Category: Uncategorized

Animal Liberation Front Sets Fire to Chicago Food Store

The Animal Liberation Front claimed responsibility for setting a fire at a Chicago-area food store that had been used in an illegal exotic animal ring.

Czimer’s Game and Seafood in Lockport, Illinois, had been used by a ring of individuals illegally trading in endangered animals. The store sold the tiger and leopard meat killed by William Kapp. Kapp was indicted for his part in the scheme and convicted on 17 counts of trading in and selling endangered animals. Fifteen other people, including the owner of Czimer’s, were convicted of violating federal laws forbidding trade in endangered species.

The Animal Liberation Front issued a communique that read,

Under the cover of darkness, Animal Liberation Front operatives infiltrated the roof of Czimer’s Game and Seafood, setting it on fire. This action further extended the sentence handed down by federal courts on April 3, 2003 for William Knapp and Kevin Ramsey killing innocent tigers and illegally selling the meat at this store. Your crimes have not gone unnoticed and you are not innocent. These helpless animals were shot (murdered) in cages at point blank. Be careful, because we know who you are and where you live. Pray for extended jail time and enjoy your stay you sick fucking bastards.

Until the innocent can live in peace,

Animal liberation front

Of course — the people responsible for this illegal animal ring are going to prison, so why not go the extra mile and endanger the lives of a few firefighters by torching the Czimer’s building as well? Makes perfect sense.

Sources:

Animal rights group claims credit for torching Chicago Store. Mike Robinson, The Associated Press, April 5, 2003.

Animal rights group claims it set store fire. Annie Sweeney, Chicago-Sun Times, April 6, 2003.

Yourofsky Loses It In Tennessee

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ national lecturer Gary Yourofsky showed off the famed ability of animal rights activists to make their case by throwing a fit at East Tennessee State where he was scheduled to talk about vegetarianism.

Yourofsky became angered when he entered the hall where he was to speak and saw a display put up by East Tennessee State’s director of the Division of Laboratory Animal Resources, Dr. Brunhilde Toper-Meyer.

Toper-Meyer had placed a number of pamphlets from Americans for Medical Progress, the FOundation for Biomedical Research and other groups with a simple sign saying “Opposing Arguments.”

Yourofsky — who is on record as condoning both arson and murder in the name of animal rights — decided the presence of the pamphlets warranted throwing a tantrum. He became abusive toward Eastern Tennessee biology instructor Sharon Miller, who had invited Yourofsky to talk in the first place, and likened her to the Ku Klux Klan.

In the end Yourofsky grabbed the cart and gave it a hard push, causing the pamphlets to scatter throughout the hall outside the lecture room. Eastern Tennessee State police were called, and the lecture was cancelled.

The most bizarre part of this, is that it surprised Miller. According to the Johnson City Press,

Miller said she was sorry that Yourofsky did not speak, saying he is a powerful orator and the subject of the afternoon’s lecture — vegetarianism — was not supposed to be controversial.

What planet is this woman living on? What did she think she would be getting from someone who once said, “Do not be afraid to condone arsons at places of animal torture” and “I would unequivocally support” an arson that lead to the death of an “animal abuser” at a research lab.

And powerful orator? Does Miller agree with Yourofsky that human beings are herbivores? If she does, she’s certainly not much of a biologist, and if she doesn’t why the hell is she inviting someone to speak whose ideas are patently false?

Source:

ETSU event canceled due to confrontation. John Thompson, Johnson City Press (TN), April 5, 2003.

Debra Saunders on PETA's Campaign Against Military Use of Animals

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders wrote an excellent piece slamming People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ campaign to stop the military from using “chickens, dogs, dolphins, pigeons and sea lions” in the war against Iraq.

Noting that the United States and its allies were using animals in order to minimize both military and civilian casualties, Saunders wrote,

It tells you something when warriors are working to keep military and civilian casualties low, while the so-called humane types are ready to hinder the welfare of people — in order to spare the poultry.

. . .

PETA has shown more feeling for the welfare of a pigeon than a 19-year-old soldier. That’s not humane, it’s hate.

Ah, and that’s PETA.

Source:

4 legs good, 2 legs bad. Debra Saunders, The San Francisco Chronicle, April 3, 2003.

Dolly to Go on Display

Dolly, the world’s first cloned mammal, will go on display at the Royal Edinburgh this month as part of an exhibit celebrating the 50th anniversary of Watson and Crick’s discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA and return again in September as part of a permanent display at the museum.

Dolly was born on July 5, 1996 and euthanized 6 years later after it was discovered that she suffered from a progressive lung disease. National Museums of Scotland director Dr. Gordon Rintoul told the BBC,

Dolly is a striking reminder of Scotland’s record of scientific achievement and her contribution can now be recognized for many centuries to come.

. . .

She will prove an important focus for future new science displays in the Royal Museum.

Dr. Ian Wilmot, who lead the team that cloned Dolly, said,

She will go on reminding people of the fact that scientific progress was made in Edinburgh which is making people think very differently about this aspect of biology.

It’s stimulating people to do research which one day will help to provide cells needed to treat very unpleasant human diseases.

Source:

Dolly goes on display. The BBC, April 9, 2003.

Australia Looks to Genetically Engineered Virus to Stop Mouse Population Explosions

Australia has a regular problem with explosions in its mouse population that occur in roughly four year cycles. The number of mice quickly increases to billions and costs Australian agriculture upwards of US $90 million in crop damage.

The problem is so severe that Australian researchers are currently investigating an exotic solution to prevent such population explosions — a genetically modified virus that renders female mice sterile.

The virus is a modified form of he herpes virus that is spread by mouse-to-mouse contact. Once it infects a female mouse, it will prevent sperm from fertilizing eggs. Researchers at Australia’s Co-operative Control of Pest Animals has shown the modified virus works in the laboratory setting, and now wants to test the virus in the field.

That, however, will have to wait for extensive testing to ensure that the virus will not jump the species barrier and infect other animals besides mice. But Australia has experience with using such solutions. It used myomatosis disease 50 years ago to control the rabbit population, and in the 1990s used the calci virus to lower rabbit populations. The calci virus killed an estimated 90 percent of the country’s rabbit population, allowing some ecosystems that were overrun by the animals to begin to recover.

Sources:

Australia invents new mousetrap with herpes virus. Reuters, April 8, 2003.

NT Queens’s Birthday Honours. ABC Rural, October 6, 2002.

BioSyn Obtains Rights to Potential HIV Microbicide

Biotechnology firm BioSyn announced in April that it had acquire exclusive worldwide rights to a potential HIV microbicide from the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

The compound in question is cyanovirin-N which has been shown to be relatively successful in preventing the spread of AIDS-like diseases in animal models. NIH researchers working with a primate model showed that CV-N prevented transmission of SIV among monkeys.

Dr. Richard Bax, Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of Biosyn, said in a press release announcing the deal,

CV-N is a member of an exciting new class of HIV drugs termed fusion inhibitors. By preventing HIV entry into and fusion with target cells, CV-N effectively inhibits the virus’ mode of infection. As an intravaginal gel applied prior to intercourse, CV-N could help to avert the sexual transmission of HIV.

Although tests of actual prevention of transmission have so far occurred only in animals, laboratory tests show that CV-N prevents HIV transmission from cell to cell by binding to a protein on the outer shell of the virus and thereby interfering with receptors that HIV uses to target healthy cells.

The NIH conducted studies using a rabbit vaginal toxicity/irritancy model to establish that a gel containing CV-N would be benign (I’d love to see animal rights activists explain how to reproduce that research without using animals), and in vivo tests with human cells suggest it will not attack human immune cells nor important bacteria present in the human vagina.

BioSyn received a $10 million grant from the NIH in November 2002 to develop CV-N through the clinical trial process.

Sources:

Biosyn, Inc. Obtains Exclusive Rights to Novel HIV Microbicide Candidate from National Institutes of Health. Press Release, BioSyn, April 3, 2003.

Cyanovirin-N Shows Potential to Block HIV Transmission. Reuters Health Information Services, May 8, 2000.

Structural studies of the potent anti-HIV protein cyanovirin-N using NMR and ITC. Carole A. Bewley, National Institutes of Health.

Solution structure of cyanovirin-N, a potent HIV-inactivating protein. Carole A. Bewley, et al., Nature Structural Biology, July 1998, v.5, no. 7, pp.571-578.