British-Funded Lab Under Investigation in Malaysia

Malaysia, under pressure from animal rights activists, is going to investigate Progenix Labs.

Malaysia is considering shutting down a controversial British-funded animal testing lab if there is evidence of cruelty there, the goverment's top veterinary official said on Sunday.

Animal rights campaigners have accused the Progenix Research lab, which uses monkeys, dogs, rodents and rabbits for toxicology testing, of poisoning the animals to death.

Veterinary Services director Abdul Aziz Jamaludin said the company will be ordered to shut down if his department finds animals were subject to abuse, the Sunday Star newspaper reported.

"If animal testing cannot be conducted in the United States or Europe, I see no reason why they should be allowed here," Abdul Aziz was quoted as saying.

Mountain Goats Accidentally Killed in Study

From the Daily Interlake....

A mountain goat study in Glacier National Park has been suspended following the deaths of two goats after they were shot with tranquilizer darts.

The University of Montana study, aimed at exploring the effects of climate change on mountain goats, got under way this month with preliminary field work in the Many Glacier Valley.

A 6-year-old male mountain goat died Tuesday after it was darted in the Ptarmigan Lake Trail area near Mount Altyn by Dr. Robert Moore, a Wildlife Conservation Society veterinarian....

The cause of death later was determined to be respiratory arrest because the tranquilizer dart punctured the goat’s ribcage.

After meeting with park managers on Wednesday, researchers were allowed to resume their field work.

However, a second male goat died after it was darted on Thursday. Its cause of death has not yet been determined.

Why I Question Animal Testing 2.1

This is a continuation of an earlier post about why I question animal testing.

Oftentimes, scientists seem to think that they just need to waive their PhDs and research projects in everyone's faces and we should all shut up and bow our heads to their great wisdom. But universities and scientists are not always there working for pure learning or the improvement of humanity. There may be a business component there as well. Now, some people may be just fine with that, but my point is that universities and their scientists are not necessarily being motivated by pure, altruistic purposes.

I read the following in a book about the pharmaceutical industry by Marcia Angell (the first woman to serve as the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and currently a Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Medical School) called The Truth about the Drug Companies. It is about the Bayh-Dole Act and it has really stuck with me....

{The Bayh-Dole Act} enabled universities and small businesses to patent discoveries emanating from research sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the major distributor of tax dollars for medical research, and then to grant exclusive licenses to drug companies. Until then, taxpayer-financed discoveries were in the public domain, available to any company that wanted to use them. But now universities, where most NIH-sponsored work is carried out, can patent and license their discoveries, and charge royalties. Similar legislation permitted the NIH itself to enter into deals with drug companies that would directly transfer NIH discoveries to industry.

Bayh-Dole gave a tremendous boost to the nascent biotechnology industry, as well as to big pharma. Small biotech companies, many of them founded by university researchers to exploit their discoveries, proliferated rapidly. They now ring the major academic research institutions and often carry out the initial phases of drug development, hoping for lucrative deals with big drug companies that can market the new drugs. Usually when a patent held by a university or a small biotech company is eventually licensed to a big drug company, all parties cash in on the public investment in research.

.....The Reagan years and Bayh-Dole also transformed the ethos of medical schools and teaching hospitals. These nonprofit institutions started to see themselves as "partners" of industry, and they became just as enthusiastic as any entrepreneur about the opportunities to parlay their discoveries into financial gain. Faculty researchers were encouraged to obtain patents on their work (which were assigned to their universities), and they shared in the royalties. Many medical schools and teaching hospitals set up "technology transfer" offices to help in this activity and capitalize on faculty discoveries. As the entrepreneurial spirit grew during the 1990s, medical school faculty entered into other lucrative financial arrangements with drug companies, as did their parent institutions. One of the results has been a growing pro-industry bias in medical research-exactly where such bias doesn't belong. Faculty members who had earlier contented themselves with what was once referred to as a "threadbare but genteel" lifestyle began to ask themselves, in the words of my grandmother, "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich? Medical schools and teaching hospitals, for their part, put more resources into searching for commercial opportunities.

More Bad News for Birds in the Gulf

Here's an article exploring whether it's pointless to try to rescue oiled bird in the Gulf.

This article states that most of the oiled birds probably won't even show up before they eventually die, so we'll never know how many have actually been killed.

Four Mountain Gorillas Die

There are only 380 left in this particular Virunga population so the loss of four is pretty devastating percentage-wise.

The Unregulated Wildlife Trade in Baghdad

Here's an article in the Times Union about the wildlife trade in Baghdad. It's unregulated and there are many exotic pets being sold, like primates and lions.

Awful.

The Unknown Costs of the Oil Spill

This post on Mongabay.com discusses whether we'll ever know the full extent of the oil spill's impact on wildlife. There are many animals that are "charisma species" that capture our attention, like pelicans and turtles, but what about the animals farther down on the food chain that we don't see. They may not be cute and charismatic, but they are the ones that support those that are.

In Defense of Animals Decries Another Captive Orca Death

Taima, a 20-year-old orca at Sea World died Sunday while giving birth to her stillborn calf. In Defense of Animals is calling for the the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to create regulations to prohibit captive breeding and phase out the public display of orcas.

I wish them luck.

Obama to Reopen Offshore Oil Drilling in Shallow Waters

He is going to add new safety regulations, but I don't like off-shore oil drilling AT ALL! At least BP will hopefully get nailed with lots of penalties. Although it doesn't really matter because those dead animals will never get their lives back and who knows if the habitat will ever fully recover.

From the Wall Street Journal....

The Obama administration, facing rising anger on the Gulf Coast over the loss of jobs and income from a drilling moratorium, said Monday that it would move quickly to release new safety requirements that would allow the reopening of offshore oil and gas exploration in shallow waters.

Gulf Coast residents, political leaders and industry officials said delays in releasing the new rules, along with the administration's six-month halt on deepwater drilling—both issued amid public pressure—threatened thousands of jobs.

Well-owner BP PLC, meanwhile, faces penalties "in the many billions of dollars," for the Deepwater Horizon drilling disaster that has been spewing an estimated minimum 12,000 to 19,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf, said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. The costs of the spill will "greatly exceed" the amount BP could recoup by selling any of the captured oil on the market, he said Monday.

Why I Question Animal Testing 2.0

I'm updating this rant from a few years ago regarding why I question animal testing. I'll probably do this in a series of posts because I just can't seem to sit down for long periods of time to write.

I get frustrated when people accept a scientist's opinion in support of animal testing simply because that person is a scientist. I think one should try to understand that scientist's motivations. For whom do they work? Do they work for a drug company that tests on animals? Is their job therefore dependent on that company's success? Or do they work for a university which is dependent on grant dollars for research involving animals? It's very difficult to buck the system when your livelihood is at stake.

(to be continued)

BP CEO Seems Like A Jerk

He definitely doesn't endear himself to me.

Update on Gulf Oil Spill

Wildlife getting hit hard. What a mess.

Here's a good update on where we're at.

Moose Poaching Video

Posted on Youtube.... Graphic.

Is BP Hiding Dead Animals?

That is the issue raised by this blog post.

A CBS News crew was threatened with arrest when it tried to photograph the spill, and a BP representative in Louisiana told a Mother Jones reporter that she couldn’t visit the Elmer’s Island Wildlife Refuge without a BP escort. TP has the story in this repost.

On Monday, journalists from the New York Daily News were also “escorted away from a public beach on Elmer’s Island bycops who said they were taking orders from BP.” However, they managed to get a covert tour of the Queen Bess barrier island from a BP contractor who is fed up with the oil company’s attempt to cover up the disaster:

PETA Buying Corporate Stock

I'm sure this is old news, but PETA keeps buying corporate stock to gain influence in corporate decision-making. I think this is a great strategy.

From the AP....

Companies don't always change their policies, but Byrne said the effort has paid off. After PETA bought stock, Safeway grocery stores and restaurant companies Ruby Tuesday, Sonic and Burger King agreed to give purchasing preference to suppliers that abide by what the group says are more humane rules, such as not confining chicken and hogs in small cages, she said.