Month: June 2004

Mice Research Offers Possible Approach to Stopping Huntington's Disease

Researchers at the University of Iowa in Iowa City this month made public the results of their research into stopping dominant progressives brain disorders in mice.

A dominant progressive brain disorder is a disease caused when an infant inherits one copy of a mutant gene which results in the production of mutant proteins that cause loss of cognitive abilities. The most widely occurring form of this sort of disease in the United States is Huntington’s disease, with as many as 250,000 sufferers in this country alone. Huntington’s disease usually manifests itself in a victim’s mid-to-late 30s and sufferers typically live only 15-20 years after diagnosis while suffering progressively worsening brain degeneration.

The University of Iowa researchers used gene therapy to treat mice afflicted spioncerebellar ataxia type 1. The disease produces a mutated protein in the brain that eventually leads the mice to have difficulty in walking. Like Huntington’s it is not a result of a missing gene — which gene therapy has traditionally been used to treat in animal models and in a small number of humans — but rather a mutant gene inherited from a parent.

Nonetheless, researchers used a virus to carry modified genetic material to the mice. The genetic material was designed to bind with and block the expression the defective gene. After the mice were injected with the virus, the production of the proteins causing the disease stopped and the mice appeared to improve their ability to walk.

The researchers then took the process one step further and used the same method to see if genetic material could be effective when added in vitro to human Huntington’s cell cultures. After exposing the cell cultures to a different virus containing the genetic materials, the cells stopped producing the proteins that cause Huntington’s disease.

Lead researcher Beverley Davidson said the she hopes this discovery moves quickly into clinical trials to see if it can be effective in treating Huntington’s in human beings,

The data are very promising; we hope we will be able to use RNA interference as a therapy for dominant neurodegenerative diseases.

Source:

Cure hoped for Huntington’s sufferers. Erika Chek, Nature, June 9, 2004.

Aaron Zellhoefer Is Just A Misunderstood Young Man

Activists of all stripes turned out to protest the BIO 2004 conference held in San Francisco California earlier this month. About 33 people were arrested after trying to shut down the meeting, and the animal rights activists had a message for Huntingdon Life Sciences and companies that might do business with it.

According to the Tri-Valley Herald,

A sign nearby proclaimed, “Do business with HLS — Have a blast!!”, referring to laboratory firm Huntingdon Life Sciences, targeted by an international animal-rights campaign. Two East Bay companies — Emeryville’s Chiron Corp. and Pleasanton’s Shaklee Corp. — were bombed last year for having had dealings with HLS . . .

“Don’t think you can do business with HLS and get away with it,” Aaron Zellhoefer, holding one end of the sign, admonished conference attendees Tuesday.

Zellhoefer was part of a group of activists with Animal Rights Direct Action Coalition-San Francisco who in April 2001 occupied the San Francisco offices of Stephens, Inc.

In an amusing twist, Zellhoefer was also one of the youths that Kelly Luker chose to feature in a 1997 article about how older Americans irrationally feared younger people who looked and acted differently with the cut line on a photograph of Zellhoefer and a friend reading, “Dave Chircop (left) and Aaron Zellhoefer say they think that kids are unfairly labeled as lazy or dangerous.”

Sources:

Protesters throng biotech meeting. Josh Richman, Tri-Valley Herald, June 9, 2004.

Kids these days. Kelly Luker, MetroActive, 1997.

Protestors seize financial district offices. Press Release, Animal Rights Direct Action Coalition-San Francisco, 2001.

Why Would CBS Lie About Its Affiliate Relationship With Amazon.Com?

Interesting blog post at RatherBiased.Com about CBS News’ business relationship with Amazon.Com. The subtext for this is some conservatives who think that CBS News is acting inappropriately in the way it is heavily promoting Bill Clinton’s new biography and other “controversial political books” (though I would put Clinton’s book in that category, although the RatherBiased.Com does).

Frankly, I could care less about both issues. American media companies long passed the Rubicon when it comes to using their pages and airwaves to engage in cross promotion of other products in their vast empires. What really offends me is watching sporting events and hearing the announcers plug crappy shows on their network that I have no interest in watching.

What is odd is that CBS News felt the need to initially deny and then finally tersely concede that CBS News and Amazon.Com have such a relationship. The RatherBiased.Com article quotes Peter Collier who is appalled saying,

blockquote>

The other thing is that these are supposed to be news shows. The whole deal raises serious questions about their authenticity. First they make news out of liberal authors which increases their commercial viability and then they, in effect, profiteer from it by selling the books on their site. The whole marketing concept is bad, period.

This might have been insightful in, say, 1987, but television news (all of it, including Fox) is suffused with marketing and such cross-promotions. Not that there’s anything wrong with it (it’s very entertaining, such as when networks cravenly bend over backwards to please such statesmen as Michael Jackson), though it would be nice if they would just drop the news label and be honest about it.

California Town Places Restrictions on Protest in Response to SHAC Demonstrations

Following an April 23rd protest by Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty activists at the home of a manager at Sumitomo Corp. of America, Monrovia, California, this month an ordinance to restrict pickets and protests that target residences.

The Monrovia City Council unanimously approved the ordinance which would require protesters to be at least 300 feet from any residence that is the target of their protest. According to the Pasadena Star News, 12 residents spoke in favor of the ordinance at a special meeting of the city council, while no one spoke against the measure.

About 30 activists protested outside the home, some of them wearing masks, yelling things like “[The executive] is a sick pervert who enjoys animal abuse” through a bullhorn and chanting “We know where you sleep.”

The tactics against the executive and his family escalated after the protests. According to the Pasadena Star,

Early in the morning of May 29, someone threw a chunk of cinder block from a passing car that hit a security guard hired by Sumitomo in the face, breaking his jaw, police said.

Sources:

Council may move to rein in protests. Marshall Allen, Pasadena Star-News, June 7, 2004.

Council OKs limits on protesters. Marshall Allen, Pasadena Star-News, June 8, 2004.

Makah Loses Appeal

Last month this site noted that the Makah Indian Tribe was awaiting a judgment on its latest appeal in its quest to once again hunt whales. Earlier this month the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the tribe’s request for a hearing before the full court, leaving in place a decision by a three judge panel of the court halting the whale hunt.

The three judge panel ruled that the whale hunt is subject to the Marine Mammal Protection Act despite the tribe’s treat with the U.S. government guaranteeing it the right to hunt whales.

Obtaining a permit to hunt whales under the Marine Mammal Protection Act will requires a full-scale environmental analysis of the hunt and years of delay.

Fund for Animals director Michael Markarian told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that,

The Court of Appeals has been emphatic on this point . . . and it’s obviously something the American public doesn’t want.

Makah tribal member Wayne Johnson, however, said of the ruling that,

It’s another treaty broken by the United States.

Sources:

Court rebuffs Makah’s appeal over whaling. Lewis Kamb, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 8, 2004.

Makah whaling review denied. Christopher Dunagan, TheSunLink.Com, June 8, 2004.

Vegetarian MP Calls Them Like He Sees Them

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals showed up in Glasgow’s George Square in early June with their “Holocaust On Your Plate” campaign, including posters reading, “To animals, all people are Nazis.”

Member of Parliament and vegetarian Jim Murphy called the activists “nutters” according to the Glasgow Daily Record.

Which suggests an alternative, and more accurate, slogan for posters: “To people, all PETA activists are nutters.”

Source:

PETA compares meat eaters to Nazis. United Press International, June 10, 2004.