Month: March 2002

Plan to Eradicate the Tsetse Fly

The International Atomic Energy Agency and the Organization of African Unity are working together on an interesting effort to eradicate the tsetse fly from Africa. Like mosquitoes, the tsetse fly feeds on the blood of humans and animals and in the process spread sleeping sickness (trypanosomiasis).

Anywhere from 250,000 to 500,000 people are afflicted with sleeping sickness every year, and the disease ends up killing 4 out of 5 of those who contract it.

It is not that there is no treatment for sleeping sickness, but rather that it is relatively expensive. A full regimen of drugs for the disease costs about $1,000 — an enormous amount in African countries where the per capita income is often far below that amount.

Moreover, the prevalence of sleeping sickness in Africa has been gradually increasing. The BBC reports that some estimates put the cost of the disease in excess of $4 billion, including an estimated three million cattle killed every year by the disease.

The International Atomic Energy Agency hopes to take advantage of the mating habits of the tsetse fly to eradicate it from Africa. Female tsetse flies normally only mate once in their lifetime. Once they mate with a male, they will not usually attempt to mate again.

So the plan is to sterilize male flies using radiation and then release the sterile males into the wild. When a sterile male mates with a female, that female will produce no offspring throughout her short life. Gradually, the number of tsetse flies should begin to decline, and eventually it might be possible to eradicate the tsetse fly entirely from sub-Saharan Africa.

The validity of this approach has already been demonstrated on the island of Zanzibar. In 1994, in cooperation with the Tanzanian government, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency began a program of releasing sterilized male tsetse flies into the environment. In 1997 an independent monitoring group confirmed that not a single tsetse fly had been found in over a year in the areas where the fly population had been the heaviest only a few years earlier. The FAO and IAEA succeeded in eradicating the fly, and since the island is too far from the mainland of Africa for the insect to fly, it will remain tsetse-fly free unless the fly is accidentally reintroduced on shipments from mainland Africa.

Of course that will be a moot point if researchers succeed in eradicating the fly from all of Africa. The campaign will initially introduce large numbers of sterile male flies in areas where the insect is pervasive, such as Botswana and parts of Ethiopia, and then gradually spread out across all of Africa.

Source:

New drive to root out deadly fly. Ania Lichtarowiz, The BBC, February 18, 2002.

Battling the deadly bite of the tsetse fly. CNN, February 28, 1998.

Tsetse fly eradicated on the Island of Zanzibar. Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, May 5, 1998.

Campaign Launched to Eliminate Tsetse Fly, Which Has Turned Much of Africa Into a Green Desert. International Atomic Energy Agency, Press Release. February 2, 2002.

Do Rape Shield Laws Forbid Questions about False Allegations?

In February 2001 the United States District Court for the Eastern District issued a ruling in an odd rape case that boiled down to this: do rape shield laws protect accusers from being questioned about previous false allegations of rape that the accuser may have filed?

The case involved Wisconsin resident Jessie L. Redmond who was convicted in 1993 of raping and providing cocaine to a 15-year-old girl. Redmond worked as a counselor at a group home for alcohol- and drug-abusing youths. In December 1992 he was arrested and later convicted after one of these youths claimed that Redmond had supplied her with cocaine and had sex with her.

Redmond’s case took a very odd turn which involved the eventual suspension of his attorney. His original lawyer, Mike Sandy, showed up at the court and passed himself off as the girl’s attorney in order to illegally obtain the girl’s juvenile court file. Among the things that file contained was detailed information about another allegation of rape that the girl had made in early 1992. Police investigated that allegation and determined that it was a false allegation and the girl was charged with contempt of court.

Sandy would eventually have his law license suspended because of that and other incidents. At Redmond’s trial, however, Sandy wanted to ask the girl about the previous false allegation of rape that she had made. The judge in the case, Dennis Flynn, refused to permit that. Although Wisconsin’s rape shield law includes a specific exemption for false allegations, Flynn ruled that the line of questioning about the previous allegation would be prejudicial while having little value for determining the truth of the case against Redmond.

Redmond’s case was then taken up by Howard Eisenberg, the dean of Marquette University Law School. The case ended up in the U.S. District Court which eventually overturned Redmond’s conviction. It noted that since the only evidence against Redmond was the testimony of the girl, the girl’s previous false allegation indeed had probative value. The opinion of that court reads, in part,

But the fact that the girl had led her mother, a nurse, and the police on a wild goose chase for a rapist merely to get her mother’s attention supplied a powerful reason for disbelieving her testimony eleven months later about having sex with another man, by showing that she had a motive for what would otherwise be an unusual fabrication.

…

And thus the court’s ruling, though ostensibly based on the rape-shield statute, derives no support from that statute. The statute protects complaining witnesses in rape cases (including statutory-rape cases) from being questioned about their sexual conduct, but a false charge of rape is not sexual conduct

Redmond was ordered released by the court. He was somewhat vindicated by the decision, but in the process lost 8 years of his life due to an incredibly bizarre interpretation of a rape shield law — an interpretation that the U.S. District Court dismissed out of hand.

As Attorney Mark Richards, who represented Redmond in his first round of appeals, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “A lot of people will point to this and say it is proof the system works. But it’s not proof that the system works, because this guy has been sitting there (in prison) for 7 1/2 years.”

Sources:

Redmond v. United States. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 99-2333, February 14, 2001.

Court reverses rape case conviction. Tom Kertscher, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, February 21, 2001.

In Vitro Is Not Necessarily Non-Animal

The Boston Globe’s Naomi Aoki wrote an article that is being widely circulated by animal rights and anti-animal rights advocates on the Internet. The article profiled Charles River Laboratories and gave the impression that the company is increasing its efforts at developing and marketing nonanimal tests. The only problem is that one of the most innovative “nonanimal” tests mentioned in the article, is in fact an animal test.

In January 2002, Charles River Laboratories bought a firm called DakDak which performs in vitro testing of sunscreen products. Using an innovative approach, the lab can perform testing of sunscreen products in a day or two that would take up to a year in in vivo models. But in vitro testing is not the same as nonanimal testing, although you would not know that from Aoki’s characterization of DakDak,

In the past five years, the lab animal portion of Charles River’s business has gone from 80 percent to 40 percent. Earlier this month, the firm bought a lab test, called DakDak, that allows researchers to measure how effectively sunscreens prevent skin damage. The test does in days what would take months in animal studies.

. . .

Studying them all [potential compouds] in animals is simply an economic impossibility. Animal tests can take months, even years, and quickly run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Charles River estimates that DakDak can test five or six products for less than half what it would cost to study one product in animals.

But DakDak’s technology is not nonanimal — and, at least in its press releases announcing the acquisition of DakDak, Charles River never claims that it is.

The in vitro test is based on research by skin cancer researchers Eric Bernstein and Jouni Uitto who filed a patent in 1997 for a line of transgenic mice that form the core of the DakDak technology.

Bernstein and Uitto gentically modified the mice so that they carry a promoter found in human beings that produces elastin when people are exposed to sunlight. In the transgenic mice, however, this promoter has been modified to produce an enzyme called CAT (chloramphenicol acetyltransferase).

When the transgenic mice are exposed to sunlight, the promoter kicks into gear and produces CAT. The amount of CAT produced can then be measured as a gauge of how effective a sunscreen product is in preventing exposures to UVB and UVA.

The in vitro model which Charles River Laboratories touts involves taking skin explants from the transgenic mice and exposing the explants to UVB/UVA.

Yes, this is an animal alternative to the extent that skin explants from animals are used rather than whole animals, but the entire process from start to finish is entirely dependent on transgenic mice. Whatever else it is, DakDak’s test is animal testing.

And yet the Boston Globe erroneously bills this sort of test as an example of companies “Evolving away from animal tests.” In case that was not clear enough, the editors added a subhead proclaiming that “Charles River Laboratories shifts to new technologies.”

It is these sort of articles which fuel the nonsensical claims by animal rights activists that animal testing is yesterday’s technology. Hey, Charles River Laboratories is using a sunscreen test that doesn’t use any animals, so why can’t we get rid of all animal testing?

Yes, Aoki includes comments from researchers to the effect that animal alternatives cannot replace animal studies completely, but the reality is that many “animal alternatives” are like this sunscreen test. They might reduce the number of animals killed and return results far faster using in vitro technologies, but they still rely heavily on animals.

Source:

Evolving away from animal tests: Charles River Laboratories shifts to new technologies. Naomi Aoki, Boston Globe, February 27, 2002.

In vivo and in vitro model of cutaneous photoaging (U.S. Patent 6,018,098). PharmCast.Com.

Charles River Acquires ‘In Vitro’ Technology Platform. Charles River Laboratories, Press Release, January 14, 2002.

Cat And Mouse Model Human Skin Aging. The Scientist, 12[9]:31, April 27, 1998.

Karen Davis — Ducks in AFLAC Ads Are Exploited and Degraded

United Poultry Concerns president Karen Davis has written a letter to the CEO of AFLAC Incorporated complaining about those ads featuring a duck touting AFLAC insurance.

In a press release containing a copy of the letter, UPC asked animal rights activists to, “Please Contact AFLAC Incorporated (a supplemental medical insurance company) and urge them to stop running TV commercials that represent ducks in dangerous, unnatural, and degrading situations.”

In her letter to AFLAC CEO Daniel Amos, Davis cites an ad featuring a duck apparently falling into the Grand Canyon. Davis writes,

We ask that you stop putting animal abuse images in people’s minds. As a former juvenile probation officer in Baltimore who is now the head of an animal protection agency, I know that many children and teenagers are influenced by programming that treats animals derisively and/or places them in unnatural, potentially harmful situations. We ask you not to cater any further to this mentality.

Yeah, ever since my daughter saw that ad all she can talk about is visiting the Grand Canyon to toss a duck overboard.

Actually, I’m certain that children and teenagers have a lot more common sense than Davis does. Now I would be concerned about teenagers or children who rationalized the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — as Karen Davis did — by claiming they likely reduced the total suffering in the world by eliminating so many meat eaters. Now that is truly the sign of someone excessively influenced by a sick mentality.

Source:

UPC Action Alert: AFLAC TV Commercial Degrades Ducks. United Poultry Concerns, Press Release, March 4, 2002.

Bono and Bill Gates Offer a Proposal to Deal with Africa’s Problems

When the World Economic Forum was held in the United States in early February, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and rock star Bono announced their “DATA Agenda” for resolving debt problems of the developing world. Unlike a lot of proposals floated by celebrities, the DATA Agenda actually had some decent ideas.

At a press conference, Bono said DATA stands for “Debt, AIDS and trade for Africa, in return for democracy, accountability and transparency in Africa.”

If it could be pulled off, that would indeed be a pretty good bargain. As Bono noted, Western countries have soured on aid and debt relief due to long-running mismanagement problems in Africa.

[There’s] a certain distrust of aid and the way it’s been spent in the past . . . We have to do a lot to change the public’s mind. I know Americans are very generous in spirit and I know that if they can help and if they think the money can be used well, they will put their hands in their pockets.

The missing piece of the puzzle, however, is how Bono intends to secure the agreement of African nations for the democracy, accountability and transparency side of the equation. There are a handful of countries where the promise of debt relief and aid might offer an incentive to further democratize, but those nations are already on their way and don’t represent the extremes that concern Bono.

Kenya might be pushed further toward democracy, but Somalia doesn’t even have a functioning government to approach with such an agreement. Other countries that are largely undemocratic, such as Zimbabwe or the Congo, seem unlikely to surrender any of their power prerogatives for debt relief.

If these countries ever democratize and liberalize, Bono’s and Gates’ proposal might make a lot of sense, but its use as a carrot to entice countries to move in that direction is seriously limited.

Source:

Bono: ‘Preventing the fires rather than putting them out’. CNN, February 3, 2002.

What If It’s A Boy?

My five-year-old daughter, Emma, is positive that my wife is going to give birth to a girl. If she overhears us talking about the baby being a girl or a boy, she will correct us that in her expert opinion, the baby must logically be a girl.

This weekend the cuteness of all that finally wore off and I asked her what she was going to do if the baby turned out to be a boy. To which she responded that, in that case, we would just have to change the baby from a boy to a girl.

And, of course, with five year-olds you can no longer just insist that this is impossible without being subjected to the one-word interrogative, “Why?” which eventually backs Mommy and Daddy up to a wall as surely as any firing squad.