corporate officers.
ask where your money is spent ... and demand proof!
http://www.hipforums.com/thread-1238-109205.html
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/3717/evidence.html
This will provide you with evidence that these tests the ALF disturbes are useless and inhumane!!!
Search for this book (Diary of Dispair by Michelle Rocke" )and once you have read it then make your argument about polocies and procedures and "Trained lab employees"
The label terrorist is only associated with left-wing extremist groups like the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front and foreigners. “Eco-terrorism” is necessary for earth’s existence. Without it loggers would have wiped out most of our nations beautiful woodlands. Although actions taken by organizations like the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) may seem radical and extreme they are vital in maintaining Mother Nature. Jackie Giuliano states, “Mainstream media stories, and many members of the public, will often refer to the efforts of small bands of people who want to stop some defenseless animal from being killed or who want to end the destruction of the Earth’s forests and oceans as being ‘extreme.’” (Giuliano)
The ELF branched off a group called Earth First! in 1997. Earth First! was founded in 1979 in England. Their main goal was to stop corporations peacefully and with integrity from using the land for profit and destroying Mother Nature. The ELF branched off with a different approach. They chose direct action. (Paulson)
The FBI has been labeling the ELF as terrorists. In a congressional statement made by the FBI they stated, “During the past decade we have witnessed dramatic changes in the nature of the terrorist threat. In the 1990’s, right-wing extremist overtook left-wing terrorism as the most dangerous domestic terrorist threat to the country.”(Jarboe) Later Jarboe specifically mentions the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front as “a serious terrorist threat.”(Jarboe)
The ELF and the ALF are organizations that do not consider themselves terrorists. “Neither group has injured anyone. And on its Web site, the Earth Liberation Front vigorously rejects the term ecoterrorism and says its rules prevent the harming of human life. If anyone were to be hurt, the action would, by definition, not be sanctioned by ELF, the group says.” (Avril) They have not harmed a single living creature during any of their actions. One of the ELF and ALF’s mottos is: “To take all necessary precautions against harming any animal, human and non-human.”(Meet the E.L.F.) The only person harmed in relation to “eco-terrorism” was harmed by the FBI. “In 1990, Earth First! Activist Judi Bari was nearly killed when a bomb equipped with a motion detector exploded underneath her seat. She was on her way to meet [Rod] Coronado. While local FBI agents claimed that the bomb belonged to Bari, skeptics pointed out that the same FBI agents had recently used a strikingly similar bomb scenario in a "bomb schools" it had taught to area police officers. Last year a federal jury ruled that FBI agents and police officers framed Bari and a coworker for the attack that nearly killed them.”(Repost)
Too often the government and the media are quick to point the finger at organizations that hit them where it hurts, their wallets. The ELF and ALF “have claimed responsibility for more than 600 arsons and other crimes since 1996, causing more than $43 million in damages, said James F. Jarboe, chief of the FBI’s domestic terrorism section.” (Avril) The government didn’t focus on these groups until they started costing them large amounts of cash. They pose no threat to human life. On the contrary they are looking at the long-term effects of pollution and clear-cutting and its effects on all living creatures. “Not only is the blitzkrieg against the natural world destroying ecosystems and their associated species, but our activities are now beginning to have fundamental, systemic effects upon the entire life-support system of the planet upsetting the world’s climate, poisoning the oceans, destroying the ozone layer which protects us from excessive ultraviolet radiation, changing the CO2 ratio in the atmosphere, and spreading acid rain, radioactive fallout, pesticides and industrial contamination throughout the biosphere.” (Problem) We should be thanking them for gaining the attention of corporations that will stop at nothing to gain a dollar. Peaceful protests and leafleting help but these tactics are too easily ignored.
“Terrorism: n. The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideology or political reasons.” (Close) With this definition of terrorism we can label our own government as the founding fathers of terrorism. “Our corporate-run government and media label actions that oppose their policies ‘terrorist acts’. They decide who are ‘terrorists’ according to self-interest, with no rational application of the term. Clearly our foreign and domestic policies throughout history could be labeled ‘Terroristic’, but we never hear the term used in that context. Speaking of the American Revolution, the Boston Tea Party was an act of property destruction and would be called terrorism today. In my opinion the ELF/ALF are heroes, as were others in the past who have accepted great personal risk in the fight against injustice.” (Close) Terrorism is how our government obtained North America from the Native Americans. The ELF and ALF are only terrorists because the real terrorists say so.
Unreasonable people are people who argue the rules and regulations of society until society conforms to their way of being.
All progress is brought about by Unreasonable people."
Unreasonable people are people who argue the rules and regulations of society until society conforms to their way of being.
All progress is brought about by Unreasonable people."
Stop trying to cram your religion down other people's throats.
HERE ARE THE FACTS
http://vivisection-absurd.org.uk/indexf.html
Who decides that a bunny wants to be part of an eye-irrantancy test and have needles full of tide injected into their eyes? As if we don't already know what would happen if we shoved any cleaner into our eyes! They are obvious just trying to make experiments up so they can get funding.
*Will you please give a definition of religious dogma in YOUR OWN words?* As far as i could tell there were no mentions of the bible, jesus, God or gods, or spirituality. I think you are confused or trying to use big words that you don't understand to sound smart.
"If you try to force us, we’ll hurt you."
*Wow amazingly another contridiction*
(2.) "That’s *patently* "
(Please explain your usuage of patently)
"absurd and totally and thoroughly against Nature’s way. Nature’s way is that every individual exists for one purpose and one purpose only, to die, so that other individuals may live. All life comes from death. That’s Nature’s way. Everything that lives, dies. Everything that dies, gets eaten. There are no exceptions. Without death, there is no life. Nature is neither cruel nor sentimental. Nature is indifferent. The life of an individual matters not one iota to Nature. Even species come and go. That’s Nature’s way. Stop trying to go against nature. It’s a waste of time and energy. "
(Please cite this information) I feel you are a complete imbecile ([n] a person of subnormal intelligence) so your thoughts and ideas mean nothing to me, if these are the words of a published work i might have faith in their viability. ([n] capable of becoming practical and useful)
(3.) There is no difference whatsoever between ants raising aphids and humans raising chickens. I have as much right to take a chicken’s life as a fox does. I *am* an animal. Why aren’t you sticking up for *my* rights?
This really isn't worth arguing but what the heck~ Your rights are not being infringed upon. When have you been caged by a fox while he shoves needles full of his new found chemical in your eyes? I'm sorry but that just doesn't sound natural to me. Also a human caging a chicken takes away anything natural about the hunt. With a fox the chicken has the opportunity to outrun the fox and the fox will kill him with his mouth alone not with a gun. I believe you would stick up for undernurished and abused children wouldn't you? Or is that natures way to you as well? I mean if my next door neighbor locks their 3 year child in a room and starts feeding it bleach I am going to step in and do something about it. it is not natures way. Eating apples off a tree naked is natures way.
ALSO THIS REFERS TO THE UK NOT THE USA
i see not too much of what you have said on this message board came from your own thoughts and ideas. i am glad you are "educated" from a university but all the school systems in the world can not argue that torture is torture wether it be an animal or child or adult or anything. and torture is wrong. so testing on animals is toture and wrong. you seem to have catch-phrases that make you sound like you are just taking someone elses ideas and plagerizing them. you have yet to cite any info. im sorry you are a waste of flesh and my time. im sure you'll have a wonderful life torturing things for your own benifit. and by the way...as the religious standpoint you take....i hope your right...for your sake.
this is what nessie wants for all animals just for his benifit
THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE AGAINST VIVISECTION
Graphic pictures of cats with electrodes clamped to their heads, or monkeys strapped to chairs with their brains cut open, their eyes filled with pain and terror, are enough to upset momentarily even the most hardened person. But most of us put these images out of our mind and accept the situation, because we're told by the government and medical establishment that such experiments are for our own good. They insist that without these procedures there will never be cures for the world's diseases, and that those who oppose animal experiments are extremists holding back "progress".
Yet, despite the supposed stringency of animal tests on drugs deemed safe for human consumption and released onto the market, two million Americans become seriously ill and approximately 100,000 people die every year because of reactions to medicines they were prescribed.1 This figure exceeds the number of deaths from all illegal drugs combined, at an annual cost to the public of more than US$136 billion in health care expenses.2 In England, an estimated 70,000 deaths and cases of severe disability occur each year because of adverse reactions to prescription drugs, making this the third most common cause of death (after heart attack and stroke).3
The drug company Ciba-Geigy has estimated that only five per cent of chemicals found safe and effective in animal tests actually reach the market as prescription drugs.4 Even so, during 1976 to 1985 the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved 209 new compounds-102 of which were either withdrawn or relabelled because of severe unpredicted side-effects including heart attacks, kidney failure, liver failure and stroke.5
The animal rights movement has lobbied for years against animal experimentation on moral and ethical grounds, but the scientific evidence against vivisection is far stronger. Researchers who put their careers on the line and publicly admit that animal-based models are inaccurate for evaluating the effects of drugs in humans are encouraged or forced to be silent in a billion-dollar industry.
Two such researchers are Dr Ray Greek, an American anaesthesiologist, and his wife, Jean Swingle Greek, a veterinary dermatologist. Both are ex-vivisectors who have studied medical and scientific literature which is largely unavailable and inscrutable to the public. Using the industry's own data, they expose in their new book, Sacred Cows and Golden Geese: The Human Cost of Animal Experimentation, how we are kept in the dark about the dangers to our health from animal experiments.
WHY ANIMAL MODELS ARE NOT PREDICTIVE
Open up a rat, a dog, a pig and a human and you will find much the same terrain, but with differences. But it is precisely these differences which have an impact when it comes to assimilating drugs. For example, rats, the species most commonly used in vivisection, have no gall bladder and excrete bile very effectively.
"Many drugs are excreted via bile, so this affects the half-life of the drug," explain Ray and Jean Greek. "Drugs bind to rat plasma much less efficiently. Rats always breathe through the nose. Because some chemicals are absorbed in the nose, some are filtered. So rats get a different mix of substances entering their systems. Also, they are nocturnal. Their gut flora are in a different location. Their skin has different absorptive properties than that of humans. Any one of these discrepancies will alter drug metabolism."
These differences are only on a gross level. Medications act on a microscopic level, initiating or interrupting chemical reactions that are far too small for the human eye to observe.
"We differ on the cellular level and molecular level and, importantly, that is where disease occurs," the authors explain. "The cells of chimps are very similar to [the cells of] humans, but the spatial organisation of the cells is vastly different."
Even those who favour the animal model admit its unpredictability among their peers.
Dr Ralph Heywood, director of Huntingdon Research Center in the United States, says: "The best guess for the correlation of adverse reactions in man and animal toxicity data is somewhere between five and 25 per cent."6
Dr Herbert Hensel, Director of the Institute of Physiology at Marburg University, goes further: "In the opinion of leading biostatisticians, it is not possible to transfer the probability predictions from animals to humansÉ At present, therefore, there exists no possibility at all of a scientifically based prediction. In this respect, the situation is even less favourable than a game of chance."7
Even the most widely respected textbook on animal experimentation states: "Uncritical reliance on the results of animal tests can be dangerously misleading and has cost the health and lives of tens of thousands of humans."8
The best-known example of this is thalidomide. Mothers who took this drug to ameliorate morning sickness gave birth to children with shocking deformities, with most lacking developed limbs. Animal tests had not predicted this. The first recorded case of side effects occurred on Christmas Day 1956, but in 1957 the drug was released anyway.9
QUESTIONABLE ACCURACY OF TOXICITY TESTS
One of the reasons why so many drugs cause adverse reactions in humans-reactions which were not predicted in animals-is because of the inaccuracy of the toxicity tests carried out.
The most notorious of these is the LD50 Draize test ("LD50" stands for "Lethal Dose 50 per cent"), where animals-usually dogs and rats-are force-fed, forced to inhale or are injected with a chemical until 50 per cent of them die. That dosage is then designated as the LD50. Its unreliability is obvious when we consider the huge variables such as the age, weight and gender of the animals, not to mention the environmental conditions under which the test takes place. These variables render the results invalid even for the species tested, let alone for humans.
The LD50 test was still part of almost all regulatory guidelines for the safety assessment of chemicals worldwide until 10 years ago. In the United States, although the FDA no longer requires the test and will accept in vitro and other non-animal-based alternatives, it still accepts the LD50-so the testing continues.
In November 2000, the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), which comprises 29 member countries, agreed to abolish the LD50 test and phase it out during 2001.16 But the alternatives which will take its place are merely a refinement of the original; they still involve the use of animals and therefore are still wholly unreliable indicators for human health.
In the United States, the Voluntary Children's Health Chemical Testing Program is being developed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and it involves extensive animal testing to determine the "safe" amount of toxic poisons to which children can be exposed.
WHAT DOESN'T WORK FOR ANIMALS MAY WORK FOR HUMANS
As well as animal tests allowing unsafe drugs onto the market, the flip side is that human health is also compromised when drugs which may be beneficial to humans are prevented from being released. Most drugs have side effects, some of which are more acute than others, but many useful medications used to save lives would not have reached clinical trials if they had first been tested on animals.
We only have to look in our own medicine cabinets for examples. Today, around 29 billion aspirin per year are sold in the United States and twice that number worldwide, yet aspirin causes birth defects in mice and rats and results in such extensive blood abnormalities in cats that they can only take 20 per cent of the human dosage every third day.20 Another painkiller, ibuprofen, causes kidney failure in dogs, even at low doses.
Other prescription drugs were initially unavailable to people because animal studies predicted side effects not found in humans. They include:
¥ Corticosteroids: These have been shown to cause cancer in some rodents, despite their being used safely by humans for years.
¥ Depo-Provera: This contraceptive was barred from release in the US in 1973 because it caused cancer in dogs and baboons.
¥ FK506: This anti-rejection drug was almost shelved before it proceeded to clinical trials. After experimenting on dogs, researchers said animal toxicity was too severe to proceed to the clinical trial stage.
¥ Furosemide: Mice, rats and hamsters suffer liver damage from this diuretic, but humans do not. It is widely prescribed for the treatment of high blood pressure and heart disease.
¥ Isoniazid: This medication, commonly used for treating tuberculosis, caused cancer in animals.
¥ Penicillin: The release of penicillin was delayed when its discoverer, Alexander Fleming, put it to one side because it did not work in rabbits. This is because rabbits excrete penicillin in their urine. Only when Fleming had a sick human patient and nothing else to try, did he administer penicillin -- with excellent results.
¥ Prilosec: The release of this gastrointestinal medication was delayed for 12 years because of an effect in animals which did not occur in humans.
¥ Streptomycin: This popular antibiotic caused birth defects such as limb malformations in the offspring of rats.
THE CANCER WAR
According to Dr Ray and Jean Swingle Greek, 40 per cent of us will have a diagnosis of cancer at some time in our lives. It is the one disease which most of us will have had some encounter with, whether personally or through contact with friends or family. But despite billions of dollars poured into "cancer research", the medical establishment is not winning its war against the Big C. Deaths from the disease are increasing; for example, from 1973 to 1992 they went up by 6.3 per cent in the United States.
The Greeks reveal in their book that despite thousands of substances being fed to, painted on and injected into hundreds of millions of animals, we are no closer to saving lives. "In many cases, it [animal experimentation] has actually led to more life loss and introduced new dangers," they argue.
There are more than 200 different forms of human cancer. Some of these have counterparts in animals, although even these differ greatly from those in humans in terms of cause, effect, treatment and prognosis. An histiocytoma is fatal in humans but benign in dogs, as all cancers have species-specific effects.
Ironically, in the 1950s the only known carcinogens were those found by studying humans epidemiologically, the authors explain. "A study of dyeworkers showed a high incidence of bladder cancer," they write. "Droves of dyed lab animals failed to prove the rule. Chromium was found to be carcinogenic in humans but not in animals. The link between radiation and cancer was also reported from clinical studies by that time. In 1956, British doctors warned of carcinogenic effects of X-rays given during pregnancy, resulting in childhood cancers. But no amount of irradiated pregnant quadrupeds necessarily produced the same effect.
"In these instances and many others, the inability to validate carcinogenicity in animals kept cancer-causing agents legal for a much longer time."
Asbestos is another example. The link between cancer and asbestos was made as long ago as 1907; but, after scientists failed to induce the disease in animals, it took more than 30 years before the human-model evidence became irrefutable.
Ray and Jean Greek point out that, between 1970 and 1985, researchers subjected an estimated 300 to 400 million animals to more than half a million compounds to check for anticancer effects. Based on these animal experiments, only 80 compounds progressed to clinical trials. Just 24 proved to have any anticancer activity in humans, and, of these, 12 went on to have a substantial role in chemotherapy. But, all 12 of these compounds were chemical variations of previously known chemotherapeutic agents. The fact that these chemicals could be used to fight cancer had already been predicted by their chemical structure.21 In other words, for 15 years, billions of dollars of investment money was ploughed into subjecting millions of animals to the most painful, cruel and barbaric procedures and then killing them, all of which proved nothing new.
Even the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) has admitted its failures. In the Los Angeles Times of 6 May 1998, NCI Director Dr Richard Klausner was quoted as saying: "The history of cancer research has been a history of curing cancer in the mouse. We have cured mice of cancer for decades and it simply didn't work in humans."
In the United States in the 1990s, scientists came up with the idea of genetically engineering rats to accept human cancers. But in 63 per cent of cases, according to the Greeks, the human tumours in the rats did not respond to chemotherapies which are "currently and effectively" used in humans, because the way cancers grow in animals is different from how they grow in humans. It begs the question as to how many anticancer drugs which could be successful in treating human cancers have been missed because they did not work in mice or rats. Chemotherapeutic agents which have been successful in humans have all come from non-animal means, according to the Greeks.
The next time any of us is tempted to put money into a tin shaken by cancer research charities which fund research using animal models, we would do well to remember the words of Dr Irwin Bross, formerly of the Roswell Park Memorial Institute for Cancer Research, in testimony before the US Congress in 1981: "While conflicting animal results have often delayed and hampered advances in the war on cancer, they have never produced a single substantial advance in either the prevention or treatment of human cancer."
WHY ANIMAL-BASED RESEARCH CONTINUES, DESPITE THE EVIDENCE
If even the proponents of the vivisection lobby admit that animal studies are inaccurate and produce little reliable data for human extrapolation, why on earth do they continue to employ these methods?
Dr Werner Hartinger, a German surgeon, surmised in 1989: "There are, in fact, only two categories of doctors and scientists who are not opposed to vivisection: those who don't know enough about it, and those who make money from it."
The latter in particular, according to Ray and Jean Greek, is the main reason. "Scientists are just like the rest of us, materialistic and opportunistic. They, too, struggle to survive and excel in a competitive world," they argue.
Dr Irwin Bross agrees. In 1986 he was quoted in Cancer Research on Animals as saying: "They [scientists] may claim to love truth; but when it is a matter of truth versus dollars, they love the dollars more."
To get grants for research and stay employed, you must churn out papers with the utmost regularity. And the fastest and easiest way to get papers published is to use animal experimentation.
"Animal experimentation is tidy," the Greeks explain. "The lovely thing about rats is that you can go home on Friday night and rest assured that they will still be in their cages when you get back on Monday. On the other hand, clinical research on humans can be tricky. Clinicians have no control over patients who may not return for follow-up appointments. Human subjects may even be dishonest about their lifestyles. You can addict monkeys to crack cocaine or heroin in your nice, clean lab. If you want to study human crack or heroin addicts, you may have to interact with potentially nasty people."
Time is also of the essence. "A rat's generation time is weeks, not decades. By the time a clinician publishes one good paper, an animal experimenter can publish at least five. The easiest way to publish is to take a concept already published and change something, the type of animal used, the dose of the drug, the method of assessing the results or some other variable." It is the number, as opposed to the value of research, that is important to those wishing to get on in their scientific career.
Acceptance of the status quo, not rocking the boat, is also a key factor. The pressure on students and young doctors to publish should not be underestimated. It has led to a proliferation of scientific journals which are often edited by researchers using animal experiments. This means that vivisectionists are able to put forward their work, but those who are against animal studies can find no place to publish-despite there being an estimated 100,000 scientific journals in print today. Many of these journals rely on advertising revenue from pharmaceutical companies and others who make products for animal experimenters.
Mainstream media also collude to keep anti-vivisectionists' work out of the public eye. At the UK press conference of the Greeks' new book, not one journalist from a national newspaper attended, despite novelist Jilly Cooper being there to promote it.
Reporters and editors soon realise that if they want to hang onto their jobs and maintain a steady flow of breaking news, they must keep their contacts happy. Most of these scientific contacts will be part of the animal experimentation lobby who will not take too kindly to the prospect of having their industry exposed as a money-making fraud.
This money, by the way, is yours. The US Government spends around $10 billion of taxpayers' money each year on animal-based research, according to the Greeks. The largest single provider of funds to medical research institutions in the United States is the National Institutes of Health (NIH). But only one-third of NIH competing research grant applications includes human subjects.22 So it is not hard to see why animal studies are the preferred option of researchers with career ambitions and mortgages to pay.
Then there is the grip of corporations to contend with. The animal experimentation industry grosses between an estimated 100 billion and one trillion dollars a year worldwide. This figure includes the employment of hundreds of thousands of people, including those who manufacture and sell jackets for immobilising animals and pumps for force-feeding them, needles, cages, scalpels and equipment used to kill animals in a specific way, not to mention the sales of animals themselves. Take Cedar River Laboratories, for example, which specialises in selling cats; its price is usually $225 for animals less than 16 weeks old.
Pharmaceutical firms benefit from the industry, too. According to its 1999 annual report, Merck's sales for the year came in at $32,714 million.
Animal experimentation is the quickest way of getting a new drug onto the market. Researchers given grant money by pharmaceutical companies are far more likely to come out with a positive review of the drug than those who are not receiving financial support. The Journal of the American Medical Association reported that 43 per cent of more than 2,000 researchers surveyed at the top 50 research universities said they had received gifts, including cash, even when the giver required prior approval of the results of the research being conducted.23
Even charities are not exempt from the profit-making loop. Many of them -- such as the American Institute for Cancer Research, the American Diabetes Association and the American Heart Association, and the Imperial Cancer Research Fund and the British Heart Foundation (BHF) in the UK -- fund or carry out animal-based research. Out of a total income of £56 million in 1998, the BHF spent £34.9 million on research, with only £5.1 million going into educational programs. In one test, dogs' chests were cut open and their blood was circulated out of their bodies and back again in order to allow blood pressure to change quickly in the neck arteries. The experimenters then came to the conclusion that a person bending down and suddenly standing up could experience dizziness and fainting.24
Animal testing also provides pharmaceutical firms with a weapon to protect themselves from being sued by people who have been damaged by their products. In Europe, all medications when they reach the final product stage are legally required to be tested on animals for carcinogenicity and birth defects. But, explains Wendy Higgins, campaigns director of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, this is not the case in the developmental stages of a drug, which is where most animal testing goes on.
The situation in the United States is similar. According to Dr Ray Greek: "Most pharmaceutical firms do more testing than the government requires, so they can say in court that they saw no effects like the one that killed the plaintiff's wife. Officials will tell you off the record that they rely on animal testing and think that it is a big factor in protection from lawsuits." Or, the companies can turn around and dismiss the animal tests as being unreliable in humans. Either way, it is extremely hard for victims to take legal action against them.
ALTERNATIVES TO ANIMAL-BASED RESEARCH
Real developments always arise from a human-modelled foundation, Ray and Jean Greek assert. The potent painkiller morphine, for example, is extracted from poppy flowers. Quinine, used to treat malaria, comes from cinchona bark. Aspirin, the most widely used medication in the world, was first prescribed by Hippocrates in the form of willow bark. None of these owes anything to animal experiments.
Clinical studies of patients and good old-fashioned observation have led to the successful treatment of childhood leukaemia and thyroid disease. Our present HIV and AIDS therapies and a number of heart drugs have also been developed in this way.
In vitro or test-tube study has revolutionised medical research. Cell and tissue preservation technology is now so advanced that many different types of cells can be kept alive almost indefinitely, giving far more accurate results when studying disease on the microscopic level at which it occurs.
Autopsies and epidemiology are other key areas of research, with technology today allowing thousands of patients at multiple institutions to be tracked. Ray and Jean Greek point out that epidemiological studies discovered the link between folic acid deficiency and spina bifida. Epidemiological studies also showed the cause/effect relationship between smoking and cancer, cancer and diet, heart disease and cholesterol, coal dust and black lung disease, smoking and heart disease, among many other diseases. It was epidemiology that proved the link between smoking and lung disease, despite the tobacco industry arguing for years that this was not the case because animal-based models said so. Experimenters had tried unsuccessfully for more than half a century to give animals cancer with tobacco smoke. They reasoned that since animals do not get cancer from tobacco, there is no proof that it causes cancer. The tobacco industry even paid doctors in the 1950s and 1960s to advertise cigarettes.
Breast cancer is an area that has benefited from mathematical modelling where computers simulate parts of the human body. This is a relatively new area of research, as is computer-assisted research where molecules can be studied on screen using computer graphics which mimic the body's systems.
The Dr Hadwen Trust is a UK-based charity established to come up with alternative research techniques. It funded the development of a new brain-scanning technique for studying vision, which replaced the need for invasive experiments on cats and led to a revolution in the understanding of the human brain with untold potential. The Trust also funded a pioneering 3D computer model of human teeth which is used to predict the results of corrective dental procedures such as braces.
These alternatives are not prohibitively expensive, either. Many are in fact cheaper than using animals. An initial cost of implementing new procedures would have to be incurred, but the long-term savings would justify the investment.
MORAL, ETHICAL AND SCIENTIFIC CONCERNS
The moral and ethical objections to vivisection will continue to rage on. If you are not interested in "animal rights", the use of animals in experiments will probably not bother you. But the scientific evidence against this practice should worry every single one of us who cares about our health.
Anyone who is yet to be convinced should take note of the section in Ray and Jean Greeks' book which outlines the results of a 1998 survey conducted by the Public Citizens' Health Research Group (PCHRG) in the United States. In the survey, 19 medical officers at the FDA said that 27 new drugs approved by the agency in the past three years should not have been. "Dr Sidney Wolfe, Director of the PCHRG, said that standards are going down because the agency has been under pressure from Congress to approve products more quickly. Of 172 officers interviewed, eight said there were 14 instances in the past three years where they had been told not to present their opinion to an advisory committee if it would reduce the likelihood of a drug's approval."25, 26
So, contrary to the propaganda put forward by the medical establishment to justify its work, animal experimentation does not save human lives. As the industry's own evidence proves, it does just the opposite.
Author's Note:
This article is based on information contained in Sacred Cows and Golden Geese: The Human Cost of Animal Experimentation, by C. Ray Greek, MD, and Jean Swingle Greek (Continuum Publishing, London and New York, 2000, http://www.continuumbooks.com).
Endnotes
1. Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), April 1998; 279:1200.
2. JAMA 1997; 277:301-6; and PharmacoEconomics 1994; 5:482-504.
3. Nature Medicine 2000; 6:502-503.
4. Medical World News 1965; 6:168.
5. GAO/PEMD-90-15 FDA Drug Review: Postapproval Risks 1976-1985.
6. Lumley, C.E. and S.R. Walker (eds), Animal Toxicity Studies: Their Relevance for Man, Quay Publishing, 1989; Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics 1962; 3:665-672.
7. In the supplement to the Neue Juristische Wochenschrift (New Legal Weekly), in Zeitschrif für Rechtspolitik, issue 2, 1975.
8. Svendsen, Per, "Laboratory Animal Anaesthesia", in Handbook of Laboratory Animal Science (P. Svendsen and J. Hau, editors), CRC Press, vol. 1, p. 4.
9. Teratology 1988; 28:221-226.
10. Nature 1 April 1982, pp. 387-90.
11. Spriet-Pourra, C. and M. Auriche, Drug Withdrawal from Sale, PJB Publications (Scrip Report), 1988, 2nd edition.
12. Lancet 1992; 340:1145-1147.
13. International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), Monographs on Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risk of Chemicals to Humans, 1996, pp. 253-635.
14. Weatherall, M., Safety Testing of New Drugs: Laboratory Predictions and Clinical Performance, Academic Press, 1984, pp. 157-158.
15. See Breast Cancer Action website, http://www.bcaction.org; also Christiane Northrup's book, Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom, Piatkus, UK, 1998.
16. OECD press release, 29 November 2000, http://www.oecd.org/media.
19. Visit website http://www.stopeuchemicaltests. com.
20. Lancet 1962; 599-600.
21. PPO, Updates of Cancer, 10 October 1989.
22. Clinical Research 1991; 39:145-156.
23. JAMA 1998; 279:995.
24. Britishheartlessfoundation.com (affiliate website of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), 2000.
25. Reuters News Service, 3 December 1998.
26. Reuters Health, "FDA Reviewers Say Drug Approval Standards Too Low", 3 December 1998, http://www.reuters.com.
UNSAFE FOR HUMANS
The following, taken from Dr Ray and Jean Greek's book, are just some examples of pharmaceutical drugs which have been deemed safe for human use after extensive animal testing, but which were later found to cause serious side effects.
¥ Amrinone: Use of this drug for treating heart failure led to 20 per cent of patients developing thrombocytopenia (a lack of blood cells needed for clotting), despite a comprehensive program of animal studies in mice, rats, hamsters, guinea pigs, dogs and rhesus monkeys. Some of these patients died.
¥ Birth control pills: These are known to cause life-threatening blood clots in some women, yet scientists have still not been able to reproduce this finding in animals. In fact, dog testing predicted that the pill would decrease the likelihood of clotting.
¥ Chloramphenicol: This antibiotic caused life-threatening anaemia in humans. Chloramphenicol is an example of a drug whose effects vary from species to species: dogs do well with it, cats die from it, cows tolerate it but horses do not. It is so toxic to susceptible humans that its use has been outlawed in animals used for food. The tiny amount consumed from ingesting a hamburger made from a treated cow will cause death in such a person unless they receive a bone marrow transplant.
¥ Clioquinol: This anti-diarrhoeal passed tests in rats, cats, dogs and rabbits. It was pulled off the shelves all over the world in 1982 after it was found to cause blindness and paralysis in humans.
¥ Diethylstilbestrol: This synthetic oestrogen was designed to prevent miscarriage, but it did just the opposite by increasing the rate of spontaneous abortions, premature births and neo-natal deaths. No human trials were done; all the safety data were collected from animals.
¥ Eraldin: This heart drug was withdrawn in 1975 after causing serious side effects in an estimated 7,000 victims, 23 of whom died. It had been tested for six years in mice, rats, dogs and monkeys and when introduced on the market was "particularly notable for the thoroughness with which its toxicity was studied in animals, to the satisfaction of the authorities".10 Even long after the drug was withdrawn, scientists failed to reproduce these results in animals.
¥ Floxin: This antibiotic progressed through animal testing, only to cause seizures and psychosis when used by humans.
¥ Isuprel: A medication used to treat asthma, it proved devastatingly toxic to humans in the amounts recommended based on animal studies. In Great Britain alone, 3,500 asthmatics died from using the medication.
¥ Manoplax: This heart drug, which had been tested on rats, mice, rabbits, cats and guinea-pigs, was withdrawn worldwide in 1993 after analysis of patients showed that those taking it were at increased risk of hospitalisation and/or death.
¥ Methysergide: This treatment for migraine led to severe scarring of the heart, kidneys and blood vessels in the abdomen, although scientists have been unable to reproduce these effects in animals.
¥ Opren: This treatment for rheumatism and arthritis killed 61 people and caused 3,500 adverse reactions. Withdrawn in 1982, the drug had been tested on monkeys and other animals for nine years with no adverse side effects.
¥ Phenylpropanolamine (PPA): This drug, found in many common cold and flu remedies, was banned by the FDA in the US after it was linked to causing between 200 and 500 strokes in young women a year.
¥ Primacor: This medication, given when the heart is not pumping enough blood, worked well in rats but increased deaths in humans by 30 per cent.
¥ Ritodrine: This drug, prescribed to avert premature labour, induced pulmonary oedema (fluid in the lungs, causing breathing difficulties and possibly death).
¥ Suprofen: This arthritis drug was withdrawn from the market when patients suffered kidney toxicity. Prior to its release, researchers said this about the animal tests: "...excellent safety profile. NoÉcardiac, renal [kidney] or central nervous system [side effects] in any species."11
¥ Tamoxifen: This drug, used to treat and prevent breast cancer in women, caused liver tumours in rats but not in mice or hamsters.12 The drug has been shown to be harmless to the developing foetus of rabbits and monkeys, but to cause bone abnormalities in rat foetuses.13 One of the side effects is nausea and vomiting, but this was not predicted in animal studies, even though high doses were tested in dogs -- the species considered most predictive of vomiting in humans.14 The drug has also been implicated in uterine cancer, blood clots, memory loss, absence of periods, and eye damage such as cataracts.15
¥ Zomax: This arthritis drug killed 14 people and caused many more to suffer.
Resources:
¥ Americans for Medical Advancement (website of Ray and Jean Greek): http://www.curedisease.com.
¥ British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection: http://www.buav.org.
¥ Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research: http://www.drhadwentrust.org.uk.
¥ For more information on the EU's chemical testing program, see http://www.stopeuchemicaltests. com.
¥ People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA): http://www.peta-online.org, for a full list of charities which fund and do not fund animal-based research and for more information on chemicals testing programs in the US.
About the Author:
Katrina Fox is a freelance journalist whose specialist subjects include alternative health, hypnosis and direct action. She is also the author and editor of three books, the latest of which is Self-Hypnosis for Life: Mind, Body & Spiritual Excellence. For more information, visit website http://www.katrinafox.com or e-mail info [at] katrinafox.com.
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die slow, painful hideous deaths
die slow, painful hideous deaths
die slow, painful hideous deaths
die slow, painful hideous deaths
die slow, painful hideous deaths
die slow, painful hideous deaths
I believe humans should be saved from the slow, painful hideous deaths that animal testing provides.
I believe humans should be misled and forced to die slow painful hideaous deaths that animals testing provides because
i believe you are lying about so many people you knowing needing or dying from liver transplants....earlier you stated that a friend of yours would die if they didn't get one then in the next entry you said you were a primary care giver for your friend that died. wow they died fast. why is it that so many of your loved ones need liver transplants? haven't they ever heard of human transplants. yeah there is this thing where on your drivers license you can be an organ donor...imagine that. then when you die people who need transplants will get your organs...isn't that crazy...what will they come up with next?
well since you are obviously just fighting over the last word now..i will bid you farewell and let you have it after i am gone from this wesite...and not because i died of stupidity or Hep-C
If it came down to the choice between a pigs life and the life of Nessie's friend, most people would chose the human life (even among militant environmentalists). Those arguing with Nessie are for the most part making either broader statements about animal rights (in most cases animal testing is wrong but there might be a few exceptions...) or are questioning the science behind the actual cases Nessie brings up. Instead of arguing, Nessie attempts to build a straw man opponent (who favors pigs lives over human lives and may even be a Nazi) and then makes threating statements towards his fictional opponent.
When the problem was right wing posts, people stopped posting since its hard to spend time writting something up only to have it be followed by hundreds of rude and threatening comments.
The current problem is worse since the rude and threatening comments are coming from an editor.
The comment section of SF Indymedia has pretty much become Nessie's blog. The message is clear, if you dont agree with Nessie on all issues, dont post (unless you like being called a Nazi and having people threaten you with physical harm). Nessie seems to only post rude comments and rarely actually cover news. Since Nessie has enough issues that differ with most of the sites readership, the end result will be all rightwing spam sooner or later.
Its a shame since this site was so pivotal in organizing the large antiwar protests last year.
Hepatitis virus could be passed on by kissing
By Maxine Frith, Social Affairs Correspondent
30 September 2003
The potentially fatal hepatitis C virus can be passed on more easily than doctors have thought, a study shows.
Researchers have found traces of the virus in the saliva of people infected with hepatitis C, meaning it could be contracted from simple acts such as kissing or sharing a toothbrush.
Millions of people who suffer from gum disease could be particularly at risk, the scientists said.
Around 400,000 people in Britain have hepatitis C, although 90 per cent are unaware they are infected because they have no symptoms.
Around one in five sufferers manages to get rid of the virus without experiencing any problems, and 40 per cent of the rest can be cured with combination drug therapy.
For some patients, however, the virus remains in the body and can cause fatal liver damage. The virus is carried in the blood and can also be caught through sexual contact.
Researchers at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents in Chicago say that infected people carry the virus in their saliva.
Scientists from the University of Washington in Seattle tested the saliva of 12 people who were infected with hepatitis C every day for 21 consecutive days.
Of the 248 samples taken, 52 or one in five tested positive for the virus. Traces were found in the saliva of seven of the volunteers.
Those most likely to have traces of the virus in their saliva had relatively high levels of the virus in their body. They were also more likely to detect the virus in saliva if the volunteer had gum disease.
The scientists said this may occur when the gums bleed after brushing, leaving tiny drops of blood in the saliva.
"This study suggests that the saliva of individuals infected with hepatitis C may be infectious," they said.
"Microscopic amounts of blood in the saliva due to gum disease may be responsible.
"People with HCV (hepatitis C virus) are cautioned not to share toothbrushes with other people in the household."
The findings suggest the virus could also be spread from kissing.
Basil Williams, chief executive of the UK's National Hepatitis C Resource Centre, said more research is needed to determine if it is possible to catch the virus from kissing.
He said: "It is technically possible to catch hepatitis C from kissing, but the risk appears to be very small."
Nessie, love what all you do for this site; I understand it ain't little, sorry about all the metal in your metal man, . ..but . .. don't you think it's time you get your knowhow on alternative medicine (nonintrusive and highly effective bioresonance comes to mind for one) up to speed with the rest of your erudition??????
You others out here ought to realize most 'defense' in the sense intended here is in reality offensive and leaves folk litte choice. So, most beings, starting from slightly and a mere somewhat down the line from the well armed, lubed and otherwise hi-tec suffer progressive denigration, abuse and even slow torture, all the way down to the us 'bigguns' faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar outnumbering soil organism; it's for the latter's DEFENSE and support I set up my little web site.
Yall welcome.
It's the way it's practiced today that's extreme. It's many of the people that practice it that are extreme.
It all began as a noble cause. But most of the larger and best known enviro organizations have been hijacked by people with a certain political agenda.
It's not about just "saving the planet" anymore. It's about hurting people, their livelihoods, corporations (which are nothing but a group of people) and their profits (which keep people employed), and opposing disagreeable political agendae. It's about kicking others out of YOUR "sandbox". Today's enviromentalists' sense of entitlement, arrogance, and self-righteousness is astounding.
When you have to resort to fabricated "studies", tainted "experts", and outright lies about those who oppose you, then maybe your stated purpose isn't all that valid after all. If others aren't buying your story, and you have to resort to "eco-terrorism" to achieve your purpose, then maybe that purpose is a little dubious. Maybe you have a view that most people find, well...........extreme.
MAYBE YOU ARE WRONG!
Huge numbers of women - like over 50%, at the Chowchilla prison have hepatitis C, very frequently acquired at the prison due to their shoddy healthcare and prison practices. A lot of people get a heroin addiction at the prison, while they weren't users before they got sent there.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/healthscience/2001769624_transplant19.html
However, it seems like only extremists representing marginal groups of less than 1% on the right are allowed to publish - you aren't going to see similar pieces from marginal left groups. For instance, last week they published an article by an Ayn Randite who was saying that environmentalists are all turning to terrorism and they must be preemptively stopped and put in jail before they do anything. One week later, on an opinion page with limited space, they printed this completely lunatic opinion where they are equating civil disobedience (not the ALF stuff, but the greenpeace stuff) in the tradition of Thoreau, and Martin Luther King as being terrorism - and advocate seizing money from environmental groups. He says that enviroterrorist actions occur every 4 days in the US?? I hadn't noticed. An alarmist letter was also published:
Terrorism in the Name of the Earth
Flush out eco-terrorism money
Marc Levin Sunday, October 19, 2003
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When Americans think of terrorists after Sept. 11, images of Arab men motivated by a perverted version of Islam inevitably come to mind. In contrast, the moniker "environmentalist" conjures up visions of granola-eating,
tree-hugging, peace-loving hippies. Yet, just as a small number of radical Muslims are sullying a great religion, a new breed of eco-terrorists is poisoning the environmental movement.
A rising tide of eco-terrorism is rapidly spreading across America. In September, the Earth Liberation Front torched six homes under construction in San Diego County. In August and September alone, ELF's acts of eco-terrorism have cost individuals and businesses some $54 million. The FBI has now declared ELF the nation's top domestic terrorism threat.
The related Animal Liberation Front (ALF) targets laboratories that conduct vital scientific research on animals. For example, Gilbert Low, a researcher at a University of Minnesota laboratory, noted that a recent ALF attack on his facility "has set back two years research conducted there on Alzheimer's disease and cancer." ELF and ALF have also taken credit for arsons at a Vail, Colo., ski resort, as well as damaging crops at university research centers in the Midwest, fur farms in the Pacific Northwest, meat vendors in the San Francisco Bay Area, and department stores on the East Coast.
However, the plague of eco-terrorism is hardly confined to America. In Europe, terrorist incidents in the name of animal rights have increased from 39 in 1999 to 110 in 2002. The European news agency Novum recently reported that the damage caused by animal rights activists in Europe in the last 20 years totals $60 million.
While these acts of eco-terrorism are themselves clearly illegal, few people realize that the money being used to commit many of these crimes has itself been illegally laundered through tax-exempt organizations so donors can receive a tax deduction. Environmental organizations designated by the IRS as 501(c)(3) groups are illegally transferring funds to nonexempt groups, which then use the money for eco-terrorism campaigns. These wholesale transfers from more tax-restrictive organizations to less-restrictive organizations are illegal on their face because there is no way to be sure that co-mingled funds won't be used for nonexempt purposes. Furthermore, terrorist acts clearly do not fit within any of the legally recognized areas of activity for 501(c) (3) groups. Tax-exempt activities are limited to: charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and the prevention of cruelty to children or animals.
On Sept. 22, the charitable oversight group Public Interest Watch filed a complaint with the IRS charging Greenpeace with making such illegal transfers. In a report entitled "Green-Peace, Dirty Money: Tax Violations in the World of Non-Profits," Public Interest Watch found that Greenpeace Fund, a 501(c)(3) transferred more than $10 million in exempt funds to nonexempt Greenpeace organizations such as Greenpeace, Inc. , between 1998 and 2000. Greenpeace, Inc., and other nonexempt Greenpeace entities benefiting from these transfers have committed numerous acts of eco-terrorism. They have blockaded a U.S. naval base, broken into the central control building of a nuclear power station in England, overrun the Exxon-Mobil corporate headquarters in Texas, and rammed a ship into the French sailboat competing in the 2003 America's Cup,
permanently damaging the vessel.
In April 2002, Greenpeace activists forcibly boarded a cargo ship in Florida carrying Brazilian wood. In connection with this incident, federal prosecutors indicted Greenpeace in July for violating an 1872 law prohibiting the unauthorized boarding of "any vessel about to arrive at the place of her destination." (The trial is scheduled for December).
Greenpeace isn't alone in funneling tax-exempt dollars into eco-terrorism efforts. According to the Center for Consumer Freedom, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has donated at least $70,000 from its tax-exempt coffers to the ALF. Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Verhey, who prosecuted the 1992 ALF firebombing of a Michigan State University laboratory, has noted the challenge of prosecuting eco-terrorists because of "a lack of witnesses and the group's 'cell' structure that lacks centralized leadership or a membership roster."
The difficulty in nabbing individual eco-terrorists is precisely why it is critically important that the IRS do its part to immobilize eco-terrorism groups by investigating the illegal use of tax-exempt funds to bankroll their crimes. Eco-terrorism is a scourge on society and a sordid stain on the wholesome causes of nonviolent environmentalists. Let's put the peace back into Greenpeace and protect the environment through vigilance, not vigilantism.
Marc Levin is an appellate lawyer in Austin, Texas, and president of the American Freedom Center (http://www.americanfreedom.org). AFC supports lower taxes, smaller government, a strong national defense and judicial restraint
Eco-terrorists point way
Editor -- Eco-terrorists attacks occur in the United States at an alarming rate of one every four days ("Under attack -- by eco-terrorists," by Elan Journo, Insight section, Oct. 12). In a not-too-distant future, when suicide bombings are as common in the United States as they are today in Israel, and when car bombs kill more than 4,000 American civilians every year as they do in Colombia today, we will wonder how our country ever got to this point.
We can stop and thank terrorist groups like Revolutionary Cells and the Earth Liberation Front, which feel that bombing civilians is an acceptable means to their own ends. They are sending our society down a path on which most of us do not want to tread.
TERRI M. KOUBA
Berkeley
now as we see e/f is "demanding money"
this is coming from the same person soliciting us for donations, using another list name to distract from the topic of CORPORATE GREED, AND CORRUPTION. not to mention their involvement in that weekend arson spree that ELF several of the E/F organizers have acknowledged that they support this action and one member proceeded to quote "how to's" from the group's
operations manual. Earth First has turned from the path. they have chosen a life of sin and greed.
as in the case of jumbo who informed the tember company of when the sitters would be out of the grove (FOR MONEY) how much did you get jumbo? was it worth it? earth first has chosen to go down a dark and lonley path.
Are they 'special needs' people over there? Do they think actually think that the general public is tickled by these requests/offers for towns to change their name? This makes anyone who holds positions vaguely related to theirs sound like idiots, because they come across as spokespeople for a movement.
They wanted the town of Hamburg on the east coast to change their name too. Hamburg in Germany doesn't have anything to do with a Hamburger - they don't eat food like the american Hamburger in Hamburg, or sausages like american frankfurters in Frankfurt. They sound like total moroons.
Local News
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted on Tue, Oct. 21, 2003
Animal rights group wants town of Rodeo to change name
Associated Press
Martinez - Would you change the name of your town for a veggie burger?
An animal rights group will be on hand at the Contra Costa County supervisors meeting in Martinez this morning to urge that they change the name of the town of Rodeo (row DAY' oh).
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals says the name recalls the sport of rodeo. They claim rodeo animals are abused and mistreated.
PETA is offering to donate $20,000 worth of veggie burgers to area schools if the name is changed.
They suggested Unity -- to acknowledge Union Oil's key role in the local economy.
The town of 11,000 residents was named for the livestock roundups common in the late 1800s.
Three years ago, PETA asked Wyoming's governor to eliminate the rodeo image that appears on the state's license plates.
EARTH LIBERATION FRONT
has a lot of explaining to do.
last month after their arson spree, they promised bigger attacks will follow.
WHERE THEY REFERRING TO THE ARSON THAT STARTED THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA FIRES ?
IS ELF CAPABLE OF THIS KIND OF VIOLENCE?
and for information, ELF does not setting fires as violence
they think of it as advertising their cause
First using animals is a perfect nonsence as an experiment on them doesn't show any results on humans(physiologically they are different from us)
Secondly there are some experiment methods using no living animals at all, and even more efficient(mollecular use and human ADN for instance)
Thirdly, an animal lives, die and suffer just as us Humans!!!
Ethically and religiously(have God said animals have been created as toys and objects for humans??) it is a perfect SCANDAL!!!
Has'nt what happened to MEN in the past(Nazi experimenting on Jews) give lessons to nowaday Humanity???
Try to imagine you are in the place of animals in the torture machines(completely cut from eyes to ears, brain, stomach...and maintained to life during that!!!!) and try to imagine the sufferance!!!!
At last, doing that to animals is madness, bloody curiosity, above all, BLOODY SELFISH for humans!!!!!!
I totally support extremism by Animal Rights organization(destruction of labs and free the lab animals) as long as politics in the WORLD won't have create laws and rules to ban the action of the scientists and vivisectors on animals!!!!!!
They are are purely assassins!!!!
one can be pro human and pro rat. i happen to like em both. so you can just f off and die yourself.
name the official organization who accepts the organ transplants from humans? name the organization which you registered to donate your body parts with?
thanks,
an anonymous critic of vivisection
vivasection is bullshit and you know it. you've yet to provide any factual basis for it's need in modern day society. it might have provided some benefits in years past, but it is senseless and there are better methods to learn from these days. you provide no facts in your argument. it's an adhominem. it's illogical. there i win the argument. go sulk you torturer. your as bad as hitler or sadam hussen or the al quada. actually i think your a secret spy for the israelie military working in the US defending their practice of shooting dogs to learn the effects of what happens when a hollow point bullet hits raw flesh. nessie, your the murderer, you've already admitted it. you like to see the sufferring of innocent animals, when there are many, many, did i say many, alternatives to that illogical arrrgument for defending vivasection.
nessie, once you do your homework and research the issue, maybe we can have a debate. until then, your bleedy emotional arguments are a waste of electrons on here. your all talk and no action. a armchair activists at best. oh preach to me how holier than though you are. oh please shove your ideaology down the innocent animals throat. maybe we ought to strap you down and snap your spine and see what kind of wasted facts we can gather.
correlate what you want. i will criticize the fruitless vivasection community all i want. i will pass along useful information on how to possibly alleviate the needs for organ transplant by providing the information as provided above. you provide neither. you don't advocate organ donation, you promote senseless death. you don't advocate a solution, you promote violence. your the extremist who needs to evaluate what he is saying, cause right now your bordering on ....
you better watch your threats. i do know who you are and where to locate you at. if you attempt violence upon me, i will defend myself. i will have the jurisdiction prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.
i will criticize wasteless tobacco science trying to justify vivasection that produces no results. pigs aren't humans and humans aren't pigs. go clone your friends and steal their livers.
Daily Express 21.09.00
"There are lots of viruses in pigs. One problem is that pigs have a kind of retrovirus (a retrovirus is the same family of viruses as HIV) which cannot be eliminated from the pig because it is inherited in the pig’s own DNA yet can come out as an infectious virus. What we have shown is that up to three strains of pig retrovirus can propagate in human cells, in culture, therefore there is a risk that they could infect humans and might cause disease in humans."
Professor Robin Weiss, Virologist, Institute of Cancer Research, London.
-In practice, no xenotransplantation infection surveillance programme can be expected to provide adequate safeguards to public health. (See Section 3.)
-In practice, recipients of xenografts will be unable to fulfil all the necessary conditions "consistently and for life."
-The likelihood of close contacts, especially future contacts, complying with necessary requirements is even more remote.
-Any success that xenografts might achieve will increase the chances of non-compliance and xenozoonosis because of complacency and the frequency of operation increasing the probability of a xenozoonotic event occurring.
-Latent infection pose extreme difficulties for detection, control and treatment. Unknown viruses are similarly problematic.
-The proposal to relax surveillance requirements in the event of routine xenotransplantation is incredible.
In practice, it will be difficult to obtain valid consent from recipients.
-No proposals have yet been made to obtain consent from society in general, which is necessary given the social risks of xenotransplantation.
-It would be impractical and a breach of basic individual human rights to enable society to protect itself from the threat of xenozoonosis by enforcing surveillance requirements through legislation. This is a very serious ethical and practical cost of xenotransplantation.
-In practice, voluntary compliance with surveillance requirements by recipients and contacts is unreliable and inadequate as a safeguard to public health.
-The cost of setting up and running the surveillance infrastructure will be prohibitive and not an effective allocation of scarce health care resources.
-It is highly likely that human error will occur at various points in the surveillance infrastrusture, further compromising public health.
Companies trying to develop pig organs for human transplant, such as Cambridge-based Imutran Ltd. , have claimed that pig organs are the only way to meet the growing demand for organ transplants. Indeed, the lengthy waiting list for organs is cited as the reason for developing xenotransplantation in the first place. However, a closer examination of alternative approaches to xenotransplantation reveals that there is huge scope for improving the supply of human organs.
Strategies to improve the supply of human organs include:
Increasing the numbers of people carrying donor cards. Opinion polls consistently demonstrate that about three-quarters of the British public are willing to donate their organs in the event of their death. However, only a fifth of the population actually carry organ donor cards.
Improving the management of the organ retrieval system. A well-funded decentralised network of transplant co-ordinators in Spain has resulted in an 'impressive' increase in Spain's transplant rates, which almost doubled over a six year period (1989-1995). The improvement is that much more impressive because it occurred despite a decrease in the number of road traffic deaths.
Reassessing the criteria for suitable organ donation. At present cadaveric human organs are harvested only from "heart beating" donors in intensive care facilities, but recent evidence shows that usable organs can be obtained from "non-heart beating" donors, and preliminary results suggest similar medium term success rates to "heart-beating" organs.Translated into national policy, this finding could dramatically increase the supply of organs.
Live Donation. The organ for which the shortfall is the greatest is the kidney, but this organ can, of course, be obtained from living donors. 20 year follow-up of living donors shows no evidence of statistically significant increase in prevalence of renal disease and recipients have better long term survival than those receiving cadaveric transplants.[5] In this country under 10% of organs are obtained from this source, but in theory it could answer the entire demand for kidneys.
Extrapolating from a U.S. Government study, every year up to 31,000 deceased people in the UK could contribute to the supply of organs, easily coping with the current waiting list of between six and seven thousand patients. What particularly worries Uncaged Campaigns is that hype about the prospects for pig organ transplants may further discourage the public from carrying donor cards and registering as donors. That would be a tragedy for patients waiting for organs as human organs will always be a far better option than an organ from another animal. This concern has also been expressed by bioethics reports such as the British Kennedy Report, and a Dutch Committee:
"The [Health Council of the Netherlands] Committee [on Xenotransplantation], however, believes that... by far the best way of resolving the shortage in organs for transplantation is to increase the supply of human donor organs."
Xenotransplantation, Health Council of the Netherlands: Committee on Xenotransplantation, 1998
Secondly, the existence of animal research related to an illness or treatment does not prove that it was essential to the development of that treatment or that it was even useful. All drugs and treatments must, by law, be tested on animals: defenders of vivisection can therefore always find examples which appear to support their claims, but these examples do not prove the necessity for experiments. We know that no treatment can be considered safe or effective until it has been tried in human patients: conversely we can never know that any animal procedure will produce results replicable in humans. Therefore it appears absurd to suggest that they are essential to the development of treatments.
Medical scientists and doctors draw on a range of techniques in developing new treatments, including logic and observation of patients in clinical practice.
When we examine the history of medical science we find that it is these techniques and skills which have been truly essential. The responses of human beings to substances and diseases are obviously far more useful to doctors than those of different animal species, and far less likely to be misleading.
Unsurprisingly then, the advances often alleged to have been derived from animal research invariably owe very much to the study of human beings. Indeed, animal experiments have sometimes produced results so misleading that advances have been delayed by years.