Tag: Europe

Poland Considering Allowing Cosmetics Testing

I could not find any information to corroborate this in Google or Lexis/Nexis, but animal rights activists are circulating a petition and sample letters urging the president of Poland to veto supposed recently approved changes by that country’s Parliament to allow cosmetics testings on animals in that country.

Here’s the full text of the letter circulating on animal rights mailing lists and web sites attributed to Marek Kydra of the Animal Welfare Institute, Poland,

Dear Mr. President,

As you know Polish Parliament accepted amendments to the Animal Welfare Act which will have tremendous impact on situation of animals in Poland in the future.

Our big concern cause readings legalizing testing cosmetics on animals, shooting astray dogs and cats, using hormones in husbandry, limiting voice of humane organizations and ignoring EU Directives requiring creation of staging points for animals transports.

We observe a dangerous process of moving delegalized methods of husbandry (battery cages for hens, mink farms from UK and Netherlands) from EU countries to Poland because of liberal regulations and lack of executing the rights of animals there.

Dear Mr. President, it is hardly to believe that the aim of Polish authorities is to undermine EU countries’ regulations securing humane treatment of farm animals by importing cruel methods of husbandry and compete on the market with higher EU standards.

At the time when Germany included animal rights in their constitution and EU is introducing ban on all cosmetic tests on animals, Poland has chosen an opposite direction. Poland with the second oldest animal welfare society in the World is now swimming against the current of civilized World – why it is possible?

We do hope that your country soon will be situated in the center of Europe not only in geographic but also in moral sense.

Source:

Please Help To Defend Polish Animal Welfare Act. Press Release, Animal Welfare Institute, Poland, 2004.

Animal Rights Activists Take on Foie Gras in France

British newspaper The Independent reported in December that animal rights activists in France have started a campaign to try to outlaw the force feeding of geese in the production of foie gras there.

Foie gras producers maintain there is nothing cruel or unusual about force feeding ducks and claim it mimics behavior patterns of migratory birds.

Opponents of foie gras argue the practice is cruel and, besides, most of the species used to produce foie gras are not migratory. One of the organizers of the campaign to abolish force feeding, Sebastien Arsac, told The Independent,

Force-feeding kills a million ducks and geese in France every year and makes another 39 million ill. They suffer from diarrhoea, forced breathing, painful displacement of internal organs and inflammation of the neck.

The European Union has already decided that force feeding of geese constitutes animal cruelty and ordered farms not to find alternative methods for producing foie gras. But, it also gave the world’s leading producers of foie gras — France and Hungary — 15 years to comply with that requirement.

Given the large numbers of people employed in foie gras production in both countries and the likelihood that no alternative acceptable to animal activists will be found, however, even that 15 year deadline is likely to end up being a moving target.

Sources:

Hungary foie gras farms under threat. Nick Thorpe, BBC, January 12, 2004.

Foie gras: forcing a feeding rethink. Datamonitor, January 13, 2004.

Animal Rights Activists Try To Knock Stuffing Out Of Foie Gras. John Lichfield, The Independent (UK), December 28, 2003.

Italian Activists Target Biologist

A post at animal rights extremist web site ArkangelWeb.Org reports on the targeting of employees of a testing lab in Italy,

Newspapers have reported that on the night of 5th and 6th December a car belonging to a biologist in Torino has had its windows broken, tyres punctured, paintstripper poured over it and a spraypainted message: “No RBM”.

RBM is a contract testing lab in Colleretto
Giacosa, near Torino, which is under continous
pressure with weekly demos. This is not the first time that such an attack has taken place on a worker at this particular laboratory.

Source:

Italian Activists Putting on the Pressure. ArkangelWeb.Org, December 22, 2003.

World Health Organization Endorses Ban on Antibiotics to Promote Animal Growth

In August the World Health Organization went on record as favoring a worldwide ban on the use of growth-promoting antibiotics in animal feed. Routine use of animal antibiotics to promote growth is controversial due to fears that it might increase the rate at which human diseases become antibiotic resistant.

WHO cites the example of Denmark which banned the use of growth-promoting antibiotics in animal feed. According to WHO, the result was an increased cost to farmers of one percent, but was more than justified by the large decline in antibiotic resistant bacteria found in pigs and chickens — in some cases the level of antibiotic resistant bacteria fell from 80 percent before to 5 percent after the ban.

But, the WHO concedes it is still missing the crucial piece of the puzzle — does reducing antibiotics in animals reduce antibiotic-resistant diseases in human beings. There, the WHO concedes that there is no evidence that the ban on animal antibiotics in feed has had any positive effect on human health,

Data from healthy humans however are relatively sparse on which to assess the effect of the termination of antimicrobial growth promoters on the carriage of antimicrobial resistant bacteria. There is some indication that termination of antimicrobial growth promoters in Denmark may be associated with a decline in the prevalence of streptogramin resistance among E. faecium from humans. There is also an indication that the termination may be associated with an increase in resistance among E. faecalis to erythromycin (a macrolide), which may reflect an increase in the therapeutic use in pigs of tylosin (another macrolide). However, it should be noted that erythromycin is not a very important antimicrobial for the treatment of enterococcal infections in humans; preferred drugs include ampicillin, amoxycillin, vancomycin, streptogramins (for E. faecium), and linezolid. Further larger studies are needed to determine how much of an effect the discontinued use of antimicrobial growth promoters in Denmark will have on the carriage of antimicrobial resistance in the intestinal tract of humans in the community.

. . .

Overall, termination of antimicrobial growth promoters appears not to have affected the incidence of antimicrobial residues in foods or the incidence of human Salmonella, Campylobacter, or Yersinia infections in humans. These are the major zoonoses in Denmark that may be associated with consumption of pork and poultry. In an industry aggressively pursuing successful Salmonella reduction strategies, antimicrobial growth promoter termination appears not to have affected the prevalence of Salmonella in pig herds, pork, broiler flocks and poultry meat, or the prevalence of Campylobacter in poultry meat.

WHO and others are likely going to have to come up with a bit more positive results than that before seeing other nations emulate Denmark’s experiment.

Sources:

WHO Urges End to Use of Antibiotics for Animal Growth. Marc Kauffman, Washington Post, August 12, 2003.

WHO warns farmers on antibiotics. Associated Press, August 13, 2003.

Cut down on drugs for animals: UN agency. CBC News, August 13, 2003.

WHO international review panel’s evaluation of the termination of the use of antimicrobial growth promoters in Denmark. World Health Organization, August 2003.

Three Extremists in Finland to Face Charges

Back in 2001 five animal rights extremists in Finland were arrested and held for several weeks on suspicion of involvement in a number of raids on fur farms in that county. In August the Finnish government finally got around to deciding to prosecute three of the individuals while dropping all charges against the remaining two.

Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported that the three would be charged with “aggravated damage to property and aggravated disturbance of the peace.” One of the animal activists is also, ironically, charged with an animal welfare violation resulting from using a dye on several foxes to discolor their fur in order to render them worthless on the market.

The long delay and failure to pursue charges has angered fur farmers and others in Finland who complain that the government is too lenient against animal rights extremism.

Source:

Suspected fur farm raiders rarely face trial. Helsingin Sanomat, August 21, 2003.

European Commission's Proposed Animal Transport Laws

In June, the European Commission released a draft law intended to regulate animal transportation within the European Union.

The proposed law would increase the amount of space that has to be devoted to each animal and would limit transportation to a maximum of 9 hours which would then have to be followed by an 11 hour rest period. That did not please animal activists who want a strict limit of 8 hours maximum total travel time for animals.

Sonja Van Tichelen of Eurogroup for Animal Welfare told Reuters,

They are not thinking of a transport limit but some intermediate solution of nine hours and then 11 hours rest on the vehicle, then another nine hours and so on. It will make every journey a lot longer. It’s unbelievable they can even consider it. It would almost double the transport time from the Netherlands to Greece.

Farmers in some EU countries, such as Ireland, also were displeased, saying the new restrictions would essentially end their livestock export businesses.

The proposed new regulations also ban the transportation of pigs younger than four weeks, lambs younger than one week and calves younger than two weeks would be banned altogether.

Sources:

Brussels draws up tough new animal transport law. The Financial Times (London), June 11, 2003.

Byrne puts livestock trade at risk accusation. Sean MacConnell, The Irish Times, June 20, 2003.

EU drafts new rules on transporting live animals. Jeremy Smith, Reuters, June 16, 2003.