Komputer for Alle 1998 #6/1998 CD 6 (Gul).iso/web/ffa/wwwenv~1.org/arrs/digest/news55~4.htm/text0004.txt

Text File | 1998-04-02 | 25.6 KB | 573 lines

Hope for multiple sclerosis sufferers in new study

The Associated Press
DETROIT (October 27, 1997 6:52 p.m. EST) -- In a development that could
help lead to a treatment for multiple sclerosis, laboratory experiments
have found that a certain hormone stimulates the growth of the
protective sheath around nerves.

In degenerative diseases like MS and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or
Lou Gehrig's disease, damage around the sheath stops signals from being
transmitted between the brain and nerves.

An insulin-like growth hormone called IGF-I has been found to regrow
these sheaths, University of Michigan scientists reported Monday.

Though several growth factors currently are being studied, IGF-I appears
to be most effective at inducing the growth of the sheath and preventing
neural cell death, according to Michigan researcher Hsin-Lin Cheng.

The Michigan scientists, who presented the first results from their
experiments with IGF-I at a confererence in New Orleans on Monday,
removed nerve cells called dorsal root neurons from newborn rats and
grew them in a dish.

They found that if they simulated the conditions of diabetes in the
dish, then applied the IGF-I, it helped the nerves remain normal,
Feldman said.

"This may provide a new treatment for a whole group of diseases we
couldn't treat before," said Eva Feldman, associate professor of
neurology at the University of Michigan Medical School.

Tests with the hormone, which is produced in the liver and is present in
blood serum, are under way on about 40 people with neuropathy at the
Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

Dr. Stephen Reingold of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society in New
York, was cautious about the results.

"They certainly are jumping the gun by saying that it could help with
multiple sclerosis. IGF-I has never been studied with MS," he said.

By RANDI GOLDBERG, The Associated Press

************************************************

Surgical nerve injury is just as far from degenerative nerve disease as
the human nervous system is from that of the laboratory rat.

This kind of research has been going on for decades and hasn't
benefitted a single sufferer from multiple sclerosis or other nerve
disease.

Such trifling details, of course, wouldn't dampen the enthusiasm of a
researcher, shooting for the moon, whose main skill is knowing how to
cut the spinal chords of little white rats.

Funding is the name of the game and what better way to secure it than
raising false hopes and feeding hype to the media?

Andy
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 00:04:04
From: David J Knowles <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: I'm back (Off topic)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
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Actually, I haven't been anywhere, but my e-mail server took a vacation
over the weekend.

Although I think I've now receieved most of the news items posted since
Friday - I just downloaded 100 + messages, would anyone who e-mailed me
privately between Friday evening and Monday morning, and received an error
message please try again.

Thanks,

David

Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 01:31:38
From: David J Knowles <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: [CA] Burnaby council hears of raccoon torture
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
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Burnaby council hears of raccoon torture
By David Knowles
Animal Voices News

BURNABY, B.C. - Councillors at Burnaby City Hall Monday night heard a
presentation from resident Sharon Capadouca regarding the setting of
leg-hold traps in her neighbourhood.

Capadouca told councillors how the problem started last year, and then
occured again this August.

Capadouca pleaded for council to obtain the power to pass a bylaw banning
these types of activities. She also pleaded for a facility to be built
where such animals could be housed, instead of them being killed, and said
she wishes the sick person doing this could be caught.

She reported that posters placed by both herself and council workers ahd
been torn in some areas, but that council  would replace them as soon as
they became aware. They had warned her not to replace the posters herself,
as staff had concerns about her safety.

Cllr. Doug Evans commended Capadouca for her work.

Cllr. Celeste Redman expressed surprise that leg-hold traps were not
banned. Capadouca replied that some 10 years ago, several municipalities
were ready to ban traps and snares, but were told by the provincial
Ministry of Environment's Wildlife Protection Branch that they could not do
so, as this was their area. Since then, nothing has happened. "They must be
very busy," Capasouca said.

Asked if she was surprised that the SPCA became involved, when their
mandate only covered domestic animals, Capadouca said she wasn't. "This was
a situation they could not turn their back on," she said.

Burnaby SPCA shelter superintendent Carson Wilson said the SPCA was
officially involved because one of the animals involved was a cat. He
added, however, that: "I run the shelter from the heart, not by only
according to regulations."

Capadouca, responding to articles which appeared in the local papers
stating she had heard the cat howling for three days, said she had tried to
locate the cat immediately, but was unable to locate it. She added that the
cat cried out every morning between 8:00 and 9:00 AM, which she felt was
the time that someone had approached the trap to check what had been caught.

She felt that there were more animals caught in the trap, but was only
aware of the seven raccoons and one cat which had ended up in her backyard.

Council passed a motion asking staff to investigate what needed to be done
to permit them to pass a bylaw banning the use of traps and snares in the
city. (Currently, legislation only bans the setting of traps within 200
metres of a dwelling.)

[ Capadouca later showed me some photographs she had taken of the raccoons
she had rescued. To say they were graphic is somewhat of an understatement.]

Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 01:14:16
From: David J Knowles <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: [CA] Council expands spay rebate scheme
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
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Council expands spay rebate scheme
By David Knowles
Animal Voices News

BURNABY, B.C. - City council passed a motion Monday night expanding their
two-year-old spay rebate scheme.

Originally introduced during a period when council was under pressure from
a coalition of animal-rights and  -welfare groups and individuals to pass a
spay/neuter bylaw, the scheme gave a rebate of $10 for keepers of cats who
reside in Burnaby and who had their animals spayed.

The scheme is now open to both spays and neuters, and has increased to $15.

Asked by Cllr. Doreen Lawson whether there were any plans to introduce any
further measures such as registration, the city lawyer stated this was not
being considered in the forseeable future.

Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 01:28:40
From: David J Knowles <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: [CA] Local lake home to abundance of wildlife
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
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Local lake home to abundance of wildlife

By David Knowles
Animal Voices News

BURNABY, B.C. - Councillors heard Monday night that Burnaby Lake, located
in the city's central valley area, was home to a wide variety of wildlife.

There are 112 species of birds, according to a study by B.C. Wildlife
Watch. The report also
stated the lake was home to American beaver, muskrat, Douglas squirrel,
Northern flying squirrel, bullfrogs, Pacific tree frogs and several
butterflies including Milbert's toroiseshell, Western tiger swallowtail,
mourning cloak cabbage  white and woodland skipper.

Council's Environmental and Waste Management Committee is currently
studying the feasibilty of dredging the lake. A report on the environmental
impact of such a scheme was presented to full council Monday night.

The BC WIldlife Watch report was funded by the Greater Vancouver Regional
District and the Burnaby Firefighters Charitable Society. Mayor Doug
Drummond commented that it was unusual for the "Burns Fund" to be involved
in environmental issues.

Cllr. Doreen Lawson replied that it was, as far as she knew, the first time
this had happened.

Lawson told me later that she had approached the Firefighters and they had
only been too glad to help. She hopes they will fund similar measures in
the future.



Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 01:49:55
From: David J Knowles <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: [US] Brain transplant makes chicken think it is a quail
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
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>From The Electronic Telegraph - Tuesday, October 28th, 1997

Brain transplant makes chicken think it is a quail
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor

A CHICKEN that thinks it is a quail has been created by a transplant of
brain tissue from one species to the other, the world's largest
neurosciences meeting was told yesterday.

The creation of this mixed-species animal or "chimera" by transplanting an
entire region of a quail's brain into a chicken embryo is seen as a
milestone in efforts to understand the brain. Earlier experiments by the
Neurosciences Unit in La Jolla, California, made a chicken sing and bob its
head like a quail.

"This is the first time a perceptual difference has been transplanted
between any two organisms," Dr Kevin Long told the annual meeting of the
Society for Neuroscience in New Orleans. He said the experiment could help
scientists work out how minor differences in the physical structure of the
brain of different species could lead to striking differences in behaviour.

Dr Long said there may be parallels in the human brain to the mechanisms
being studied through the creation of the bird chimera. "These mechanisms
in humans may enable the foetus to differentially attend to a human voice
(presumably the mother's, although it doesn't have to be) which can be
heard during late foetal development," said Dr Long. The work may also
yield ideas on how to treat human nervous disorders, but Dr Long stressed
that, for technical and ethical reasons, "chimeric work on humans would
never be done".

Most species are born with some behaviours that need no learning. For
example, young birds, which are able to walk and feed themselves within
hours of hatching, are especially responsive to sounds from their own species.

"We wanted to determine the underlying developmental difference which
allows a chick to prefer a mother hen call over a mother quail call," said
Dr Long, who conducted the work with Dr Evan Balaban. By transplanting the
anterior midbrain from quail to chick, the resulting "chimeric" chick
responded preferentially to the quail mother. "Transplants of other,
neighbouring regions from quail into chick did not produce this effect," he
said.

⌐ Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1997.

Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 02:00:21
From: David J Knowles <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: [UK] Food bugs blamed on EU laws
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
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>From The Electronic Telegraph - Tuesday, October 28th, 1997

Food bugs blamed on EU laws
By David Fletcher, Health Correspondent

TOUGHER EU hygiene regulations that have forced the closure of hundreds of
abattoirs may inadvertently have led to rising levels of food poisoning.

A report by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology says that
the number of abattoirs fell from 1,385 in 1975 to 384 last year. Due to
this reduction, animals have to travel further from farm to slaughterhouse.
The extra travelling leads to increased stress on the animals and to more
animals having soiled themselves by the time they arrive at the abattoir.

The report says that meat from a soiled animal can have up to 1,000 times
more bacteria than meat from a clean animal. It also says food poisoning
rose five-fold in the last 15 years with nearly 100,000 people affected and
up to 200 deaths last year. It blames three main bacteria:

- Campylobacter, the most common cause of individual cases of food
poisoning, which affected 47,000 people last year.

- Salmonella, with up to 35,000 cases a year. Poultry, eggs, red meat and
meat products are most commonly implicated. Between 33-41 per cent of
chickens on retail sale are said to be contaminated.

- E coli, virtually unknown before the 1980s, affected 1,100 people last
year and causes more serious illness than the other two bacteria.

An analysis of the source of food poisoning shows that 44 per cent of
incidents arise from meals in restaurants, hotels or other catering
establishments, 17 per cent from home catering and 6 per cent from shops.
Prisons, schools and other sources accounted for the remaining cases.

Factors to blame for the increase include the move towards once-a-week
shopping, which causes food to be stored for longer, more eating out and
one meal being "stretched" over several days by people living alone.

⌐ Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1997.

Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 01:59:46
From: David J Knowles <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: [EU] Online debate on consumer policy
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
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>From The Electronic Telegraph - Tuesday, October 28th, 1997

The European Commission is hosting an online debate on Consumer Policy in
the European Union on November 5 1997 from 1700h to 1900h (GMT +1). Emma
Bonino, Commissioner of the European Union will discuss the following issues:

i/BSE - the facts
ii/Salmonella, E coli and other viral diseases - what is Europe doing about
food controls?
iii/What consequences will the Euro have for the consumer and how can the
consumer make use of the single market?
iv/Are consumers over or under-informed?

Ms Bonino will converse in Italian, French, English, German and Spanish.
All questions and answers will then be translated into English.

Questions can be put to Ms Bonino from 27 October at the following e-mail
address: [e-mail]. The online debate can be located at
irc://chat.europa.eu.int.


⌐ Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1997.

Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 02:10:44
From: David J Knowles <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: [UK] Butcher cleared over party meat
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
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>From The Electronic Telegraph - Tuesday, October 28th, 1997

Butcher cleared over party meat
By Auslan Cramb, Scotland Correspondent

THE Scottish butcher whose shop was linked to the world's worst E coli food
poisoning epidemic, which killed 20 people, was found not guilty yesterday
of supplying contaminated meat to a birthday party.

John Barr, 52, was cleared on the sixth day of his trial at Hamilton
Sheriff Court when the case against him collapsed at the end of the
prosecution evidence. He denied culpably, wilfully and recklessly supplying
300 slices of cooked meat for an 18th birthday party, the day after he had
been ordered by environmental health officers to stop trading.

Several people at the party were said to have become ill with E coli food
poisoning after eating cold ham, turkey and beef from his shop in Wishaw,
Lanarkshire. The court's decision was greeted by cheers of delight from
members of Mr Barr's family.

However, Frank Roy, the Labour MP for Wishaw, claimed that the handling of
the case by North Lanarkshire Council and the procurator fiscal's office
had been "shambolic".

Fay MacFarlane, 50, who organised the party for the birthday of her
daughter Lauren, said her family had been through a long ordeal and she was
shocked by the outcome.

She said: "We always expected justice to be done so we have got to stand by
the law. But I honestly feel very let down by all the agencies involved."

Menzies Campbell, the legal affairs spokesman for the Scottish Liberal
Democrats, called for an inquiry into the outcome of the trial. After
hearing an hour of legal argument, Sheriff Alexander Macpherson told the
jury that he supported a submission from defence solicitor George Moore
that there was no case to answer.

He said the Crown had failed to corroborate its case by not providing a
second strand of evidence. The first strand centred on a phone call in
which Mr Barr allegedly assured the family that the meat was safe.

The court was told last week that the butcher had supplied three bags of
cold meat to a member of the MacFarlane family on November 23 last  year,
the day after he had given an undertaking to environmental health officials
not to sell cooked meat. The master butcher, whose shop was closed for
three months after the outbreak, was hugged by members of his
family as the left the court but refused to comment.

The E coli outbreak began after pensioners became ill at a church lunch,
and affected more than 400 people in central Scotland. Mr Barr, from
Overtown, Wishaw, together with his wife Elaine and their son Martin, will
face charges over alleged contraventions of food safety laws in a second
court case early in the New Year. A fatal accident inquiry into the
epidemic is also expected in January.

⌐ Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1997.

[For those not familiar with the Scotish legal system, the Sherrif's court
is the equivalent of a District Court in the U.S., a Crown Court in the UK
or a Provincial Court in Canada. The Procurator Fiscal is a combination of
a DA or Public Prosecutor and a Coroner.]

Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 02:17:17
From: David J Knowles <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: [UK] Anti-hunt MP offers concession to farmers
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
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>From The Electronic Telegraph - Monday, October 27th, 1997

Anti-hunt MP offers concession to farmers
By Joy Copley, Political Staff

THE Bill to outlaw hunting is to be watered down to allow dogs to be used
to "flush out" foxes in a surprise concession to farmers.

Mike Foster, Labour MP for Worcester, is preparing to give ground to the
country lobby in a move designed to put critics of his private member's
Bill on the spot. He is examining ways of re-writing the Wild Mammal
(Hunting with Dogs) Bill whose main purpose is to outlaw hunting with hounds.

Mr Foster argues that it is the brutal tearing apart of the fox after a
chase, which is classified as sport, that he wants to end. He has been
undertaking a consultation process on his Bill which included accepting an
invitation to watch the Worcestershire Hunt last week. Farmers have said
that in some cases where foxes are a persistent pest, dogs are the best way
of locating the animal and forcing it into the open so that it can be shot.

Mr Foster said: "This is a major difference between the pursuit of the fox
and the kill being a sporting activity and it would be a working, practical
exercise. I recognise that some farmers have concerns about foxes preying
on, for example, lambs." The numbers of dogs used in such an exercise is
likely to be cut from 40 to 12.

Mr Foster's private member's Bill is expected to receive a huge majority
when it comes up for second reading on Nov 28. But the Government is still
looking for ways to kill off the Bill because it fears that persistent
objections and amendments in the Lords will cause chaos and threaten
implementation of key pieces of legislation in Labour's manifesto.

Janet George, of the British Field Sports Society, said a decision to allow
 "gun packs", which operate mostly in Scotland and Wales, was "a nonsense".
She said: "He is basically saying it is OK to kill foxes so long as you are
not wearing a red coat. It is hardly less cruel to have a fox shot."

⌐ Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1997.

Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 02:26:26
From: David J Knowles <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: [UK] There's new life in Old Father Thames
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
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>From The Electronic Telegraph - Monday, October 27th, 1997

There's new life in Old Father Thames
By Charles Clover

COMMERCIALLY viable quantities of edible fish, including whitebait, shrimp,
prawn and smelt, are being found in the Thames at the heart of London for
the first time since the 17th Century, according to the Environment Agency.

The river, now the cleanest metropolitan waterway in Europe and possibly
the world, has supported annual migrations of Atlantic salmon since the
Seventies.

According to the agency, the tidal reaches have now, become an important
nursery for bass, flounder and smelt, a relation of the salmon which
supported the biggest commercial fishery on the Thames in the late 1600s.

Whitebait is back at Greenwich, though not yet in the quantities present in
the 18th Century when Thames whitebait became a fashionable food.

The lower reaches of the Thames estuary now support the most important
nursery for Dover sole in the country, replenishing fish stocks across the
North Sea.

Steve Colclough, the agency's Thames area fisheries officer, said
yesterday: "The focus has always been on the salmon, but other recoveries
have gone on without a widespread perception that they have happened, even
within my own agency."

There are now 115 recorded species of fish in the river, two more than five
years ago, and in much greater numbers, according to the agency's routine
monitoring which nets the river throughout the year at seven sites between
Richmond and Gravesend.

Mr Colclough also says the river might be seeing the first stages of a
recovery of the twaite shad, an extremely rare migrating herring which gave
its name to parts of the Port of London where it was once fished. Adult
shad are caught in the lower estuary each year.

The presence of the shad, found only in the cleanest rivers such as the Usk
in Wales, would allow the river to be designated as one of the most
important wildlife reserves in Europe under the EU habitats directive. Mr
Colclough said that the polluted image of the Thames
was extraordinarily persistent though the river had been cleaned up
steadily since the Fifties, when a major programme of building sewage works
began.

He said: "When members of the public gaze from Westminster Bridge, the
water looks muddy and the perception is that there is still a lot of
pollution there. In fact the muddy nature of the river is a natural
estuarial process. It was doing that 3,000 years ago. It's a major
educational challenge for us. If the public doesn't know about what's going
on in the river, it does not value it and it makes it harder for us to
protect it."

The naturally murky waters below Westminster Bridge hide huge, dynamic
movements of fish and fry all year round. Some 30 fish species, as well as
commercially viable quantities of shrimp and prawn, now migrate up and down
the Thames, within feet of the Palace of Westminster.

The year begins with the smelt, a cousin of the salmon notable for its
needle-like teeth and cucumber smell when it is fresh from the water, which
runs up the river in March to spawn below the tide mark at Wandsworth. Dace
move down the river to spawn there too and the
fry of both species migrate up to Teddington.

After spawning, smelts drop back to where they live for most of the year,
below Gravesend. Because the fish spends its entire life cycle in the
river, and shares with salmon and trout an extreme sensitivity to
pollution, the agency now monitors it explicitly as a pollution indicator.

In May, billions of flounder fry move up to the fresher water to mature,
passing though the shallows at Putney in such numbers that they change the
colour of the tideway grey.

The tiny flounder fry use the tides to ascend the river, allowing
themselves to be carried on the flood tide and sticking to the stones on
the bottom on the ebb. Around the same time, the first elvers ascend the
river. By late June and early July, juvenile sea bass ascend the river in
waves, as high as fresh water at Putney. Dover sole come up as far as
Gravesend from the outer estuary. In June and July, too, common gobies run
the river. In summer months, with low freshwater flows, prawns and brown
shrimps can be found as high up the river as
Isleworth.

In September and August, month-old grey mullet come up as far as Chiswick.
All the fry move back past the Commons in late autumn, when they have grown
into juvenile fish.

Though many of the fish species are commercially viable and entirely
palatable, the agency has taken the radical approach of banning commercial
exploitation of the tidal Thames to protect it as a nursery area and a
wildlife resource since it took control of freshwater and
sea fisheries in 1995.

Though pollution has cleared up significantly, the agency says that the
recovery may still have some years to go. And it is constantly under threat