Day: June 7, 2002

Self-Imposed Ignorance

I do not understand why people who write or post online so often choose to live in self-imposed ignorance. Thanks to the web explosion and Google, it is possible to find out pretty much anything in just a few minutes. The other day I needed to know how much IGF-1 growth factor is present in human gastric fluids. Took just a few seconds to find a World Health Organization report with a nice table of IGF-1 levels in various bodily fluids.

But at the same time, few people seem to use it. At least that is the conclusion I come to when I read ignorant Metafilter posts about Hepatitis B vaccination:

Another example of vaccine madness, babies within 48 hours of being born are being vaccinated against hepatitis B. That’s bloody insane…there’s virtually no risk of an infant being infected, so why pump these chemicals into their little bodies?

It took me about 15 seconds at Google to find a CDC estimate that as many as 1.5 million Americans suffer from Hepatitis B which they contracted as children. Thanks to the vaccine, Hepatitis B prevalence in people under 20 has declined dramatically, and it is mostly people in the 20-40 range who were not vaccinated as children who are contracting the disease.

Personally, there’s nothing worse than writing something only to have somebody else point out that it is wrong. When I still worked for the local paper I was on an harsh deadline for a film and I incorrectly claimed that South Africa was allied with the Axis powers during World War II. That was more than a decade ago and it still bugs me that I got that wrong.

I love Google because it makes fact checking a snap in about 99 percent of cases. Why more people don’t use it for that purpose is beyond me.

EU Committee Recommends a Ban on All New Cosmetics Tested with Animals

In May a European Union parliament committee approved a proposal to ban the sale of any new cosmetics tested on animals, regardless of where the testing took place.

The proposed law would ban all European Union animal tests into cosmetics by 2005 as well as ban the import of any new cosmetics tested on animals, even if the tests were conducted outside of the European Union.

Current products that have already been tested on animals would be grandfathered in by the law and remain available for sale or import.

The proposed law was approved by an EU parliament committee on a 42-0 vote and now moves on to the full EU parliament this month. The proposed ban on imports is a way to get around the obvious problem that by banning animal tests of cosmetics in the EU, companies will simply conduct such research elsewhere.

Regardless of whether or not it is finally approved, the law almost certainly violates World Trade Organization rules which forbid such discriminatory measures against products.

The EU executive, which supports a proposal to ban testing but not to ban sales of products tested in animals, noted that, “As the test method does not have any physical effect on the product, discrimination on this basis could be considered to be contrary to WTO rules.”

Source:

Euro MPs vote to ban cosmetics tested on animals. Robin Pomeroy, Reuters, May 24, 2002.

Feline Research Yields Clues about HIV-Associated Dementia, Progression in Drug Addicts

In human beings the HIV virus enters the brain almost immediately after a person is infected with the virus. As many as 20 percent of people who contract AIDS will eventually develop HIV-associated dementia — defined as a decline in cognitive thinking, motor dysfunction and behavioral changes.

Enter Ohio State University researcher Michael Poddell who conducts research on an animal model of HIV in cats. In a study to be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of NeuroVirology, Poddell reports that the feline immunodeficiency virus reproduces in certain types of brain cells much faster than usual if the drug methamphetamine is present.

Poddell’s research surprisingly found that brain cells called astrocytes were resistant to FIV infection. Instead the virus got into the brain cells by being carried there by infected lymphocytes (a type of blood cell). Follow-up tests will be needed to see if HIV infects human brain cells in a similar way.

Adding methamphetamine at levels similar to what a drug users would have in his or her bloodstream increased the infection rate ten-fold.

Experiments are currently underway to see if methamphetamine causes FIV to progress more quickly in cats.

Podell, of course, has been excoriated by animal rights activists for his FIV research. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has called his experiments “cruel, wasteful and bizarre” and Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine filed a lawsuit in January against the National Institutes of Health claiming that the NIH withheld documents that would show that it was unnecessary to use cats for this research.

Cats are used for this research because they are the only laboratory animals other than primates that develop a neurological infections from HIV.

Sources:

Methamphetamines may assist HIV in brain. Jim Kling, United Press International, June 4, 2002.

Update on Neurology Justin McArthur, M.D., 1998.

AIDS study targeting cats infuriates animal activists. Associated Press, October 9, 2000.

McDonald's Formally Announces Settlement in French Fries Lawsuits

McDonald’s issued a press release on June 1 formally announcing a $10 million settlement of five separate lawsuits brought against the company in a dispute over whether or not its french fries were vegetarian.

In 1990 McDonald’s began using vegetable oil to cook its french fries. At the time, McDonald’s made the change due to concerns over cholesterol but many people were lead to believe the french fries did not contain any animal products. In fact, flavoring is added to the french fries during processing that contains a beef extract.

In its press release, McDonald’s said,

We acknowledge that, upon our switch to vegetable oil in the early 1990’s for the purpose of reducing cholesterol, mistakes were made in communicating to the public and customers about the ingredients in our French fries and hash browns. Those mistakes included instances in which French fries and hash browns sold at U.S. restaurants were improperly identified as “vegetarian.”

McDonald’s also announced it was creating a panel to advise it about restrictive diets in the future.

Sources:

McDonald’s to pay $10M to vegetarians.. CNN, June 5, 2002.

Apology Related to French Fry Litigation Settlement. McDonald’s, Press Release, June 1, 2002.