Month: February 2005

Small Study of Macaques and BSE Suggests Low Transmission Risk

British medical journal, The Lancet, published the results of a small-scale French study into the transmissibility of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). The results confirm what the evidence and computer models have already implied — that the risk of transmission of BSE from animals to humans in the form of vCJD is very low. The small size of the study, however, do limit the ability to extrapolate from the study.

Researchers took two adult macaque monkeys and exposed them to five grams of brain tissue from a BSE-infected cow. After five years, one of the macaques developed symptoms of a vCJD-like disease while the other macaque remains health and symptom-free.

The French researchers suggest that in order to have a sizable risk of infection, and individual would have to eat about 3.3 pounds of meat from an infected cow. Since current slaughterhouse regulations in the UK and elsewhere are able to detect BSE-infected meat when it hits a threshhold slight less than that from an infected cow, the French research suggests that such existing regulations are well tuned to prevent further such infections.

The researchers also suggest that the incubation period for BSE in humans could be, on average, greater than 50 years, which would explain why so few people have died from vCJD despite presumably widespread exposure to BSE-infected beef in the UK. Other studies have suggested that the vCJD incubation period may, on average, be significantly longer than current human lifespans.

The vCJD epidemic appears to have peaked in Great Britain. Where 18 people died from vCJD in 2003, only 9 people succumbed to the disease in 2004 and there are only five additional suspected cases of the disease in Great Britain.

Sources:

Study optimism on mad-cow disease. News.Com.Au, January 27, 2005.

Risk of oral infection with bovine spongiform encephalopathy agent in primates. Corinne Ida Lasmézas, et al., The Lancet, January 27, 2005.

The Debate Over Human/Non-Human Hybrids

National Geographic recently published an insightful look at the debate over the creation of human and non-human hybrids — chimeras if you will — territory that researchers are increasingly venturing into.

In 2003, Chinese researchers inserted human cells into rabbit eggs creating embryos that carried genetic material from both species. The embryos were destroyed after a few days and their stem cells harvested.

Irv Weissman, director of Stanford University’s Institute of Cancer/Stem Cell Biology and Medicine, plans to inject human brain cells into embryonic mice until the human brain cells constitute 100 percent of the embryonic brain tissue. Then he plans to allow the mice embyros to develop and kill them before they are born to see if the brain cells develop human-like brain structures.

Not surprisingly, such research has its fair share of opponents, most of whom offer what are, frankly, little more than religious arguments against such chimeras. National Geographic reports, for example, that Jeremy Rifkin is right there fighting against these experiments, even though he concedes they are likely to lead to important discoveries,

Biotechnology activists Jeremy Rifkin is opposed to crossing species boundaries, because he believes animals have the right to exist without being tampered with or crossed with another species.

He concedes that these studies would lead to some medical breakthroughs. Still, they should not be done.

“There are other ways to advance medicine and human health besides going out into the strange, brave new world of chimeric animals,” Rifkin said, adding that sophisticated computer models can substitute for experimentation on live animals.

“One doesn’t have to be religious or into animal rights to think this doesn’t make sense,” he continued. “It’s the scientists who want to do this. They’ve now gone over the edge into the pathological domain.”

Lets see, it would lead to important breakthroughs but the best argument Rifkin can muster against it is that there is something pathological about crossing the species barrier. Sounds like you do have to be religious to buy into Rifkin’s non-argument.

Cynthia Cohen, a member of Canada’s Stem Cell Oversight Committee and senior research fellow at Georgetown University’s Kennedy Institute of Ethics, offers a similarly silly argument according to National Geographic,

Creating chimeras, she said, by mixing human and animal gametes (sperms and eggs) or transferring reproductive cells, diminishes human dignity.

“It would deny that there is something distinctive and valuable about human beings that ought to be honored and protected,” said Cohen. . .

In this case, claiming it “diminishes human dignity” is just another way of Cohen saying she doesn’t have any real argument against it.

Of course what really “diminishes human dignity”, in my opinion, is watching people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s. Weissmann’s experiment transferring human brain cells into mice embryos — an experiment that Cohen would outlaw — is designed to give insight into how the brain develops and works which might prove useful in better understanding brain diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Stopping such research on vague pseudo-religious grounds is the real affront to human dignity.

Source:

Animal-Human hybrids spark controversy. Maryann Mott, National Geographic News, January 25, 2005.

PETA Protests Use of Leg Traps in Rapid City, South Dakota

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals held a press conference in Rapid City, South Dakota, in January to protest the use of leg traps in national parks.

PETA chose Rapid City because in the summer of 2004 a number of dogs were injured by leg traps in Badlands National Park. The traps were set to capture coyotes.

Badlands National Park Superintendent William Supernaugh says that his agency regrets that dogs were caught in the traps, but that the traps are necessary to hold down the coyote population.

The Rapid City Journal reported that,

Supernaugh said those injuries mainly were the result of the Park Service’s failure to check traps quickly. He blamed shift change among personnel and an unclear policy on how often those traps should be checked. Those procedures have been tightened, Supernaugh said.

But he said banning all uses of leg traps in the Badlands would cripple the park’s program to monitor the range and health of coyotes. He said that program was crucial to the successful reintroduction of swift foxes and black-footed ferrets to the Badlands.

Coyotes prey on swift foxes, so park personnel introduced them to areas outside known coyote territories, which are determined through radio collars attached to trapped animals.

Canine distemper, Supernaugh said, could wipe out the fragile ferret population.

PETA disagrees, with Stephanie Boyles saying in a press release on the issue,

These traps are so barbaric that they have been banned in 88 countries. It is shameful that in the 21st century, a federal agency would use such primitive, cruel devices. We urge [Interior] Secretary Norton to call for a ban.

Source:

Group Calls News Conference to Reveal Shocking Photos of Dogs Caught in Leghold Traps in Badlands National Park. Press Release, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, January 24, 2005.

PETA protests Badlands trapping. Bill Harlan, Rapid City Journal, January 26, 2005.

Spay and Neuter Those Deer

Actress Kelly Bishop is apparently something of an animal rights activist and, specifically, an expert on controlling deer population.

Hunting, of course, is simply cruel, she tells the New Jersey Star Ledger,

Call me a zealot, [okay!] but why is there suddenly a problem in New Jersey with deer? I did my homework looking for solutions. I think it’s practical to spay and neuter deer to gradually decrease the population. The Streiter refractor warning system along roads in deer-populated areas does work.

While sterilizing isolated populations of deer might work — albeit at enormous costs — its simply impractical for large scale population control such as what Bishop would be proposing for New Jersey.

Source:

Concerning animals: She’s acting on her convictions. Joan Lowell Smith, The New Jersey Star Ledger, January 23, 2005.

New Jersey Activists Resurrect Animal Protection PAC

In the wake of the New Jersey Supreme Court’s decision canceling that state’s planned bear hunt, Stuart Chaifetz and other animal rights activists in that state have resurrected New Jersey Legislative Action for Animals and renamed it the Animal Protection PAC.

According to a press release announcing the reactivation of the PAC,

The Animal Protection PAC will be the command base for the coming struggle against hunting. “We know that there is a large segment of our population who love animals in New Jersey, ” states Stuart Chaifetz, director of the Animal Protection PAC. “Through unification and strength of numbers, our new political force will galvanize opposition to hunting. Our members will know which politicians are friends to animals – and which are not. Our goal is to have 50,000 members in our first year, and then double it in the next.”

What makes our strategy unique is that we will be reaching out to all those people who have never joined an animal protection organization before. When Rutgers University (which is pro-hunting) surveyed the public’s attitudes toward deer, they asked a loaded question with the obvious intent of embarrassing anti- hunters, but which backfired: 50% of their respondents agreed that “the life of an animal is as sacred as a human life.”

“When you consider how compelling that poll-statement was,” states Chaifetz, “and the
monumental potential for a political force. Our mission is as simple as it is powerful – to reach NJ’s citizens who are against hunting, bring them under one banner, and turn all these individuals into a singular force of political might.”

Chaifetz sent out an e-mail in late January covering the successes of the group’s first two months,

It has been a little over a month since we created the PAC, and in this time we’ve had articles written about us in four newspapers [FOUR!], two radio stations featured us on the news [TWO!], and letters to the editor appeared in six of the state’s major daily newspapers [SIX!]. We’ve also raised more than $2,600, most from small donations, and our first round of advertisements ran last week in the Courier-Post.

That’s one might juggernaut — how will the hunters and their supporters ever hope to overcome a group that can get letters to the editor published in six state newspapers remains a mystery.

Hey, Stuart, now you can add that you were mentioned on the most popular anti-animal rights web sites. Today letters-to-the-editor and a handful of media mentions, tomorrow the world!

Sources:

The Animal Protection PAC. Stuart Chaifetz, E-Mail, January 24, 2005.

Announcing A New Political Action Committee To Fight Hunting And Animal Abuse In New Jersey. Animal Protection PAC, Press Release, December 6, 2004.

When I Was A Kid, We Didn’t Even Think Babies Felt Anything!

Sometimes I amazed there are any vegetarians given just how ludicrous some of the arguments advanced in favor of vegetarianism are.

Consider, for example, one Trevor Murdock who is affiliated with the Vancouver Island Vegetarian Association. Murdock is a peacenik — fair enough — and is convinced that anyone else who agrees with his political views about war would be naturally led to his views of vegetarianism. Except his argument boils down to: a) its simply obvious that animals haves souls, and b) until recently scientists thought human infants were unfeeling machines!

I’m not making this up. Murdock writes,

Anyone who has had a companion animal or stared into the eyes of a horse or cow in a petting zoo knows — deep down — that animals have souls just like humans do. Science is just now proving that animals feel pain, have personalities and emotions. These are things we all know but don’t like to admit ourselves. One generation ago science thought that animals were machines with no feelings — and in fact thought the same of human babies! With those beliefs, it’s understandable how “machines” would end up on our plates. But now that we know animals are every bit as much beings of this planet as we are, the first step to helping treat other cultures and nations with the same respect as their own is to start treating animals with the respect they deserve as living beings. This does not include “harvesting” animals in conditions of low-light, crowding, too little exercise, transporting them with methods in which a large percentage die, then slaughtering them in painful ways while they are conscious, and grinding up the bits that we don’t like for use in candy, make-up, and dog and cat food.

Though, apparently, giving animals deep soulful looks in a petting zoo is still okay.

The claim that the scientific community just a generation ago thought human infants were machines with no feelings is simply absurd. The idea that animals are just machines is an 18th century idea popularized by Descartes that was in steep decline by the end of the 19th century.

Murdock could be referring to the popularity of behaviorism in the 20th century, but behaviorism postulated that humans and animals are both feeling machines (and its a bit of a stretch to ascribe to all of science the views of behaviorists).

You’ll have to forgive me for not dwelling more on Murdock’s contentions about living machines — I’m off for a staring contest with my cat to resolve once and for all if it has a soul.

Source:

Vegetarianism and Peace. Trevor Murdock, January 24, 2005.