FIFA Takes on Dog Meat

With the 2002 World Cup slated to take place in South Korea and Japan, Fifa — football’s governing body — is pressuring South Korea to take actions against the eating of dogs.

According to the BBC, during the 1988 Seoul Olympics South Korea outright banned restaurants that served dog meat, but a soup made from dog meat is very popular.

It is unclear from the BBC story whether Fifa objects to dog meat itself or only to the sometimes cruel methods used to prepare and kill dogs used for food. Either way, someone might want to point out to Fifa that the leather used to create the official World Cup soccer balls is also produced under conditions which many animal rights activists consider to be cruel.

Source:

S Korea dog meat row deepens. The BBC, November 12, 2001.

Former Employee Makes Allegations Against Human Society of the United States

The April 2001 issue of Animal People contains a story detailing charges against two high level employees of the Humane Society of the United States. A former employee claims she was fired by HSUS for questioning the use of the non-profit’s resources to apparently aid in the management of a for-profit business.

Former HSUS Legal-Exectuvie Secretary/Office Manager Nancy E. Dayton claims that HSUS president Paul Irwin fired her after she complained about what she believed were extensive and unaccounted excess benefit transactions by HSUS general counsel and vice president Roger A. Kindler and HSUS senior counsel Murdaugh Stuart Madden.

Kindler and Madden jointly do business as the law firm of Murdaugh Stuart Madden and Roger A. Kindler which handles cases in the area of tax-exempt law, trusts, wills, and other matters.

In a formal complaint to the Internal Revenue Service, Dayton alleges,

I have witnessed Roger Kindler[‘s] use of the following HSUS resources for private profit and personal gain: office space and meeting room with a prestigious business address; support staff time and services including receptionist, secretarial, accounting, runner/messenger, legal publications filing; computers, printers, copier, facsimile machine; computer software programs; office supplies; storage facilities; mailroom staff time and services; Internet access. Murdaugh Madden enjoys the same benefits.

The allegation that the duo utilize office space of the nonprofit is interesting, since Animal People reports that HSUS’ most recent IRS Form 990 filed on June 28, 2000 reports that the nonprofit received $607,231 in rental income in the previous fiscal year but doesn’t list where that rental income came from.

This is not the first time that the HSUS has been accused of illegally mixing its nonprofit ventures with private financial transactions. In the late 1980s HSUS actually bought President Emeritus John L. Hoyt’s house for $310,000, but allowed him to continue to live there rent free until critics began making a fuss. In another action designed to benefit the animals, HSUS provided the financing for Irwin to purchase beach front property in Maine during the same period.

And, of course, there was also the HSUS scandal involving their former vice president of investigations, David Willis, who was fired from HSUS for embezzling at least $93,000 from the organization.

In fact, with assets approaching $40 million, it sometimes appears that HSUS is less interested in animal rights than in making a quick buck. Animal People passed along a hilarious contradiction from the group that was originally dug up by The Whole Dog Journal. In a June 2000 edition of its e-mail newsletter, “Humane Lines,” HSUS denounced an experiment to use shock collars to condition wolves to avoid livestock. But at the same time, HSUS endorsed the PetSafe Radio Fence shock collar. Why? Because they get a small royalty from the manufacturer in exchange for their endorsement.

Source:

IRS probes alleged self-dealing by Humane Society of the U.S. Lawyers. Animal People, April 2001, p.12.

Dateline Covers the Howard Baker Controversy

Last night NBC’s Dateline program featured an in-depth look at the Howard Baker controversy which is a microcosm of the way much of the animal rights movement operates.

Baker is a veterinarian in New Jersey who was accused and convicted of cruelty to animals. Nine months after his conviction, however, an appeals judge acquitted him of all charges. The central question at his original trial and during his appeal was this: can the court trust the word of a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals‘ activist?

The activist in question was Michelle Rokke who has made a part-time career out of infiltrating business on behalf of PETA. Rokke was the activist who stole thousands of documents from Huntingdon Life Sciences, forcing PETA into a settlement agreement which forbids them from campaigning against HLS (which is why you haven’t heard anything from PETA about the company).

Rokke claimed she went to work for Baker to obtain experience in working with animals, but witnessed abuse her very first week on the job. Nonetheless she worked for Baker for several years, and in the process secretly recorded hundreds of hours of videotape of Baker treating animals. A 20-minute portion of one of those videotapes was the basis for the animal cruelty charge.

The video shows Baker treating a dalmatian. In the video, Baker is clearly very angry with the animal and says things like, “I hate rotten dogs! Stop biting me or I’ll choke you to death!” He also strikes the animal at least once. Baker testified the dog tried to bite him and he took necessary and proper actions to protect himself and his staff. Rokke testified that Baker savagely hit the dog over the head — off camera — and that she saw him repeatedly abuse other animals in his care. Other people who worked with Baker in his office testified that although Baker used appropriate force to restrain animals that presented a potential threat, they never saw him engage in any sort of abuse.

The bottom line in the trial was whether or not Rokke made a credible witness in her testimony that, off camera, Baker violently attacked the dalmatian and her accusations that this was part of a pattern of behavior she had witnessed for years.

The trial judge, Emory Toth, convicted Baker on 14 counts of animal cruelty saying that he found Rokke an extremely credible witness and didn’t think that the fact that she was a PETA activist who admitted on the stand that she had lied repeatedly in the past in any way diminished the credibility of her testimony. The appeals court judge, Joyce Munkacsi, made a surprising ruling when she ruled that Rokke lacked credibility. This is surprising since generally a trial court’s decision about such evidentiary matters is considered the last word unless the appeals court finds that the trial court made a serious error. In her comments announcing her decision to acquit Baker of all charges, Munkacsi said,

The court below chose to accept wholeheartedly all of the accounts of these events as perceived by Rokke. This court respectfully disagrees with the assessment of credibility by the court below, and I cannot find Michelle Rokke to be a credible witness such as to be the reed on which the state has built this case.

After seeing some of Rokke’s testimony, it’s difficult to fathom why Toth found Rokke so credible. Consider this exchange between Rokke and Baker’s attorney,

Attorney: Nowhere in this [employment] application did you tell or did you put down on this sheet that you were a PETA employee at the very time you were seeking employment from Dr. Baker. Is that correct? Yes or no?

Rokke: Yes

Attorney: So you lied on this application?

Rokke: I did not list that PETA was my employer.

Attorney: You lied on this application.

Rokke: I–I didn’t list PETA on the employment, correct.

[Later Rokke is shown a picture from a PETA magazine accompanying an article about Rokke’s investigation of pregnant mares used to producer premarin. The photo is cropped closely so that the reader is not aware that he’s looking at a picture of a male horse rather than a mare.]

Attorney: Do you think that was all misleading, the use of that photograph, carefully cropped so you couldn’t see whether it was a pregnant mare or a male stallion?

Rokke: I don’t think it was, because if you have a lot of pregnant mares, you obviously have male horses, so their care and treatment came into play as well.

Later, bringing up her undercover work at HLS, the attorney for Baker asks Rokke whether or not she broke the law in stealing documents from them,

Attorney: Do you think you’re a criminal because you broke the laws at Huntingdon?

Rokke: Well, I’m not certain that I’ve broken the law, to be perfectly honest with you. You know, I’ve not been held up on trial in a court of law as a criminal, so no, I don’t think I’m a criminal.

Attorney: Stealing company records? Stealing client lists? Stealing trade secrets? Disseminating that information?

Rokke: Well, I–I certainly don’t think of myself as a criminal, no.

Attorney: Because the end justifies the means?

Rokke: I just think the public has a right to know what’s going on behind those locked doors.

It is bizarre that Toth considered her credible after those exchanges, since whatever else Rokke is, she clearly is adept at interpreting events in the most self-serving manner possible. As the judge who would have heard the HLS case had it not been settled put it, in her testimony in depositions for that case Rokke had “misrepresented” and “rationalized” her actions to fulfill her mission.

Thankfully Munkacsi saw through the facade. Baker is currently suing Rokke and PETA for defamation and malicious prosecution.

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.

Suspect Arrested In High Profile Dog Killing

A little over a year ago the case of Leo the dog was everywhere. You probably remember it — a woman claimed that she had gotten in a minor fender bender with a man in California. The man got out and began arguing with her and suddenly grabbed her bichon frise and threw it into oncoming traffic.

I have to admit that after seeing interviews with the woman and contradictory media reports about witnesses to the event I was convinced the whole thing was a hoax. The BBC reports, however, that a man is about to be charged with the crime. It reports that Andrew Burnett, 27, who was already in jail on other charges, is going to be charged with the killing today.

If convicted, he could face up to three years in prison for the crime on top of whatever he’s facing for theft and weapons charges. If Burnett is the person responsible, hopefully he’ll get the maximum three years for his actions.

Source:

Road-rage dog killing suspect charged. The BBC, April 13, 2001.

Bayer Reverses Its Stance on Iditarod

After coming under pressure from animal rights activists, Bayer had announced that it would end its policy of donating veterinary pharmaceuticals for use on dogs during the Iditarod race.

Then Iditarod supporters kicked into high gear, especially in Alaska where more than a few newspaper columnists and others called for a boycott of Bayer for giving into the demands of animal rights activists.

Now, Bayer has reversed its original ban and announced that it will once again provide veterinary medications free of charge for use during the race.

Source:

Bayer Supports Animal Welfare at Iditarod Despite Squeals From Animal Rights Fanatics to Stop. National Animal Interest Alliance, Press Release, March 23, 2001.