Day: February 18, 2005

ALF Threatens Hare Coursing Bombings

Recently I mentioned and Irish campaign to end hare coursing in that country. Recently the Animal Liberation Front has threatened to firebomb the supporters of hare coursing events.

One of their targets is JP McManus, a millionaire currency trader who is also owns numerous race horses. McManus also sponsors hare coursing.

Robin Webb told the Irish Examiner that he had “very strong indications” that ALF had acquired incendiary devices to use against those sponsoring hare coursing. The Irish Examiner quoted Webb as saying,

ALF members will have no problem carrying out an arson attack on any of his properties.

At the beginning of January, ALF activists spread nails and tacks on a field used for hare coursing. They also placed incendiary devices around the field, but they did not detonate.

Source:

Activists threaten to firebomb hare coursing events. John Breslin, Irish Examiner, January 24, 2005.

National Hare Coursing Venue Attacked. Press Release, Association of Hunt Saboteurs, January 9, 2005.

First Successful Live-Donor Islet Cell Transplantation Procedure

In February, the BBC reported that a team at Japan’s Kyoto University Hospital had succeeded in transplanting islet cells from a healthy woman into her 27-year-old diabetic daughter.

Islet cell transplantations have been performed before, but always from dead organ donors, which created a number of problems since the islet cells were frequently damaged after the death of the donor. And in countries as Japan, dead organ donors are extremely rare.

As the BBC notes, this could be an effective treatment for Type 1 diabetes, and we have animal research to thank for this advance.

That islet transplantation might be used to treat diabetes was first established by Dr. Paul Lacy who used a rat model in which he made the experimental rats suffer from diabetes and then transplanted islet cells from healthy rats. The rats were effectively cured of their diabetes.

How important was this animal research? Dr. James Shapiro was the lead surgeon on the team that transplanted the islet cells. In an interview, he said that a key at DiabetesStation.Com, Shapiro noted that animal research was instrumental in helping researchers understand where the islet cells should be transplanted to for maximum effectiveness,

The idea to use the liver was not mine. Experiments in rats, in large animals, and eventually in people all suggested that the liver was about the only site where islets could take well and work in people.

Sort of odd how that could happen if animals are too different from human beings for animal research to be applicable to human health problems.

Sources:

Living donor diabetes transplant. The BBC, February 4, 2005.

Islet Cell Transplant. Dr. James Shapiro, April 13, 2003.

World-first living donor islet cell transplant a success. Press release, University of Alberta, February 3, 2005.

Animal Liberation Front Threatens Physical Harm to Partygoers

We’ve all heard the nonsense rhetoric from the activists — Animal Liberation Front is non-violent since burning down homes and research facilities doesn’t count as violence (in these folks’ ethical guide, a white racist burning down a black church is committing a nonviolent act of protest). But the North American Liberation Press Office issued a press release in December that contained a clear intent to physically harm — perhaps even kill — human beings.

The press release concerned a planned holiday party by Forest Laboratories to be held December 10, 2004. The press release noted that Animal Defense League – Long Island planned a protest outside the Hunting Towne House, where the holiday party was to be held.

The press release also republished what it claimed was a communique from the Animal Liberation Front that said (emphasis added),

Cancel the 12/10 Forest Labs party or syrup of ipecac and diarrhea inducing agents will appear in your catering provisions beginning Friday afternoon. We will target all town house events this weekend. All additives will be non-lethal and the symptoms non-permanent, however: will be very disruptive to town house functions. Cancel the Forest Labs party. *The A.L.F.*

Non-permanent? Spiking food with ipecac in this way could be potentially fatal.

Ipecac syrup used to be widely recommended in cases of accidental poisoning, especially among children, because it can induce vomiting. In 2003, the American Academy of Pediatrics reverse that recommendation, after studies showed ipecac was simply not effective and had a number of potential problems (mainly that it is sometimes abused by people with eating disorders).

Spiking food with ipecac would be extremely dangerous, because it would be impossible to control how much ipecac any given person was exposed to. Exposure to large doses of ipecac can cause respiratory difficulties, fast or irregular heartbeat, seizures and pneumonia. If, for some reason, the ipecac is not vomited, it can cause heart problems, permanent heart damage and even death.

There’s a reason ipecac is clearly labeled that it is not to be administered without first consulting a poison control center, emergency room or physician.

There is simply nothing you can spike food with that is not potentially hazardous and even deadly to some subpopulation of people. Apparently the possibility that someone might be seriously injured or even killed in such a stunt is simply not as important as the animals to the ALF or the North American Animal Liberation Press Office.

Non-violent my ass.

Source:

Animal Testing Firm to be Targeted on Long Island; Animal Liberation Front Issues Threat to Partygoers. Press Release, North American Animal Liberation Press Office, December 8, 2004.

Ingrid Newkirk On the Evils of Procreation

Ingrid Newkirk is making the rounds with a new book, “Making Kind Choices” — no word on whether or not firebombing research laboratories heads the list of kind choices. But Newkirk is traveling the country promoting the book and giving interviews, some of which reveal more about her extremist views.

First, as usual, Newkirk is less than truthful in her interview in this exchange with OnlineMilwaukee.Com (emphasis added),

OMC: Is it true you said you want to dance on Col. Sanders’ grave?

Newkirk (laughing): No, that I never said. But KFC, unlike McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King, refuses to make any reforms in their treatment of chickens. I ask people not to stop the car for KFC. . .

But the truth is that Newkirk did, in fact, suggests dancing on Col. Sanders grave. That anecdote comes from a New Yorker profile of PETA by Michael Specter in which Specter writes of attending a brainstorming session with Newkirk and other PETA employees (emphasis added),

The group devoted the biggest block of time to its most important current action: the campaign against KFC. According to the company’s Web site, last year the chain served seven hundred and thirty-six million chickens. If the chickens served in its restaurants in 2002 were laid head to claw, they would circle the equator more than eight times. Somebody suggested making Colonel Sanders action figures, or having people go to Louisville basketball games dressed only in a bucket. Another person said that perhaps they ought to commit civil disobedience at KFC restaurants; getting arrested is always good for the cause. Newkirk quickly rejected that idea. “No,” she said. “Once you start, you have to continue, and I don’t think we have the resources or the support yet.” Everyone agreed that they had to attack the image of the Colonel. “He is loved in Louisville, and he is buried there,” someone said. Newkirk’s eyes lit up. “Why not find out when his birthday is, call the newspapers, and go dance on his grave?” she said.

Asked by OnlineMilwaukee.Com if she really plans to donate her body parts after her death, Newkirk replied,

Yes. I plan to send my liver somewhere in France to protest foie gras (liver pate). California recently banned this food and England and Germany banned it as well. I really think France needs to ban it.

OMC: What else?

Newkirk: I am going to donate my pointer finger to Ringling Brothers. Not the (swear) finger, I’m not that rude, but the pointer finger is a way to say “shame on you.” They have mistreated so many animals over the years, and recently killed three baby elephants that were too young to be weaned from their mother.

I plan to have handbags made from my skin . . . and an umbrella stand made from my seat. I grew up in India and it’s common for an elephants foot to be cut off and made into an umbrella stand. My feet are too small to make a proper umbrella stand, but my seat . . .

Newkirk also reiterates her view that having children is a very selfish thing to do,

OMC: I read that you think having a baby is like adopting a pure-bred animal — totally selfish.

Newkirk: Yes, that’s true. I wish more people would adopt children. If I had more time, I would. There are so many beautiful children in Eastern Europe — all over the world — that need to get out of orphanages and into families.

Well, I think we can all be glad that Newkirk did not selfishly decide to reproduce or adopt.

Source:

PETA president promotes new pub. Molly Snyder Edler, February 1, 2005.

Racine Fails to Pass Animal Guardian Ordinance — It Must Be Animal Cruelty!

In January, a Racine, Wisconsin, city commission committee voted unanimously against adopting an ordinance that would have changed all references to pet “owners” to pet “guardians” in the city’s ordinances. The animal rights activists pushing the change calmly replied that the committee’s decision itself constituted animal cruelty.

Racine’s Ad Hoc Animal Ordinance Committee rejected the proposed change for a number of reasons, according to The Journal Times (Racine, WI), including the fact that it isn’t clear how the change would affect the legal status of animals and the clear effort by animal rights activists to use the “guardian” language as the first step in changing legal consideration of animals from property to persons.

This drew the ire of the animal rights activists who had pushed the ordinance change. Alan Eisenberg, a board member of Racine’s HOPE Safehouse, told The Journal Times,

I deem their [the committee] conduct today to be brutally insensitive and in and of itself an act of animal cruelty.

Gee, you have to wonder who tipped the committee off that the guardian language changes are being promoted by clueless animal rights extremists!

The final decision on the proposed language change rests with the Racine City Council, but The Journal Times reported that it was expected to follow the committee’s recommendations.

Source:

Animal linguistics: In Racine, pets are still ‘owned’. Rob Golub, The Journal Times, February 1, 2005.

The Extremist:
The woman behind the most successful radical group in America. Michael Specter, The New Yorker, April 14, 2003.

Hudson Valley Foie Gras Prepares for Activists

The Hudson Valley Chronogram recently published an intriguing profile of Hudson Valley Foie Gras — billed as the world’s largest producer of foie gras. With California scheduled to ban foie gras production by 2012, putting Hudson Valley Foie Gras’ competitor Sonoma Foie Gras out of business, the focus of anti-foie gras efforts by animal rights activists will inevitably fall on this New York company.

According to the Chronogram, the business slaughters 2,000 ducks per week during normal operations and reaches upwards of 10,000 ducks per week during the Christmas holiday.

Hudson Valley was one of the foie gras farms featured in animal rights activist Sarahjane Blum’s 16-minute film, Delicacy of Despair, in which Blum trespassed at Hudson Valley and Sonoma Foie Gras. Chronogram reporter Susan Gibbs was surprisingly skeptical of the film going in, however, noting that,

The film is horrifying, and incredibly effective. But my many years in television news has taught me that selective editing can make a bad situation look a thousand times worse. To find out what was really going on at a foie gras farm, I would have to visit one.

If only more journalists were as skeptical of heavily edited animal rights video as Gibbs is. Fortunately, Hudson Valley proprietors Izzy Yanay and Michael Ginor agreed to allow Gibbs to tour their farm and the result is a profile that makes clear this is a slaughter operation, but one that doesn’t quite live up to Blum’s billing has a horror house.

For example, Gibbs comments on a common claim by activists — that the force fed ducks are often too fat to walk,

Blum had told me to be on the lookout for ducks so fat they were unable to walk. All of the ducks I saw walked. They were very fat and very dirty, a fact both Yanay and Blum said was due to a lack of sufficient water for preening. Several of the fattest ducks had green chalk marks on their necks designating them for the next day’s slaughter.

Gibbs also addresses the issue of ducks being accidentally killed in the forced feeding process,

Each of the farm’s 90 handlers is responsible for feeding 350 ducks three times a day. Spending one minute on each bird would make for a 17-and-a-half-hour workday, but most handlers work much faster. Activists claim that over-worked employees don’t have time to be careful with the ducks and sometimes kill them by overfeeding. Yanay denies the charged, pointing out that worker’s monthly bonuses are docked for each dead bird.

Blum’s short film featured shots of isolation cages at Hudson Valley. When Gibbs visited the farm, Yanay told her that, “That was an experiment. It didn’t work.” According to Yanay, the isolation cages have been discontinued. Blum, however, told Gibbs she doesn’t believe Yanay when he says the isolation cages are no longer being used.

Yanay defends foie gras as no more or less cruel than any other form of animal agriculture, and suggests that if activists do succeed in New York as they have in California, it won’t have much long-term impact on his business,

Okay. We are bad people. But what we do wrong is we kill them. We are a farm that produces a product. You see cute little babies coming out of the eggs. We grow them and feed them and then we have to kill them.

. . .

If production is banned in New York, we will take our business to China. We will kill the same number of ducks. No ducks have ever been spared by banning foie gras.

Source:

Fowl feast: Hudson Valley Foie Gras. Susan Gibbs, Chronogram (Hudson Valley), February 2005.