Month: December 2005

Animal Experiments in UK Up Slightly, But Still Far Below Highest Levels

The UK’s Home Office released a report earlier this month noting a slight increase of 2.3 percent in the total number of animals experiments country. But at just 2.85 million laboratory procedures involving animals, the number of procedures requiring animals in 2004 was almost half of what it was in the mid-1970s indicating the success of the effort to replace, reduce and refine the use of animals in medical research.

Research involving genetically modified animals continued to increase. Thirty-two percent of all animal experiments in the UK in 2004 involved genetically modified animals compared to 27 percent in 2003.

The number of research involving non-human primates, however, declined significantly, with only 4,208 experiments involving such animals in 2004 — a 12 percent decline from 2003.

There were a total of 2.78 million laboratory animals used in research in the UK in 2004, a 2.1 percent increase over 2003.

Source:

GM animal tests continue to rise. Paul Rincon, BBC, December 8, 2005.

They Should Rename It The Vivisection Mis-Information Network

The UK’s Vivisection Information Network recently issued a press release making a number of claims about botulinum, which is used to treat cerebral palsy in addition to its more famous role as the anti-wrinkle treatment Botox.

Each batch of botulinum is of different toxicity, so in order to ensure safety the potency of each batch is measured using the LD50 test, in which mice are given samples for the batch until a dose is reached that kills 50 percent of the animals.

The Vivisection Information Network claims that the test is unnecessary because a non-animal alternative is just as good. According to its press release,

A non-animal alternative testing method exists and is in use at a government appointed laboratory for the testing of Botox (Botulinum) (The National Institute for Biological Standards and Control). This test is called the SNAP-25.

. . .

[The press release urges people to call write letters to government officials and] Ask why the SNAP-25 is good enough for a Government appointed lab but not good enough for the pharmaceutical industry.

Fortunately, another UK animal rights groups, Animal Aid, has already provided the answer — the SNAP-25 test has not yet been validated to replace the safety tests that the LD50 test is currently used for.

As Animal Aid’s Andre Menache noted in the abstract for a lecture he gave in July,

The European Pharmacopoeia has set the regulatory framework for non-animal testing of botulinum toxin type A for injection (No. 2113; 5th edition EP). A non-animal immunoassay — the SNAP-25 endopeptidase assay – has shown excellent results with respect to the estimation of the potency of type A toxin in therapeutic preparations (ATLA 31, 381-391, 2003). Similarly, two rapid, non-animal assays have also been developed for botulinum toxin type B.

The only remaining obstacle to regulatory approval of these non-animal methods would appear to be the validation process. There is a moral imperative to give priority to the validation process with respect to these particular non-animal methods in view of the fact that this test requires over 80,000 mice in the UK alone every year.

Menache is referring to a January 2005 European Pharmacopoeia monograph that said,

After validation with respect to the LD 50 assay (reference method), the product may also be assayed by other methods that are preferable in terms of animal welfare, including 1 of the following: 1. endopeptidase assay in vitro; 2. ex vivo assay using the mouse phrenic nerve diaphragm; 3. mouse bioassay using paralysis as the end-point.

So why isn’t the SNAP-25 test used today? Because it hasn’t been validated yet. Companies making Botulinum couldn’t use the SNAP-25 test even if they wanted to, until it is validated. End of story.

Sources:

Don’t stand for Wickham lies. Press Release, Vivisection Information Network, December 11, 2005.

Botulinum testing — time to kill the LD. Andrew Menache, Animal Aid, July 2005.

LD50 Timeline. Humane Society of the United States, Accessed: December 12, 2005.

Massachusetts Activists Protest Geese Hunt at Golf Course

The Boston Globe reported that about 15 members of Massachusetts Animal Rights Coalition showed up at the Braintree, Mass., municipal golf course to protest a decision by that city’s Board of Selectman allowing the shooting of Canadian geese to reduce the number that try to make the golf course home.

According to the Globe, the activists carried signs reading, “Stop the Slaughter” and “No Blood for Golf.” MARC member Jordan Gallagher told the Globe (emphasis added),

I love the geese. I know they go to the bathroom here and there, but there are other ways of removing them. When man has a problem today, whether it’s wolves, bears, or birds, the first thing they do is kill.

Maybe Gallagher’s got a point — perhaps instead of killing first, “man” should dispatch Gallagher to open diplomatic negotiations with the wolves and bears.

But lets consider his point about the geese going to the bathroom here and there. According to the Globe, as many as 100 to 400 geese show up on the golf course. Each of these geese, again according to the Globe, can produce anywhere from 1 to 3 pounds of feces each day.

Studies have shown that feces from Canadian geese pose a serious risk to human health. A 2002 study (PDF) of samples of Canadian geese fecal matter found that overall 25 percent of such samples contained pathogenic e. coli.

In the case of the Braintree golf course, the issue of diseases carried by the hundreds of pounds of geese feces is amplified because the golf course is part of a larger athletic field which regularly hosts sports programs for children.

As Charles Kokoros, chairman of the Braintree Board of Selectman, told the Globe,

It’s just way too many feces. It’s impossible to clean up and they spread disease. There are kids out there rolling in it, tackling in it. It isn’t healthy.

Which is why the Board has annually allowed the shooting of the geese annually since 1995.

But, in the typical animal rights formulation, to the activists this is an example of how human beings should put aside disease concerns in favor of the animals. MARC member Steve Rayshick told the Globe,

I think we need to recognize that these are wildlife and this is their habitat.

No, the golf course and athletic field are part of the human habitat; the animal rights activist just need to recognize that and accept the need to minimize the risk of disease in that habitat.

Sources:

Prevalence of Escherichia coli serogroups and human virulence factors in faeces of urban Canada geese (Branta canadenses). (PDF) Kullas, H., et al, International Journal of Environmental Health Research, 12, 153-162 (2002).

Avian Diseases: Carriage of Bacterial Pathogens by Canada Geese and Blackbirds. USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection Services, Accessed: December 11, 2005.

In Braintree, activists protest goose hunt on golf course. Tracy Jan, Boston Globe, December 11, 2005.

Paul McCartney: Bambi and Dumbo Turned Me Into an Animal Rights Activist

Typically, it is opponents of animal rights activist who charge that it is popular culture’s anthropomorphization of animals in animated fare like “Bambi” that turns people into animal rights activists. I’ve seen numerous people say they’d never let their kids what “Bambi” or “The Rats of NIMH” for precisely this reason (for the record, I think such concerns are largely absurd).

But along comes Paul McCartney who recently told the UK press that it was movies like “Bambi” and stories like “Dumbo” that turned him into an animal rights activist.

The Press Association quoted McCartney as saying,

If you think of Bambi, its mum gets killed by a hunter, and I think that made me grow-up thinking hunting isn’t cool. It always gave me that idea.

You look through a lot of these great stories. Dumbo, his mum is quite badly treated. A lot of these classic stories, through their efforts, kids, as I once was, have grown up feeling it’s a bad idea to be cruel to animals.

First, if I remember correctly, the animals in all these books also speak remarkably good English. I hope the reporter asked a follow-up question about whether or not McCartney also believes that deer and rabbits speak English to each other when human beings aren’t around.

Second, there is a qualitative difference in opposing animal cruelty and opposing almost every conceivable animal/human interaction as the group that McCartney shills for, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, does. (Except, of course, McCartney and his late wife Linda opposed things like animal research until she needed the fruits of that research to fight her breast cancer — then, well, screw the animals, that was a matter of life and death).

Source:

‘Bambi’ turned McCartney vegetarian. The Press Association, December 13, 2005.

Ultarama An Excellent Solution for Displaying Action Figures

Over the past few years, my action figure collection has grown significantly, while my space to display them has declined. My wife and I have reached an uneasy true on the matter — the house we bought earlier this year has a walled-off finished area in the basement which makes a small 226 square-foot office in which I can stuff all the action figures, legos, and computers I can fit there.

Since I am not the sort of collector who keeps toys mint-in-box, I needed some way to display the action figures in a way that wouldn’t have them all falling over the second my three year old collided into the display.

The solution proved to be Ultarama displays. I’d heard about these several years ago but never really had the place to properly display them, much less purchase them. A few weeks ago, though, I bit the bullet and ordered a couple.

You can see the results in this picture,

I’m in the process of lining two walls with 48″ black bookcases. The displays here sit on top of those bookcases.

On the left is my collection of Teen Titans 3 1/2″ figures,

On the right is my collection of Marvel Legends 6″+ figures (the tall figure on the left below is an 18″ Galactus figure assembled from parts included in the recent Galactus Marvel Legends series),

Each set of Ultarama displays set me back $35.90 after shipping and handling and included all the parts needed to make each double-decker section. The floor of each section is littered with peg holes, and the display ships with dozens of pegs for both 3 1/2″ and 6″ action figure sizes.

I’ve got each display configured in a double-decker version, but these can be stacked up to 6 levels high total. I’ve only got room for a 4-level setup before I hit the ceiling, and I am definitely going to add enough to expand each of these to 4-levels (I’ve got 6″ Teen Titans based on the comic that I’m going to put on top of the 3 1/2″ Teen Titans, for example). By the time I’m done, I’ll end up with about six 4-tiered displays, or enough room to display hundreds of action figures in a minimal amount of space.

The only potential drawbacks to Ultarama are the price and some issues with the pegs.

On the price point, putting together my desired six 4-tiered displays is about $450. That’s a lot of money, but on the other hand its hard to buy a single decent glassed-in display case at that price (which I had also considered).

A bigger problem, which is nothing that Ultarama can control, is that peg sizes vary wildly even among identical lines of action figures. There were several slight variations in size of peg holes at the bottom of the figures even within the Galactus Marvel Legends figures, for example. Moreover, quite a few of the figures I own do not have any holes at all which means at some point we’ll have “Adventures In Drilling” at my house (most of the Buffy and Justice League Unlimited figures, for example, lack such holes). In the 3 1/2″ Teen Titan figures, the 3 1/2″ pegs supplied by Ultarama were really not big enough to fit snugly into the holes of the action figures, though they still provide significantly more support than when the figures are simply freestanding.