Author: Brian Carnell

Belgian Animal Rights Terrorist Convicted

The Frontline Information Service reported that in March two animal rights activists in Belgium were recently found guilty of attempted arson. The two activists apparently tried to firebomb a vehicle owned by a judge who was involved in an animal rights case. Geert Waegemans received four years and jail, and the other activist (who FIS doesn’t name) received a five year sentence.

According to FIS, the two activists are also awaiting sentencing in a series of arsons at McDonald’s and two meat companies as well.

Source:

Two Belgian Activists Found Guilty. Frontline Information Services, Press Release, March 23, 2001.

Gene Therapy Restores Sight to Blind Dogs

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania recently published a study in Nature Genetics describing how they used genetic therapy to do something straight out of a science fiction story: they restored the sight of three blind dogs.

The dog suffered from a genetic condition similar to one that afflicts more than 10,000 Americans. Due to inbreeding, the dogs have a genetic defect that prevents Vitamin A from being transported to the retina. As a result the retina never develops properly and the dogs — and children who suffer a similar genetic condition — are born with very poor sight which only diminishes as they age.

To treat this condition, the researchers took cells from the retinas of the blind dogs. They then exposed the cells to a specially formulated virus which carried a correct copy of the defective gene. The treated retina cells were then injected back into the dogs.

The results were astounding. The dogs’ left eyes received injections in a part of the eye away from the retina and their vision did not change. The right eyes, however, received injections directly behind the retina. Vision in the right eyes appeared to be completely restored.

Researchers showed a video for the media which showed the animals navigating through a dimly lit, cluttered room and completely avoiding all obstacles within the field of vision of their right eye.

Ophthalmologist Albert Maguire, one of the researchers in the study, said, “We have to be careful not to fill people with false expectations or false hopes. But, that said, it’s hard not to get very excited about this, because it’s a very dramatic result. I mean, basically these dogs were blind and now they are not blind anymore.”

Scientists have been able to restore sight to blinded mice before, but only temporarily. This is the first such success in reversing genetic blindness in a large animal. Moreover, the restored sight lasted at least 9 months after the initial injections, though further observations and research will obviously be required to see if the treatment is permanent or will require additional injections.

If continued studies with dogs finds that the procedure appears safe, initial human clinical trials of a similar technique could begin in three or four years and have implications for a number of genetic vision-related diseases that affect as many 200,000 Americans.

Sources:

Gene therapy restores dogs’ sight. The BBC, April 27, 2001.

Gene Treatment Restores Vision in Blind Dogs. Rick Weiss, Washington Post, April 28, 2001.

New gene gives some sight to 3 blind dogs. Faye Flam, Philadelphia Inquirer, April 28, 2001.

Gene therapy restores vision in dog. Malcolm Ritter, Associated Press, April 27, 2001.

Gene therapy used to restore sight to blind dogs. Will Dunham, Reuters, April 27, 2001.

Cracking Down on Animal Rights Terrorism

On both sides of the Atlantic, a new wave of terrorist acts from the animal rights and environmental movement are resulting in new legal initiatives to crack down on such crime.

In Great Britain, Home Secretary Jack Straw recently announced the formation of a special police squad that will concentrate solely on animal rights extremists who have been so successful in that country at carrying out acts of property destruction and intimidation.

Straw announced that and other new initiatives on a visit to the beleaguered Huntingdon Life Sciences. Straw said,

We will not tolerate a small number of criminals trying to threaten research organisations and companies, their shareholders, suppliers, customers, employees and their families. The work here is critical to humankind and we need to applaud the people who work here rather than abuse them. I assure we will be taking all the necessary steps we can to support companies like this and to better explain how important this sort of work is.

Meanwhile in the United States, the Oregon state Senate unanimously passed a couple bills which had already unanimously passed the state House to give prosecutors and law enforcement more tools in combating animal rights terrorism. The bills would make it a felony to interfere with agricultural research (extremist environmentalists have been destroying such research), as well as adding interference with animal research to the list of crimes that can be prosecuted as a Class A felony under Oregon’s anti-racketeering statutes.

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber is expected to sign the bill into law.

Source:

Clampdown on animal activists. The BBC, April 26, 2001.

Cheap AIDS Drugs, Now What?

Daryl Lindsey wrote a pretty even handed article on the recent decision by pharmaceutical companies to drop their patent challenge to cheap AIDS drugs in Africa. But as Lindsey notes, the entire fiasco was largely a public relations gimmick to affect drug pricing in the United States.

It’s buried in Lindsey’s article, but although the pharmaceutical companies’ actions were widely announced in the media, the next step wasn’t — South Africa, the main focal point of this issue, announced it had no intention of actually using anti-AIDS drugs. This should have come as no surprise as previously the South African government had refused companies who offered to donate millions of dollars worth of anti-AIDS drugs.

And, to be honest, it doesn’t really make any sense for African nations to attempt to duplicate healthcare treatment patterns of Western nations when it comes to AIDS. Even with the very cheap anti-virals, their health care systems lack the capacity to effectively distribute and administer an anti-AIDS drug regimen.

So what was the point? The real debate, as the Salon.Com article makes clear, is about price controls on drugs in the United States. The United States is the only developed country to my knowledge that doesn’t have widespread price controls on drug prices. Some Left wing groups want to change that as part of a plan that would essentially nationalize health care in the United States (akin to what Canada or Great Britain have).

Source:

Amy and Goliath. Daryl Lindsey, Salon.Com, May 1, 2001.

Do Euthanasia Laws Lead to Murder?

I’m rather ambivalent about right-to-die laws. On the one hand, I think people who are terminally ill should be able to decide for themselves if they want to end their lives, especially people who are in severe pain. On the other hand, personally I want absolutely every medical intervention possible and have told my wife that I’ll come back to haunt anyone who pulls me off life support. But beyond that, a bigger question looms — do right-to-die laws work? More specifically, can societies give doctors the right to help patients who want to die, without giving those same doctors license to kill.

Typically, supporters of right-to-die laws simply dismiss the idea that such laws will turn doctors into killers. Most euthanasia laws have a series of built-in safeguards that require consent of the patient to be very clear. But those legal safeguards really won’t mean much if a subculture of death takes hold in the medical profession.

Opinion Journal (the online version of the Wall Street Journal’s op-ed page) has an interesting summary of various studies and surveys about euthanasia in the Netherlands, The Dutch Way of Death.

One of the more disturbing things about euthanasia in the Netherlands is that there seems to have developed a view among a significant minority of doctors that consent is not necessary to end a life provided that the quality of that life is below some subjective threshold. Almost 5 percent of people who died in the Netherlands in 1990, for example, were killed by doctors who never received explicit consent for their actions. Even more disturbing is that a 1997 study found that as many as 8 percent of infants who died in the Netherlands were killed by their doctors.

A major part of the problem, in my opinion, is that supporters of euthanasia seriously underestimate the likelihood of influential groups emerging that favor involuntary euthanasia. Already in the United States prominent philosophers such as Peter Singer explicitly argue that people’s whose lives aren’t worth living should be euthanized — involuntarily if necessary — and a large segment of medical ethicists who wouldn’t come out and say they support involuntary euthanasia nonetheless have at the core of their views a disdain for individual rights where such rights impose real or perceived costs on the larger society.

Women Who Don’t Agree With Feminists Are “Anti-Woman”

A good example of how effortlessly feminists denigrate anyone who disagrees was recently provided by Feminist.Org’s Daily News Wire in a brief story, Article Reveals Bush Connections to Independent Women?s Forum. Feminist.Org is apparently bent out of shape that several people affiliated with the IWF are under consideration for positions within the Bush administration.

Here many of us thought that one of the most important goals of feminism was to expand opportunities for women to serve in a variety of roles, including public service within the government, but now Feminist.Org informs reminds us that only women with a sinister agenda would want to serve in a Republican administration.

In fact, Feminist.Org is on to the truth about the IWF — these women are just a front for men. According to the brief story, “Its [IWF’s] purpose was to be the counterpoint to feminist groups, providing a female face for the far-right, anti-women’s rights agenda.” The notion that women of a conservative bent could come together to voice their concerns is, of course, absurd. There must be some nefarious anti-woman conspiracy.

Ah, sisterhood is powerful indeed, especially when it turns into an Inquisition aimed at anyone who dares dissent from the party line.

Source:

Article Reveals Bush Connections to Independent Women?s Forum. Feminist Daily News Wire, Feminist.Org, May 1, 2001.