News Archive
National Day of Protest Against L'ORÉAL Is
Launched - Saturday 25th November 2000
Naturewatch supporters have organised a series of Protest Events
to take place all over the UK on Saturday 25th November 2000. From Bournemouth
and Weymouth in Dorset to Wakefield in Yorkshire, Naturewatch Supporters
up and down the country will be donning animal costumes, setting up stalls,
and handing out 'Boycott L'Oréal' leaflets.
In addition, Naturewatch will be lobbying L'Oréal Head Office
in Hammersmith, London on Friday 24th November 2000.
If you would like to take part in the activities organised on either
the Friday 24th November or Saturday 25th November, or would be prepared
to organise your own event, please contact Naturewatch offices on the
contact numbers listed below.
For more information please contact: Cathy Green or Mandy Corp at 'Naturewatch'
on: Tel: 01242 252871/ Fax: 01242 253569
e-mail info@naturewatch.org
Another Labour U-Turn as Tobacco Test Licenses Approved
The Government has gone back on its pre-election promise to end
experiments which involve forcing animals to inhale tobacco smoke.
In it’s glossy brochure published before the 1997 General Election
entitled, ‘Labour...New Life for Animals,’ the Labour Party
stipulated that, "We will not license the testing of cosmetics, tobacco
or alcohol products on animals." However, in responses to Parliamentary
Questions put forward by Norman Baker MP (Lib-Dem), the Secretary of State
for the Home Department, Mike O’Brien MP (Lab), admitted that lab
animals were being made to inhale tobacco smoke again.
It was revealed that there had been, "two recently approved applications."
Mr O’Brien attempted to claim that Labour had not broken another
promise because these applications were more to, "enable the development
of treatments for chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases such as bronchitis
and emphysema" than safety-test tobacco products. However, he admitted
that a total of 3,100 mice, 1,000 rats and 2,100 guinea-pigs are to be
placed in inhalation chambers and forced to breathe in tobacco-fumes in
order to induce diseases which are directly related to smoking.
Mr O’Brien ended his answers by stressing the, "delicate moral
balance," that needs to be struck. This refers to the supposed "cost-benefit
analyses" that are allegedly taken into account before issuing project
licenses, which generally is as sophisticated as "human life is worth
more than animal life, so anything that may save or improve the former
is worth whatever is done to the latter."
Notwithstanding the many basic and fundamental flaws in this ‘analysis’
(such as the deliberate infliction of intense suffering and mass killing
of innocent, sentient creatures in experiments that are themselves fundamentally
flawed due to species difference) the circumstances of these project licenses
should swing the "delicate moral balance" against the vivisectors.
These experiments will involve the infliction upon innocent animals of
pain and death in order to "develop understanding" of essentially
self-inflicted human diseases. Not merely self-inflicted, but willingly
and obstinately done in the face of masses of evidence and incessant warnings
as to the dangers of smoking. In addition, the vague objective is merely
to "develop understanding" of smoking-related diseases.
Furthermore, disturbing details of the applications to administer tobacco
smoke to animals have recently been uncovered. Such details are always
kept secret from the public, animal advocate and humane research alternative
organisations. A few months ago it was revealed that experimenters who
wanted to administer tobacco smoke to animals thought that making an animal
go into spasm 40 times was acceptable. It was pointed out that it was
distressing (to say the least) and that operatives should be on hand to
observe and take the "right action." The naivety of the experimenters
might lead one to think that they were inexperienced, but the application
was from a US based international company. As is usual in these cases
the application was approved.
Write to: Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street and your local MP stressing
(especially if a Labour member) that the Government has broken its pre-election
promise on this matter.
Max Newton, Uncaged Campaigns
[Source: House of Commons Hansard Written Answers for 10
Feb 2000 at www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199900/cmhansr.../00210w09.htm;
Naturewatch correspondence June 2000 - website: www.naturewatch.org]
Regal Rabbit Farm Closed
After their success in closing down Shamrock Monkey Farm in Sussex,
the Save the Shamrock Monkeys group (STSM) set their sights on Regal Group
UK, in Great Bookham, Surrey. This establishment, run with large profits
by William Pitcher and Caroline Smith, bred and sold New Zealand White
and Half Lop rabbits to vivisection laboratories across the UK. Inside,
were thousands of rabbits in wire mesh cages, locked inside rows and rows
of windowless stinking sheds.
Every year in the UK almost 30, 000 rabbits suffer and die in vivisection
laboratories. More than 65% of these experiments involve NO anaesthetic.
Rabbits are particularly used in the notorious Draize eye test (to record
corrosive damage to the eye over several days, usually with no pain relief),
and the skin irritancy test (where rabbits are partially shaved and have
substances such as insecticides and drain cleaner applied and the effects
observed over 1-2 weeks, usually with no pain relief).
Regal also supplied polyclonal antibodies (PABs) on site. This involves
injecting animals with substances to provoke the production of antibodies,
where animals often reveal signs of acute pain and distress, and undergo
severe pathological changes. UK laws permit the largest quantity to be
injected. Animals can be injected anywhere al all on the animal’s
body (including lymph-nodes, spleen, foot pad and penis. The antibodies
are removed by taking the animal’s blood - usually about 15% of the
total blood volume at a time, but sometimes by total exsanguination (bleeding
to death). The animal is then killed.
On Saturday 8th July, just 12 days into the campaign to close down Regal
Rabbits, William Pitcher, owner & operator of the farm, announced
to the campaign and to the press that he would cease operating immediately.
He also agreed to hand over all of his rabbits to be placed in loving
homes.
On Tuesday 11th campaigners went in and rescued 600 rabbits from his
sheds and brought them to animal sanctuaries and homes across the country.
The remaining 580 rabbits (breeding females and their young) will be re-homed
as soon as the young are weaned. Most of the caging and feed was also
removed from the farm.
Homes, both temporary and permanent, are desperately needed. Please ring
‘Close Down Regal Rabbits’ on 07020 936 957 if you can offer
a home.
Three victories for our movement in the UK in one year!! The vivisectors
must be horrified. Thanks for all of your help in saving these beautiful
animals from the hands of vivisectors.
Max Newton & Close Down Regal Rabbits
Bank Pulls Plug on HLS
The Royal Bank of Scotland is to pull the plug on a £20m
overdraft with the controversial animal testing laboratory Huntingdon
Life Sciences. The Edinburgh-based bank’s involvement with the laboratory
is the result of its takeover of Nat West which had allowed the firm to
borrow £22.5m to run its business. Industry sources confirmed last
night the overdraft facility will not be renewed when the deal with RBS
expires in August.
The decision leaves the laboratory searching for new sources of crucial
funding before the debt becomes repayable on August 31, 2000, and follows
months of campaigning against the Nat West by activists across the UK.
The press predictably referred to these campaigns in terms of, "threats,"
and, "intimidation." The overdraft facility was set up two years
ago by Nat West around the time new management was installed at Huntingdon’s
laboratories after it was exposed for cruel treatment of puppies and told
to clean up its act by the government.
As of 13.06.00 the bank had refused to confirm or deny the decision to
stop providing banking facilities, citing reasons of "client confidentiality".
Huntingdon’s annual report contains a note which makes clear the
critical nature of the loans. The report said that while the directors
were confident about the outcome of the negotiations it was "too
early to predict the outcome". Brian Cass, managing director of Huntingdon
Life Sciences, denied he knew that the bank would not renew the facility
but said the laboratory had always known it would come to an end in August.
Huntingdon’s corporate broker, German banking group WestLB Panmure,
has also severed ties with the laboratory. The group replaced HLS’s
previous corporate brokers, Kleinwort Benson, about six months ago. However,
on 6th June WestLBPanmure announced that they too would dump HLS, who
found out last when campaigners telephoned them for a reaction!
See www.shac.net for more information
about the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty campaign.
Max Newton, Uncaged Campaigns
[Source: The Guardian 10.06.00]
South African Welfare Organisation To Kill Ex-Lab Animals
In South Africa a showdown is looming between the NSPCA (National
Council of Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals - SPCAs -
their equivalent of our Royal Society...) and animal rights organisations
over the NSPCA’s decision to kill a total of 21 baboons after the
closure of a notorious primate vivisection site.
The CAPE (Centre Africain Primatologie Experimentale) has hit the headlines
several times over the past ten years. Recently it was raided by NSPCA
and police officials and effectively closed down. Twenty baboons and nine
vervet monkeys were found in the centre. Seven baboons were immediately
"put down." Since then the NSPCA has taken the decision to kill
the remaining primates at CAPE.
South Africans for the Abolition of Vivisection (SAAV) labeled as cold-hearted
and cruel the decision by the NSPCA to kill the 14 remaining baboons,
still held at Centre Africain Primatologie Experimentale (CAPE), rather
than to allow them to be moved to an established baboon rehabilitation
centre in the Northern Province, the Centre for Animal Rehabilitation
and Education (CARE). The SAAV, and others, are now calling into question
the entire philosophy and role of the NSPCA in South Africa.
"We find it outrageous that the NSPCA has chosen to kill these
primates despite the fact that a viable alternative to save their lives,
rehabilitate them and possibly return them to the wild, is available."
SAAV spokesperson Michele Pickover.
SAAV sent a letter to the NSPCA questioning what alternatives were investigated
before the seven baboons were killed, and querying the welfare organisation’s
stance on the remaining baboons. SAAV requested an urgent meeting with
the NSPCA, but the NSPCA never even bothered to respond.
CARE, which was specifically established to deal with situations such
as this, is one of the oldest wildlife rehabilitation centres in South
Africa. On the basis of CARE’s valuable work - including two successful
release programmes - the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW)
has recently lent its personnel and financial support to CARE.
"Given the important work of the Centre, we believe that it
should be positively assisted by the public and other animal groups
such as the NSPCA. The future and survival of baboons in South Africa
depends on this," said Ms Pickover.
The SAAV believes it to be clearly incongruous that the NSPCA, while
refusing to allow these remaining baboons to be relocated to CARE. It
also appears that the NSPCA is endorsing conditions in experimental laboratories
where baboons are forced to endure psychological and physical trauma and
are forced to exist in small cages, often only 1m x 1m. It is totally
unacceptable that the NSPCA is prepared to allow these baboons to remain
at CAPE whose facilities are, by their own admission, "unsatisfactory"
or, even worse, to kill them rather than to send them to CARE.
It would be more appropriate if the NSPCA used its mandate more productively
by assisting with fundraising for CARE; working to ensure that the permit
situation with regard to releases is resolved and ensuring that the baboons
from CAPE are not killed but sent to CARE and ultimately released into
the wild.
Because no response has been forthcoming from the NSPCA, SAAV has taken
this issue into the public domain so that pressure can be put on the NSPCA
and these baboons’ lives can be saved.
"Their lives have been filled with misery and death. The onus
is now on us to try and work to give back what was so cruelly and needlessly
taken away from them. The NSPCA must be made to see that killing these
primates would be an unforgivable and inhumane act," said
Ms Pickover.
The SAAV believes that one of the underlying problems appears to be the
fact that the SPCA/NSPCA condones experimentation on animals by co-operating
with vivisectors on bodies or ‘ethics committees’ overseeing
experiments on animals. SAAV has requested the South African government
to review the composition and legitimacy of these so-called local ‘ethics
committees’ around animal experimentation issues.
Experience (both in South Africa and the UK) has shown that these ‘ethics
committees’ deprive the public of any meaningful participation and
lack democratic practices, transparency and accountability. this is because:
i) they are unrepresentative of all stakeholders and role players;
ii) there is insufficient inclusion of persons representing organisations
critical of animal experimentation;
iii) there are structural deficiencies with the ethics committees;
iv) the committees are generally always chaired by an animal user and
animal-users constitute the majority of members;
v) they provide inadequate protection and review;
vi) instead of a vigorous assessment of the use of animals in research,
ethics committees appear mainly concerned with helping animal experimenters
to deflect criticism and allay public fears about the decision-making
process and use of animals.
Please write to the NSPCA expressing your disgust at their hypocrisy
in being an animal welfare group who would rather destroy these beautiful
creatures rather than send them to a care and rehabilitation centre.
- NSPCA/SPCA: Fax: +27 11 907 4013; Email: spca@global.co.za;
- Snail mail: PO Box 1320, Alberton, 1450, South Africa.
For further information contact:
SAAV, Michele Pickover; Fax/Tel: 011 472 2380; Email: Michele@Library.wits.ac.za;
Website: www.enviroweb.org/saav/index.htm
Michele Pickover and Max Newton
Powderject PLC and HIV / AIDS Research With Primates
A relatively new biotechnology company called Powderject Pharmaceuticals
PLC has been conducting HIV/AIDS tests on monkeys despite well-documented
scientific evidence that such animal-based research is irrelevant to how
HIV / AIDS manifests itself in humans.
The company published two studies in May 2000 which were carried out
on monkeys infected with SIV (Simian Immune Virus) - the non-human primate
version of HIV. It injected the animals with DNA vaccines using its new
needle-free syringe, which delivers the drug through the skin with a jet
of high-pressure helium. DNA vaccines are based on particles of DNA that
recognise and destroy infected cells.
The first study appeared to show that the vaccine prompted the monkeys
to produce a high level of " killer T" cells - a type of cell
often found in individuals with natural resistance to HIV. The second
study appeared to show that the vaccine was effective against two different
strains of the SIV virus - important because the HIV virus constantly
mutates, making it difficult to design a powerful vaccine against it.
However, what is making it even virtually impossible to develop a successful
vaccine against HIV is the fact that, as Dani Bolegnesi, Director of AIDS
research at Duke University, North Carolina, USA, has warned that,
"No animal models faithfully reproduce human immune deficiency
virus-type infection and disease in humans...animals are not optimal
models."
Similar worries have been expressed by Professors Robin Weiss, John Moore
and Professor Albert Sabin, the inventor of the oral polio vaccine. The
latter said of animal experiments for HIV/AIDS research,
"What has been demonstrated up to now in animals does not
have any relevance (to humans)."
Indeed, scientists have spent over 15 years infecting animals with HIV,
but have been totally unable to induce human-like AIDS in other species
(except in one highly disputed case). Furthermore, the monkey immuno-deficiency
virus SIV does not cause AIDS in humans. This is because the physiologies
of humans and non-human primates are very different, and so research findings
from monkeys cannot be extrapolated to people with AIDS. All the advances
in HIV research has, in fact, been developed as a result of studying the
way HIV penetrates and reproduces itself in human cells. In short, using
non-human primates in HIV/AIDS research in this way is not only cruel
and unscientific, but also a criminal diversion of resources away from
more promising avenues of research. Meanwhile, thousands of intelligent,
sociable creatures are living, and dying, lives deliberately inflicted
misery.
The Financial Times (FT) carried this story and warned that,
"Powderject itself said yesterday, showing a positive response
in monkeys affected by a virus is a far cry from a cure for the real
thing (in humans). The human version of the disease is a very tough
nut to crack as it eludes treatments by mutating and a vaccine is at
least ten years away."
One is left to wonder how much the studies were inspired by real attempts
to find an HIV/AIDS or attempts to ‘prove’ the feasibility of
its needle-free syringe. Certainly, the FT was in no doubt that the studies
were released solely for the purpose of showing that Powderject's needle-free
syringe could work - and thereby improving its share price, which had
tumbled from 1000 pence in late 1999 to 488 pence recently:
"The news quashed recent stock market rumours of problems
with Powderject's vaccine technology and helped the shares rise 4 per
cent to 4621/2p."
If you would like to write to Powderject here is the address of the Chairperson
and CEO: Dr. Paul Drayson (Chair and CEO), Powderject Pharmaceuticals
PLC, Florey, House, Robert Robinson Avenue, Oxford Science Park, Oxford
OX4 4GA, England.
Thanks to Samantha Wilson of Reading for bringing this to our attention.
Max Newton, Uncaged Campaigns
[Sources: Financial Times (FT), date unknown; Positive
Nature November 1997; What Doctors Don’t Tell You, Vol1, No. 7]
The Drugs Don’t Work - Vivisectors lose their TRAIL
A ‘breakthrough’ cancer drug awaiting human trials
that passed all animal tests, including in vitro animal cell tests, was
found to have devastating effects on human in vitro cell cultures.
The drug, TRAIL (an acronym for Tumour Necrosis Factor-Related Apoptosis-Inducing
Ligand), was seen in animal experiments to destroy tumour cells by causing
them to commit suicide. It appeared that it only affected cancerous cells,
leaving normal ones unaffected. The team who conducted the cell culture
tests noted in their report that:
"In a study with non-human primates, injection of soluble
human TRAIL did not cause toxicity to tissue or organs, apparently ‘clearing
the way’ for Phase I studies in humans."
However, the research team, led by Dr. Stephen Strom at the University
of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, say they have found that TRAIL could also
have a devastating effect on healthy cells. Writing in Nature Medicine,
the scientists said that more than 60% of the human liver cells exposed
to TRAIL in the laboratory were wiped out within ten hours.
"Apoptosis (programmed cell suicide) and cell death in human
hepatocytes was massive and rapid," they reported. The cells shriveled
and their DNA fragmented. Tests on liver cells in rats, mice and rhesus
monkeys did not show the same response."
These results indicate that if TRAIL was used in human trials, "considerable
hepatoxicity or fulminant hepatic failure could result." Yet this
new drug had passed all animal tests, had all the usual hype that is routinely
lavished on ‘breakthrough’ anti-cancer agents, and was ready
to begin trials in human patients. This sorry story re-emphasises the
pointlessness of animal experiments given the many important and complicated
species differences. This is re-iterated throughout the report by Strom
et al:
"These results indicate that there are species differences
in sensitivity to TRAIL, and that substantial liver toxicity might result
if TRAIL were used in human cancer therapy.
"TRAIL did not induce apoptosis in parenchymal hepatocytes
from any other species other than human."
Furthermore, one has to ask why in vitro human cell culture tests were
not conducted first, thereby saving innocent animals from being subjected
to pain and death. Invasive procedures were conducted on rats, mice, and
rhesus monkeys (culminating in death) some considerable time before Strom
et al conducted five (5) in vitro cell culture experiments. The Animal
Procedures Committee is supposed to ensure and enforce the principle that
no license for animal tests will be granted if there are ‘alternative’
methods available. Strom et al conclude with what is surely a statement
of the obvious:
"Moreover, the extrapolation of data from preclinical investigations
in other species should be made with caution, and investigations with
human cells should be included in the preclinical evaluation of therapeutic
agents."
It speaks volumes about the mentality of the pharmaceutical industry
that, by May 2000, human cell tests are not included in pre-clinical investigations
already, and it takes a near disaster with a supposedly ‘magical’
drug for anyone to suggest this.
The final, frightening, word in the of this grisly farce goes to Shigekazu
Nagata, from Osaka University Medical School who, again in Nature Medicine,
said:
"It may still be possible to delay clinical trials until we
have a better understanding of why some cells but not others are resistant
to Trail." !
Max Newton, Uncaged Campaigns
[Source: Nature Medicine, Vol. 6, No. 5, May 2000,
p. 502-503, and p. 564-567]
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