Author: Brian Carnell

Genetically altered zebrafish detect pollution

    Researcher are still in the
infancy-state of genetic engineering, but the advances they are making
and future technologies that might be possible are simply amazing. This
week news arrived that University of Cincinnati researchers managed to
insert a firefly gene that causes the insects to light up into the DNA
of zebrafish. The zebrafish light up when they are exposed to PCBs.

    “These fish are much more sensitive
than current water testing systems that can detect concentrations of PCBs,” Dr. Daniel Nebert, a University of Cincinnati researcher, said.

    Aside from their sensitivity,
using zebrafish could be both cheaper and quicker for testing PCB levels
in water samples than conventional methods. Apparently the fish are not
harmed and can be used repeatedly since they will stop glowing after a
sufficient time spent away from PCB-contaminated water.

    A demonstration project to
use the zebrafish at Lake Harsha, Ohio, is currently in the planning stages.
Lake water will be pumped into tanks holding the genetically modified
zebrafish as early as this spring.

Reference:

“Researchers use genetically altered zebrafish as toxin detectors.” The
Associated Press, January 6, 2000.

PETA to Circuses: See You In Hell

People for the Ethical Treatment
of Animals seems to be letting its “Jesus Was A Vegetarian”
campaign go to its head as the organization has started preaching fire
and brimstone.

A January 3 press release from
PETA announced it was sending a person dressed the devil to the Circus
Conference 2000 taking place in Sarasota, Florida. The “devil”
will hold a placard reading, “See You in Hell, Animal Abusers.”

Reference:

“Angel” and “Devil” to appear at Circus Conference
2000, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals press release, January
3, 2000.

PETA spokesman admires serial killer

Several years ago People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals created an enormous controversy with newspaper advertisements comparing meat eaters to serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Today, however, PETA seems ready to claim a more recent serial killer as one of its own.

In the December/January issue of Genre, PETA’s point man in the war against fur, Dan Mathews, is featured as one of the “100 Men We Love of the Century.” At the end of its profile of Mathews, the activist lists a serial killer
as one of his favorite men of the century:

When asked who is among the most important men he loves of the century, he replied, “Andrew Cunanan, because he got Versace to stop doing fur.”

When the New York Daily News contacted Mathews about his
comments, the anti-fur activist was unrepentant, telling columnists Rush
and Molloy,

I would be surprised if the Versace’s are really upset. Have
you ever been to a Versace fashion show? They’re like trashy funerals.

The comments did, however, bring a rebuke from former PETA spokes-model Naomi Campbell who said she was “sickened” when she read Mathews’ comments, saying she was “doubly thrilled to no longer be associated with” PETA.

At least the animal rights movement will continue to features its endless compassion in the next millennium.

(Thanks to the folks at Carnivores United,
http://carnivoresunited.webjump.com, for bringing this story to our attention)

Source:

“100 men we love of the century,” Genre Magazine,
December/January 2000

My Kingdom for an Unsafe Airline

Monday, December 20, 1999

My kingdom for an unsafe airline …

Requiring
safety seats masks deeper dangers from USA Today

        This link probably
won’t be active for long, but USA Today gets it right for a change editorializing
against ridiculous “safety” regulations the government wants
to impose on airlines. In this case the Federal Aviation Administration
claims that requiring infants and small children to be strapped into child
safety seats would from 1978 to 1994.

       In fact, as USA
Today notes, requiring infants to be strapped into child safety seats
would have resulted in far more children being killed. Why? Because currently
airlines offer deep discounts for small children who sit on their parents
laps while flying. Strapping those children into safety seats requires
occupying an entire seat. Since somebody must pay for all those additional
seats and associated costs, the likely airline response is a slight rise
in the cost of air travel for infants. Although many people will be price
insensitive to such small increases, it will influence a significant portion
of travelers to choose much more dangerous methods of transportation —
such as driving — over flying.

      USA Today cites a 1995
FAA report, for example, that estimated discounting an infant’s seat 75%
would still result in 20 additional adult and child fatalities over a
10 year period — four times as many deaths as the FAA claims it would
save over a 16 year period. USA Today rightly excoriates the FAA, writing:

So it goes with this mandate, too. The FAA is committed to
a proposal that will camouflage the risk children face in planes, but
will not necessarily make them any safer and almost certainly will raise
the net fatality rates for the traveling public. It has made that commitment
without knowledge of cost. And it has done all of that for a segment
of the public that accounts for about 1% of all air travelers.

       The obvious solution
is to give people a choice. An obvious start would be for the FAA to allow
each of the major airlines to create an alternative air company exempt
from FAA safety regulations with a few small provisos — measured on a
per mile traveled basis, the death and injury rates from these regulation-free
airlines can never exceed half of that for automobiles. These airlines
will be dangerous to travel compared to other airlines, but they will
still be twice as safe as traveling by car. The other stipulation is that
the airlines must make clear that they are exempt from FAA regulations
up front and must print on every ticket a side by side comparison of per-mile
injuries and deaths for both automobiles and the regulated airlines.

       The only way such
an airline is going to remain competitive is by price competition — undercutting
its highly regulated but pricier big brothers. The result should be an
overall decline in deaths across the board both from declines in automobile
deaths as well as an additional increase from the associated savings of
both fewer deaths and injuries as well as lowered transportation costs.

 

Strom Thurmond Blocks Wine Labels

Last February
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms gave permission to several
vintners to include labels on their wine discussing the possible health
benefits of alcohol consumption. Several studies have found moderate wine
consumption associated with a reduction in heart attack risk.

Enter Republican
Senator Strom Thurmond (South Carolina) whose daughter was killed by a
drunk driver. Thurmond tightened the screws on the ATF and the agency
reversed itself and has stopped approving new applications for wine labels
that make the health claim. Seventeen wineries that already obtained approval
will be allowed to go ahead with their labels.

Thurmond held
up Treasury Department nominees in order to force the ATF to create formal
rules for such labels. The ATF will hold public hearings on the issue,
though dates and locations have not been set, and it is likely that in
order to appease Thurmond the ATF might eventually approve rules so difficult
to comply with that the health claim labels might be short-lived.

I’m extremely
skeptical of the health claims made for alcohol, but individuals should
be able to make up their own minds rather than having Thurmond decide
how much information they have about possible health benefits associated
with wine consumption.

Reference:

ATF
puts cork on bid to tout health benefits on wine labels from Scripps
McClatchy.

Meat Consumption on the Rise

In a news story a few days
ago in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a PETA official seemed to think
she was winning the war to get people to abandon meat. In fact hog and
cattle prices are going through the roof as the nation’s prosperity keeps
driving meat consumption upwards.

Just a year or two ago, the
U.S. government was expanding its aid to hog farmers as pork prices plummeted,
but now demand is so high that pork production is nearing record highs.
Hog prices have doubled over the last year even with this high production.

As agricultural economist Rodney Jones told the Associated Press,

We are seeing some very strong indications that demand for all
the meat products has improved relative to a year ago — we are certainly
seeing that in beef and we are seeing it in pork. We are able to move
higher quantities at the retail counter at relatively higher price levels.

Source:

Consumers
eating more meat; Beef, pork markets rebound, The Associated Press, December
13, 1999