Tag: Cows

BBC Surprise Discovery: Vaccines Made Using Animal Material

Given that the United Kingdom is the source of rather intensive activities by animal rights activists, you’d think the British public might be better informed about issues relating to animals. Of course you’d be wrong, as the BBC felt it had to actually run a story this week pointing out that vaccines are typically made using animal cells.

According to the BBC story, How vaccines are made, “many people would be surprised at the animal-based ingredients scientists must use to mass-produce vaccines.” Sad, very sad.

Anyway, aside from the “duh” aspect to the story, it is a pretty good summary of how vaccines go from laboratory to syringe. One of the things that the BBC points out is that often animal material is used rather than human material because scientists have a much better understanding of how to get the animal material to produce vaccine material.

The cells are bathed in a “soup” made up of those ingredients, and frequently include other organic chemicals such as growth factors, which can help the cells to develop.

Although human growth factors can be extracted, these do not provide as reliable results as other factors, such as foetal calf serum, which is widely used

Remember that the next time animal rights activists suggest that human cells and materials can totally replace animal culture. Sometimes they can, but in many cases they can’t.

The reason for the BBC interest, by the way, is fear that polio vaccine manufactured in the UK that used tissue from calf fetuses could potentially be contaminated with BSE. There are already strict controls to monitor cows used for this purpose to avoiding any viruses, and at the moment the risk remains very theoretical — the procedures involved in purifying the vaccines should destroy all of the proteins that would contain any BSE.

Even with the theoretical risk, polio vaccine made with animal products has been an amazing success. Cases of polio around the world have plummeted to less than 10,000 and the World Health Organization is currently engaged in a massive vaccination effort around the world that should eradicate the disease entirely by the year 2005.

Such a success would have been impossible if the animal rights activists had gotten their way and prevented the creation of animal models for polio (and polio was extremely animal testing intensive with upwards of 2 million non-human primates utilized by research institutes around the world in the drive for an effective, safe vaccine).

Source:

How vaccines are made. The BBC, October 20, 2000.

Call Him the NotHungerstrike Man

    The other day while satirizing the folks at Animal Rights 2000, I mentioned that Robert Cohen (who likes to call himself the NotMilk Man), promised to build a 17-foot turkey, fill it with red-colored Karo syrup, and slit the artificial turkey’s throat in front of the White House to protest Thanksgiving. Aside from the sheer nuttiness of such a venture, I was intrigued after finishing that piece about how Cohen would manage to still be alive come Thanksgiving 2000.

    See, back in November 1999 Cohen made a big deal of going on a hunger strike to protest the U.S. government’s approval of rBGH, a hormone given to cows which many activists thinks causes cancer and other maladies. The evidence isn’t on their side, but Cohen filed with the FDA to have rBGH banned because of new evidence he claims proves the hormone is dangerous. In fact, Cohen promised that he would continue his hunger strike until the FDA removed rBGH.

    In online diary Cohen kept of his plans for the hunger strike, he wrote:

Next Sunday, November 7th, I will begin a hunger strike.

I will not end that protest until POSILAC is taken off of the market.

    And only a few days into the hunger strike,

My pledge, I will not eat until Monsanto’s poison is taken out of our food.

    The FDA completely squashed his attempts to get rBGH banned, so reading his promise for Thanksgiving, I was curious how we was going to survive more than a year on a hunger strike and still be healthy enough to carry out his plan. Silly me, Cohen went off his hunger strike at the end of May, even though Monsanto is still putting “poison” in our food. What happened?

    Lets parse the message Cohen wrote on his web site on May 29, 2000, announcing the end of the hunger strike:

I have accomplished all that I am capable of.

    Translation: Cohen never got nearly the amount of publicity he anticipated. Maybe in a different country he might get more coverage, but when you’ve got PETA running around threatening to hand out dismembered animal toys to children, you’ve got to do a lot more than just stop eating to get attention. The unique nature of his hunger strike, where he was not necessarily eating but was, by his own account, consuming liquids that would have provided a substantial number of calories probably didn’t help either. Add to that the exhaustive number of studies on the safety of rBGH and there simply was never much news coverage of Cohen’s plight (which, I’m sure, he’ll ascribe to a conspiracy by Monsanto), despite his attempts to make it look like he was willing to starve himself to death to make a point.

I possess the secret study in which laboratory animals got cancer from Monsanto’s genetically engineered bovine growth hormone. That study was authored by Richard, Odaglia, and Deslex, and if I release the study I will go to jail. … Is going to jail worth revealing the horrors of what happened to lab animals?

    I wonder if he mentioned this at AR 2000. It would have been amusing to watch Cohen get up and tell a bunch of animal rights activists that no, really, animal tests can tell whether or not a given compound might cause cancer in human beings. If there was anything incriminating in this study, Cohen would have arranged for its publication a long time ago.

Today I end my hunger strike, and will continue to spread the word of truth.

    I’m certainly glad Cohen decided not to kill himself over his silly position on rBGH, but I doubt we’ll be hearing much truth from him anytime soon. In a recent update to his web site, Cohen announced he was going on a speaking tour “including a nighttime appearance in a comedy club.” Sounds like the perfect venue for his message.

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

Apligraf Used to Treat Infant with Fatal Skin Disease

A bio-engineered skin graft product has been successful so
far in alleviating an 8-week-old girlÂ’s potentially fatal skin disease.

The disease is called Dowling
Meara disease, and though it only affects about 1,000 Americans it is
particularly hideous. The skin cells of those with the disease lack the
ability to produce cells to hold the skin together. The result is usually
severe blistering at the slightest touch accompanied by attendant infections.
The infant in this case, Tori, was born with portions of her body completely
raw.

Doctors, however, are using
Apligraf to treat the newborn and so far the results are promising. Apligraf,
approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in May 1998, is a synthetic
skin made from cells from the foreskins of human infants and bovine collagen.

In ToriÂ’s case, doctors have
applied the product to over 40 percent of her body and so far most of
the treated areas donÂ’t have blister or scarring.

“We hope this skin will
take over and teach the babyÂ’s skin cells to behave normally,” Dr.
William Eaglstein told the Associated Press.

Which is it Mr. Singer: Children or Cattle?

Peter Singer managed to anger
animal rights activists with a recent article in the New York Times Magazine, “The Singer Solution to World Poverty.” With his typical
flair for sweeping (and baseless) moral judgments, Singer argued that
Americans who do not give at least 20 percent of their income to solve
world hunger are morally equivalent to someone who would sell a Brazilian
child to be killed for his or her organs (a situation he borrowed from
the Brazilian film “Central Station.”)

Unfortunately for Singer,
he angered some animal rights activists and groups by recommending that people
donate to Oxfam which, all things considered, is probably the best place
to donate money if stopping world hunger is where you want to concentrate
your charitable giving. The only problem for the animal activists is that
Oxfam helps poor people in the developing world buy cattle and other animals
for agricultural purposes.

Since Singer is already on record
that eating meat is superfluous and therefore equivalent to murder except
in dire emergency situations, his position seems to be that Americans
are heartless murderers regardless of what they do. Are we to save a child
at the expense of a poor cow? In his book, Animal Liberation, Singer is unwavering in his view that this is unacceptable, especially
since animal agriculture is completely unnecessary.

Aside from this there are a couple
other problems and inconsistencies with Singer’s argument. First, he repeatedly
mentions the horrors faced by children in the Third World, which is certainly
a legitimate concern. It is surprising that given his well-known
views on suffering, that Singer does not simply recommend that Americans
underwrite a program to painlessly euthanize children who are probably
going to starve to death or die from malaria anyway. This would probably
be less expensive as well as meet Singer’s utilitarian criteria of minimizing
suffering.

Second, Singer’s attempt at equating actively murdering someone with refusing to contributing to aid organizations is absurd, especially in the context of international aid. Singer
laments that aid from the developed world to the developing world is far
below goals set by the United Nations, but never mentions that a large
part of the reason is the horrible track record of such aid. The main
reason people starve in Third World countries is due to the corrupt, incompetent
governments there and, as heartless as it may sound, feeding those governments
more aid money is often counterproductive and may prolong suffering
by making corrupt regimes survive longer than they would without the aid.

Already this year controversy erupted
when it was revealed that aid intended to help out poor Russians was diverted
into the accounts of Russian politicians. Studies of the International Monetary Fund
and World Bank aid programs suggest that up to half of all such aid to
the most impoverished parts of the world may be diverted. Certainly some
groups such as Oxfam do a wonderful job, but Singer’s emphasis on large
amounts of giving for such a narrow purpose is extremely shortsighted
and by no means the obvious best solution to combat world hunger.

Leave Oprah Alone Already

The Associated Press recently
ran a long profile of the Texas cattlemen who have the dubious distinction
of spending large amounts of money in an effort to keep alive a lawsuit
against Oprah Winfrey for disparaging remarks she said about beef on her
show several years ago. Winfrey already successfully defended herself
in a civil lawsuit brought by the cattleman, that in this writer’s opinion
made the Texas beef industry look very bad. Winfrey may show poor judgment
in relying on someone as unreliable as Howard Lyman for dietary advice,
but the same right to free speech that lets the industry and others show
the animal rights claims are nonsense also protects those who hold other
opinions.

According to the Associated
Press story, the cattlemen have spent close to $6 million pursuing the
case against Winfrey – currently they are appealing the result of the
civil trial on several grounds – and are willing to spend even more get
a court to hold Winfrey liable for her comments.

Charles Babcock, an attorney
for Winfrey, says that he does not see Winfrey giving in any time soon
either. “We feel this is a meritless lawsuit,” Babcock said.
“A jury decided it is a meritless lawsuit. The court of public opinion
says it is without merit. The trial judge said it is without merit. We
think the court of appeals will agree, but if not, we’re ready to go do
it again.”

The whole business carries
a lot of the stench associated with the |McDonald’s| lawsuit against activists
who passed out pamphlets in the United Kingdom accusing McDonald’s of
doing everything from producing food that caused cancer to destroying
the environment. Under British libel laws that heavily favor plaintiffs,
the so-called “McLibel” case became the longest running trial
in British history and when it was all said and done McDonald’s won an
award for a paltry $96,000.

Like the McDonald’s lawsuit,
the cattlemen’s obsessive pursuit of Oprah Winfrey is the sort of intimidation
tactic I would expect to see from animal rights activists.