Komputer for Alle 1998 #6/1998 CD 6 (Gul).iso/web/ffa/wwwenv~1.org/arrs/digest/news62~8.htm/multipart0007.out

Text File | 1998-04-02 | 46.0 KB | 1,131 lines

    BURBANK, Calif. (AP) -- A man was sentenced to 30 days in jail for breaking the jaw of his
daughter's cat, Boots, because it meowed too much.

    William Painter, 38, pleaded no contest to an animal cruelty charge and was also ordered to
undergo counseling, pay $300 to an animal shelter and perform 80 hours of community service.

    Painter was arrested Sunday after he struck the male tabby belonging to his 6-year-old
daughter. He told police he was watching television when he became enraged by the cries of
Boots, who was locked in the bathroom.

    Painter told police he hit the animal twice, but lightly and ``with an open hand.'' Painter's wife
said she heard ``crashing, the cat hissing and screaming and him yelling.''

    Painter apparently did not believe he had done something illegal at the time. ``What was wrong
with hitting a cat?'' police said he asked.

    Boots was treated for the jaw injury and both a broken and chipped tooth.
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 22:29:37 +0800 (SST)
From: Vadivu Govind <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Gene scientists find secret to 'superprawns'
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit



>The Electronic Telegraph
31 Dec 97

Gene scientists find secret to 'superprawns'
  By Roger Highfield, Science Editor

THE key to developing faster growing "superprawns" was unveiled yesterday by
a team of Australian researchers.

 Their countrymen could soon be throwing a much bigger prawn on the barbie
if the research aimed at producing genetically enhanced seafood pays off.

 The Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research
Organisation, CSIRO, announced that it had developed the world's first prawn
gene map.

 The genetic linkage map, the first for any crustacean species, will be used
by researchers to identify the genes for traits including growth rate, flesh
quality and disease resistance.

 Using the map as a guide, large increases in the rate of genetic
improvement of farmed prawns are possible, compared with those that can be
made using traditional breeding strategies.

 "Early indicators suggest that prawn farms using genetic improvement
programmes could expect increased annual growth rates of around 10 per
cent," said Dr Steve Moore of CSIRO.

⌐ Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1997.

Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 22:30:05 +0800 (SST)
From: Vadivu Govind <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: New vaccine  fights deadly Ebola virus
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
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>The Electronic Telegraph
31 Dec 97

New vaccine  fights deadly Ebola virus
By Aisling Irwin, Science Correspondent

SCIENTISTS have struck a blow against the deadly Ebola virus with the
development of a vaccine that protects guinea pigs from the disease.

 The researchers used a new approach to making vaccines, based on taking
some genes from inside a virus and injecting them directly into the animal.
An outbreak of the  disease killed 45 people last year in Gabon.

 The scientists, led by the University of Michigan Medical Centre in Ann
Arbor, took several genes from the virus and injected them into the legs of
guinea pigs.

 Cells in the leg muscles then began to produce the viral proteins that the
genetic material coded for. Once these proteins began to appear in the
guinea pig they seemed to   trigger an immune response.

 When the researchers injected the guinea pigs with the Ebola virus two
months later, 15 out of 16 survived. All six animals that had not received
the vaccine died.

 Dr Gary Nabel, of the University of Michigan, said that in most human cases
of Ebola fever there was no sign of any immune system response to the virus.

 Yesterday the World Health Organisation welcomed the news, but said the
most urgent priority was to establish where the virus hid between its
outbreaks among humans.

 Dr Thomas Folks, of the Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia,
warned that the experimental vaccine was "nowhere near ready for humans -
we've found a little weakness in the Ebola virus here, but we've got a long
way to go".

⌐ Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1997.

Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 09:56:37 -0500
From: Miyun Park <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail], [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Request for info on veterinary medicine
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I would suggest contacting AVAR (Association of Veterinarians for Animals
Rights) at P.O. Box 6269, Vacaville, CA 95696-6269; tel: [phone]; fax:
707-449-8775; e-mail: [e-mail].

--Miyun

At 12:19 PM 12/31/97 +0000, you wrote:
>
>
>In the antivivisectionist movement pratically all of the scientific
>arguments are used to show people that animal research kills humans.  I
>can find a lot of literature about the true role of vivisection in the
>development of medicine (Robert Sharpe, Hans Ruesch, Vernon Coleman,
>Pietro Croce, etc.).
>
>However, most of AR people forget that vivisection is also done for
>veterinary purposes.
>
>I'm preparing an exhibition on AR with a friend, and I want to adress the
>history of veterinary medicine (something that everyone -- or almost
>everyone -- forget to talk about). However, I don't know anything about
>it. Can anyone help me? Are there any books or anything else about the
>true role of vivisection in the development of veterinary medicine?
>
>Best Regards
>
>Daniel
>
>
>
>

Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 13:24:55 -0500
From: "Zoocheck Canada Inc." <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Accidents involving captive wild animals
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Please let me know if you or your organization (or others that you know of)
have comprehensive inventories of injuries and deaths sustained by either
human or non-human animals in situations where wild animals are held in
captivity (e.g. in circuses, zoos, wildlife menageries, film and as exotic
pets).

If so, I'd like to obtain a copy of your inventory, either by snail mail
(let me know if there's a cost involved) or email (see addresses below), or
let me know your web site address if the information is posted there.

If the inventory is restricted to a particular species or type of captive
situation, that would still be useful.

Zoocheck has informally collected such information for several years,
particularly on Canadian incidents, and may be able to supplement existing
inventories.

Thanks

Holly Penfound
Director

Zoocheck Canada Inc.
3266 Yonge Street, Suite 1729
Toronto, ON M4N 3P6
Ph [phone]  Fax    [phone] or [phone]
E-Mail:  [e-mail]
Web Site:  http://web.idirect.com/~zoocheck
Registered Charity No. 0828459-54
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 15:57:00
From: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Coulston, AF chimps in Wall St. Journal
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

IN CHIMP SELL-OFF, MILITARY FINDS IT HAS MONKEY ON ITS BACK
Primates Had a Lofty Start, Now Face an Unclear Fate:  Lab Grunts,
or Retirees
by Geraldine Brooks
copyright 1997 Wall Street Journal/Dow Jones
December 30, 1997, page 1

ALAMOGORDO, N.M. -- Amid spiky yuccas and cholla cactus, a dry
desert wind snaps the American flag above the tombstone of this
U.S. Air Force veteran.  "Ham," the inscription says, "world's
first astrochimp."

It's an odd resting place for a chimpanzee born in the dense rain
forests of the Cameroons.  But there's little about this chimp's
life that wasn't strange.  Trained aboard a Mercury capsule,
rocketed into space, featured on the cover of Life magazine, Ham --
short for the Holloman Aeromedical Laboratory just a few miles from
his grave site -- made history before the age of four.

Stranger still perhaps is the sudden plight of Ham's fellow
astrochimps 36 years after his flight proved space travel safe for
humans.  Most have spent their lives on Holloman Air Force Base,
wedged between a Stealth fighter runway and the White Sands missile
range.  This year, the Air Force declared the chimps "surplus to
requirements" and called for bids on them and their housing to be
submitted by June 1998.

"Chimps -- right, wrong or otherwise -- are basically personal
property.  They're like a piece of equipment," says Col. Jack
Blackhurst, project manager for the divestment.

A Thicket of Issues

This isn't an attitude being saluted by the chimps' supporters,
however, which is partly why the 144 chimpanzees are proving more
difficult to dispose of than spare widgets or extra flight suits.
Chimp champions, led by the newly formed Institute for Captive
Chimpanzee Care and Well-Being, are desperately trying to raise
$10.6 million -- the cost of building and running a retirement home
in a warm locale big enough for the Air Force chimps, plus surplus
chimps from other research programs.  They are pitted against
Frederick Coulston, a controversial biomedical researcher who
currently leases the Holloman chimps, using some in AIDS, hepatitis
and Hanta-virus testing.  He wants the Air Force to let him keep
them.

But only last year, Mr. Coulston's foundation was fined $40,000 by
the U.S. Department of Agriculture for breaches of the federal
animal welfare act for mistreatment of primates in his care.  And
chimp advocates say that after a lifetime of government service,
the astrochimps deserve a break.  "We've required them to
contribute repeatedly to human welfare," says Roger Fouts, a
psychology professor at Central Washington University who talks to
chimps in American Sign Language.  "Surely the survivors have
earned a little peace and quiet."

The problem is finding the money.  "Ideally, I'd like a billionaire
to fall from the sky and land in my backyard," says Carole Noon,
coordinator for the new chimp institute.  "But none has so far."

The Coulston Foundation, on the other hand, has ample funds from
government grants and pharmaceutical companies.  It also has a
fancy taxpayer-funded chimp house built for New Mexico State
University.  But the university pulled out of primate research just
as the $10 million project was completed and gave Mr. Coulston a
free five-year lease.

For the chimps, the stakes are high.  Chimpanzees' DNA is 98%
identical to that of humans, and they can live into their 50s.  The
oldest Air Force veteran is 40-year-old Minnie, who trained with
Ham.  The youngest is Minnie's daughter, Lil Mini, age four.
Although about 65 chimps went through at least part of an
astronaut-style training program, only two traveled in space:  Ham
and a chimp named Enos, who orbited Earth in advance of John
Glenn's historic flight.

Others were used to assess "hazardous mission environments" --
strapped into ejection seats, hurled down a rocket-powered sled and
pumped with caffeine in studies of long-term sleep deprivation.
Later, the Air Force leased the chimpanzees to nonmilitary
scientists to test everything from the cancer-causing solvents in
industrial cleaners to drugs for sexually transmitted diseases.

Meanwhile, two things happened.  Behaviorists' studies of chimps
uncovered the ability to make tools, use language and experience
complex emotions.  At the same time, biomedical demand for the
animals plunged when they proved poor models for the study of AIDS
because almost none of them, once injected with HIV, came down with
the full-blown disease.

While many scientists say chimps are essential for some research,
a National Research Council panel recently stated that far too many
are languishing uselessly in lab cages.  The panel supported a
breeding moratorium and the building of sanctuaries.

Mr. Coulston doesn't agree.  His Alamogordo-based foundation
already houses 600 chimps -- the largest captive colony in the
world -- and he wants to expand it.  "I don't think there's an
excess -- I would like to have 5,000" to use, eventually, as organ
donors and blood banks for humans.

The 83-year-old Mr. Coulston isn't afraid of courting controversy,
and not just about chimps.  He calls AIDS "a silly disease" whose
sufferers should have been forced to display "a big sign on the
door saying 'Quarantine.'"  Chain-smoking through a recent
interview, he proclaims that "nicotine is not addictive" and "you
won't get cancer if you don't inhale."  He says he had to turn to
chimps when his work with human subjects -- prisoners -- was halted
in the 1960s.

And that, says Mr. Fouts, who decries all invasive research on
chimps, is the point.  "Eventually we realized it was wrong to
experiment on prisoners, and our closest relatives, the
chimpanzees, are the next step," he says.  "People say, 'You'd want
to use a chimp's organs if it would save your child.' Well, I'd
want to use my neighbor's organs if it would save my child, but
that doesn't mean I should."

If the chimps get their sanctuary, it will probably look much like
the facility in which Mr. Fouts, 54, house five chimps used in his
language research.  His students' study of the animals depends on
whether the chimps want to take part.  If they choose to interact
with their human visitors, the chimps swing down from high outdoor
perches, approach a glass partition and begin asking in emphatic
sign language to "chase" or "tickle."  One, remembering a
Thanksgiving treat, asks if there's any "bird meat" -- turkey -- on
the dinner menu.

The Air Force says the welfare of the chimpanzees will be the main
consideration in assessing June's bid proposals (bids, until last
week, had been due in February, but the Air Force pushed the
deadline back).  The Coulston Foundation's "state of flux" in
veterinary care has "been a concern of the USDA and a number of
other parties," says Lt. Col. Denver Marlow, chief of Air Force
animal programs.

Mr. Coulston says he has bolstered his veterinary staff and plays
down his regulatory run-ins.  "Everyone has problems with the USDA
from time to time," he says.  "No matter how meticulous you are,
they're going to find something when they go through.  That's their
job."

Whatever the outcome, it's too late for Ham, the original
astrochimp.  After his brief "fame aboard the flame," he spent most
of his life in a zoo where he was caged alone -- a hardship for
social animals like chimps.  When he died prematurely of heart and
liver failure, his skeleton was sent to the Smithsonian to be
picked clean by demestid beetles before being shipped to the Armed
Forces Institute of Pathology.  The rest of him got a decent burial
in front of Alamogordo's Space Museum, but only after a proposal to
stuff and mount him brought howls of protest.  "A chimpanzee is not
a green pepper!" declared one outraged letter.  Another asked:
"Are you planning to stuff John Glenn as well?"

Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 13:30:58 -0800 (PST)
From: "Christine M. Wolf" <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Buffalo Nations Update
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

>Return-Path: <[e-mail]>
>Date: Tue, 30 Dec 1997 13:45:27 -0700
>To: [e-mail]
>From: [e-mail]
>Subject: Update    (##)
>
>Below:
>Buffalo Nations Becember 29th Update
>One thing you can do.....
>Quick Technical Note
>
>Thanks for your support.....May 1998 be a year wherein no buffalo are killed!

>***********************************
>December 29th
>Buffalo Nations Update
>
>        Temperatures around West Yellowstone have dipped down to -30F, but
>the sun's out by mid-morning.  The Department of Livestock has created its
>own imaginary closure on Forest Service land (public land) surrounding
>their capture facility.  Insiders from the Park Service have expressed
>their belief that this closure is illegitimate and illegal.  The Forest
>Service is the agency in charge of our federal public lands (Department of
>Livestock is a state agency), is still uncertain whether the closure is
>legitimate or not.  It seems to us that the closure was made up on the spur
>of the moment to intimidate us, without the consent of all 5 agencies
>listed on their signs.  We remain undaunted.
>
>        Last year hundreds of bison were killed on Forest Service land west
>and north of Yellowstone National Park.  One local resident was disgusted
>to learn that his dog had gained 60 pounds from gorging on the gut piles
>left near his Horse Butte home.
>
>       Millions of acres of Forest Service land, public land, SHOULD be
>open and available as a reservoir for the bison to spill over onto during
>winter months.  We need people to help us focus on
>this aspect of the campaign.
>
>        If we all had one wish on Xmas day, I think we all wished for more
>folks to join us out here in this winter wonderland.  This is a fantastic
>opportunity to learn and practice winter camping skills, cross-country
>skiing, snow shoeing, and tracking animals.   If you enjoy these
>activities, we can accommodate you.  We also need people who are good
>researchers, writers and canvassers.
>
>        Those of us already here roam the fields with the buffalo daily and
>have a kinship with them. The magnificence and ruggedness of these
>beautiful animals has all of us in awe of their role in nature and humble
>us in our own role.  There is nothing quite like the site of buffalo
>playing while a bald eagle flies overhead, a coyote hunts for scurrying
>food, a wolf howls in the not-so-far distance, while we keep a watchful eye
>out for the D.O.L.
>All in a day's work at Buffalo Nations....  So come out
>and be ready for action or help support us in anyway you can.
>
>Buffalo Nations
>PO Box 957
>West Yellowstone, MT 59758
>406-646-0070 phone
>406-646-0071 fax
>[e-mail]
>
>************************************************
>IF YOU CAN ONLY DO ONE THING........
> Millions of acres of Forest Service land, YOUR public land, SHOULD be open
>and available as a reservoir for the bison to spill over onto during winter
>months.  We need people to help us focus on this aspect of the campaign.
>Many of these lands are leased to a very few cows and the rest are empty!
>
>PLEASE Write and tell them what you feel.. a quick phone call, postcard or
>email can make a difference!
>
>Mike Dombeck, Chief; Forest Service, USDA
>14th and Independence Avenue, SW
>201 14th Street, SW
>Washington, DC 20250
>4th Floor; NW
>Tel: [phone]
>
>E-Mail: [e-mail]
>**************************************************
>
>Please Pass this on to five friends!!!
>For the Buffalo!
>**************************************************
>
>**********************************************************
>For more information about the plight of the Yellowstone Bison
>check out this web site
>http://www.wildrockies.org/bison
>
>
>Mitakuye Oyasin (All My Relations)
>**********************************************************
>
>






******************************************************************
Christine Wolf, Director of Government Affairs
    The Fund for Animalsphone: 301-585-2591
     World Buildingfax:   301-585-2595
   8121 Georgia Ave., Suite 301e-mail: [e-mail]
    Silver Spring, MD 20910web page: www.fund.org

"The fate of animals is of greater importance to me than the fear of
appearing ridiculous; it is indissolubly connected with the fate of men."
         - Emile Zola



Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 17:12:03 -0500
From: leah wacksman <[e-mail]>
To: "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>
Subject: The Seattle Times: Search Results
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------29F2E669AF29480525E7477E"

Posted by Marty Wacksman (Leah's husband).


Monday, Dec. 29, 1997
`Oprah' case to test food-libel law

by Aaron Epstein
Knight-Ridder Newspapers

    WASHINGTON - In some parts of the United States, you can be sued for dissing pears,
castigating cauliflower, ridiculing emu meat or - as TV celebrity Oprah Winfrey learned -
bad-mouthing beef.

    Thirteen states, responding to pressure from agricultural organizations, have adopted
food-defamation laws in the 1990s. More than a dozen other states are considering similar
legislation.

    In general, these statutes make it possible for farmers and ranchers to win damages from
consumer groups, health advocates, journalists or anyone else who spreads false information
about the safety of a food.

      The first court test of the laws is set for Jan. 7, the starting date for a federal jury trial of a
lawsuit filed by Texas cattle ranchers against Winfrey and one of her guests.

    The ranchers claim the cattle industry lost millions of dollars as a result of remarks made
primarily by Howard Lyman, a vegetarian and director of the Humane Society's Eating with
Conscience Campaign, on the "Oprah" show of April 16, 1996.

    Lyman said "mad-cow disease" would plague the U.S. beef industry because it is "following
exactly the same path they followed in England." Winfrey, apparently impressed by Lyman's
remarks, said she would stop eating hamburgers.

    "Sooner or later, these laws will be held unconstitutional, I'm sure of it," ventured P. Cameron
DeVore, a Seattle lawyer who specializes in freedom of expression.

    Had such laws been on the books decades ago, said David  Bederman, a law professor at
Emory University in Atlanta, they could have been used to punish the people who first warned of
the dangers of DDT or tobacco.

    That's nonsense, says Steve Kupperud, senior vice president of the American Feed Industry
Association and a foremost advocate of food-disparagement laws.

    "If activists stand up and say `cauliflower causes breast cancer,' they've got to be able to prove
that," Kupperud said. "I think that to the degree that the mere presence of these laws has caused
activists to think twice, then these laws have already accomplished what we set out to do."

From apples to emus

    Food-disparagement laws were triggered by the failure of apple growers in Washington state to
obtain damages for losses attributed to a CBS "Sixty Minutes" broadcast in 1989. The broadcast
said Alar, a chemical used to lengthen the time that apples ripen on trees, could cause cancer.

    The apple growers' suit was dismissed on grounds that the alleged defamation was directed at a
product, not at specific producers, and that a food could not be defamed.

    Farmers and food producers are eager to use the laws "to fight wacky claims that hurt them in
their bottom line," Kupperud said, but they are waiting to see how the Oprah case turns out.

    Another group of ranchers decided not to wait. They are trying to make a living from the emu,
a large, flightless, Australian cousin of the ostrich. To them, the emu's future as a low-fat,
nutrition-rich food for humans is no joking matter.

    At least that's how they reacted when they saw a Honda commercial on television. It satirically
warned viewers not to emulate a young failure named Joe, who flitted from one dubious
occupation to another.

    "Emu, Joe, it's the pork of the future," a gap-toothed rancher advised Joe in the commercial.

    Incensed, a group of real emu ranchers filed a food-disparagement suit last month. The
ranchers, already reeling from a depressed market,  claimed that the commercial drove emu prices
even lower.

Oprah to go on trial

    The Oprah Winfrey case will be heard in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Mary Lou
Robinson of Amarillo, Texas, and lawyers on both sides say they are ready for trial.

    They will focus on Lyman's remarks on the Oprah show that U.S. cattle are subject to
mad-cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy), a brain-destroying ailment that has killed
cattle in England. It is believed to have been spread by cattle feed containing ground parts of
sheep.

    Lyman told Winfrey's large television audience that thousands of American cows die each year
of unknown causes and are "grounded up, turned into feed and fed back to other cows. If only
one of them has mad-cow disease, (it) has the potential to infect thousands."

    Turning to her audience, Winfrey asked: "Now doesn't that concern you all a little bit right
here, hearing that?

   "It has just stopped me cold from eating another burger. I'm stopped."

    Cattle futures plummeted after the broadcast.

    The suit was filed by Paul Engler, an Amarillo rancher, and Cactus Feeders, a large cattle
producer in the Texas Panhandle. They demanded $6.7 million from Lyman, Winfrey and her
production company.

    Under Texas law, anyone who says that a perishable food product is unsafe - and knows it to
be false - might be required to pay damages to the producer of such a product.

    The 13 states with food-disparagement laws are Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida,
Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas.

    States reported to be considering similar legislation include California, Iowa, Maryland,
Nebraska, South Carolina, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 17:19:05 -0500
From: allen schubert <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Subscription Options--Admin Note
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

(does anyone notice?) the usual routine (and preemptive) posting......

To unsubscribe, send e-mail to:  [e-mail]

In text of message:  unsubscribe ar-news
--------------------------------------------------------------
Here are some items of general information (found in the "welcome letter"
sent when people subscribe--but often lose!)...included:  how to post and
how to change your subscription status (useful if you are going on
vacation--either by "unsubscribe" or "postpone").
---------------------------------------------------------------

To post messages to the list, send mail to [e-mail]
POSTING

To post a *news-related item* (no discussions), send your message to:

     [e-mail]

Appropriate postings to AR-News include: posting a news item, requesting
information on some event, or responding to a request for information.
Discussions on AR-News will NOT be allowed and we ask that any
commentary either be taken to AR-Views or to private E-mail.
------------------------------------------

***General Subscription Information***
ALL THE FOLLOWING SHOULD NOT be sent to ar-news !!!
(send them to [e-mail])
For all commands, use a blank Subject line.
---------------------------------------------------

To request a digest version, send mail to [e-mail]
with the following single line:

     set ar-news mail digest

To switch back to immediate mail, and to get copies of *your* postings
also, send the following command:

     set ar-news mail ack

or the following to not get your own postings:

     set ar-news mail noack

To see how you are set up ***(and to see if you are still subscribed!)***, use

     set ar-news

To temporarily stop mailings, use:

     set ar-news mail postpone

To re-enable it, use ack, noack, or digest as above.

To unsubscribe, use:

     unsubscribe ar-news

or:

     signoff ar-news

If you have to subscribe again, use:

     subscribe ar-news first_name last_name   (use false name if you want!)

If you have problems, please contact:

     Allen Schubert
     [e-mail]


Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 17:37:53 -0500
From: allen schubert <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Cc: leah wacksman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Embedded Code/Attachments--Admin Note
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

PLEASE do not used embedded html (or other code) in your posts to AR-News.
Also, avoid attaching files to posts to AR-News (if an attachment may be
useful, offer to send it privately to those who respond to you via private
e-mail).  (If this is a problem, e-mail me _privately_!)

Both of these reduce the effectiveness of your post as many subscriber
(worldwide) do not have the same software as you.  Your important news item
may appear as gibberish -- people do not like reading such things.  And,
considering the international nature of the list, people may find the
"English" of html quite confusing.  Most people still get their e-mail in
ASCII format.  (For those who don't understand, too get an idea of embedded
codes, on Netscape, you can view the source code of a web page by clicking
"view" and then clicking "document source".  Internet Explorer has a
similar feature.)

While many subscribers may have no problem handling attachments, some do.
For some people, an attached file is downloaded as gibberish, gibberish
that takes time to download.  For others, it may be a useless thing that is
"forgotten" after the message was deleted--however, the "attachment" may
still be on the hard drive.

And...depending on the attachment, it *might* contain a virus if it uses a
"template" (this type of virus is known as a "macrovirus").  (For virus
information, there are a number of sources on the web.)

So...please offer to send the attachment via private e-mail (for those
subscribers who reply privately).

Allen Schubert
AR-News Listowner
[e-mail]


Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 18:46:56 -0600
From: [e-mail] (Rick Bogle)
To: "AR-News Post" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Yerkes, Hepatitis-B
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
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CNN reports that another animal care assistant has been splashed with
monkey waste.  The worker was admitted to a local (Emory?) hospital but has
tested negative for the Herpes-B virus which killed a worker earlier this
month.
     The CNN photo shows a worker with no eye protection holding an infant
macaque.

Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 20:52:04 -0800
From: Andrew Gach <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Another researcher exposed to monkey virus
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
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Second researcher exposed to monkey virus

Reuters
ATLANTA (December 31, 1997 4:42 p.m. EST)

Doctors in Atlanta said they were keeping a close watch on a primate
researcher on Wednesday, four days after she was exposed to a deadly
monkey virus that killed another researcher last month.

The researcher from the Yerkes Regional Primate Center entered Emory
University Hospital on Saturday, immediately after she was splashed with
body fluids from a monkey infected with the deadly herpes B virus.

Hospital officials said she was released on Wednesday afternoon after
tests showed no sign of the virus, but they would continue to closely
monitor her condition.

They declined to identify the 41-year-old woman, although they said she
lived in Winder, Georgia, about 30 miles (48 km) north of Atlanta.

"Four days after exposure there is no evidence of herpes B infection,"
said hospital spokeswoman Sylvia Wroble.

"We will continue to monitor her for the next month to be sure the
prognosis doesn't change," Wroble said at a news conference.

Herpes B is common in monkeys but rare, and often fatal, in humans.

Elizabeth Griffin, 22, died on Dec. 10 about four weeks after she was
splattered in the eye with fluid by an infected monkey she was carrying
in a cage.

Robin Slater, who talked to reporters outside the hospital and
identified himself as a friend of the latest researcher to be exposed,
said she had only suffered a reddened eye, which Griffin had also
experienced.

"She's doing real well, she's up and walking around," Slater said of his
friend. He also said she was treated with antibiotics as a precaution.

Griffin did not seek medical attention until two weeks after she was
splashed. Officials at Emory University Hospital said she was treated
and released but later her condition worsened and by the time she was
readmitted it was too late to save her.

After Griffin died, Yerkes began requiring researchers working with
primates to wear safety goggles. Slater said the latest researcher
exposed to the virus was wearing goggles.

"She was wearing protective gear," he said. "All of the precautions were
taken. It's just sometimes the goggles don't fit tight or something, and
the fluid got in her eye."

By JUNE PRESTON, Reuters
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 20:54:28 -0800
From: Andrew Gach <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Animals and the Media
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
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Buddhists pray for chickens' souls in Hong Kong poultry slaughter

The Associated Press
HONG KONG (December 31, 1997 4:18 p.m. EST)

Brown-robed Buddhist monks and nuns began seven days of prayer and
meditation for the souls of 1.3 million dead chickens Wednesday, even as
government teams gassed and slashed the stragglers in Hong Kong's
poultry slaughter.

In his first public comments since the unprecedented outbreak of bird
flu among humans, Hong Kong leader Tung Chee-hwa said his government had
handled it resolutely and appropriately.

"Some people said we reacted too fast. Some people said we reacted too
slowly. Actually ... we have all along, until now, been handling it very
carefully," Tung told reporters as he toured a newly chicken-free and
sterilized poultry market.

A prominent daily accused Tung of failing to provide leadership and
reassure the community in a time of crisis.

"Chief Executive Tung, what are you so busy doing?" the editorial in the
Apple Daily asked.

So far, 13 people are known to have contracted A H5N1, or bird flu, and
six others are suspected of having the mysterious disease. Four have
died. Doctors have pinpointed chickens as the likely source.

In a sign of growing public anxiety, a spokeswoman for a major hospital
said emergency room visits were up 20 percent to 687 on Tuesday, the
latest day for which figures were available, as people with coughs and
fever sought exams.

However, the number of confirmed and suspected bird flu cases has not
risen since Saturday.

The poultry slaughter, which started Monday, was basically over late
Wednesday, the government said. Hong Kong had pressed its civil servants
into duty for the killing, carried out by slitting the birds' throats
when supplies of carbon dioxide ran out.

Shocked by the carnage, 80 monks and nuns chanted sutras, or Buddhist
scriptures, and prayed to speed the birds' soul toward reincarnation.
They were led in prayer by abbot Yong Sing, resplendent in saffron and
gold-threaded red robes.

The ceremony took place at the Buddhist Western Monastery, an ornate
temple tucked away in the dry, brown hills of Hong Kong's northwestern
Tsuen Wan district.

Fingering the amber beads on his prayer necklace, abbot Yong Sing
warned: "Hong Kong will suffer retribution."

"People and chickens may look different, but they are both alive, and we
shouldn't kill live things," said the abbot, a portly man with a shaved
head and bristling gray eyebrows.

At the market, Tung spoke briefly with several dozen truck drivers who
were demanding government assistance. They said the ban on imports of
live chickens, which began Dec. 23 and is expected to last weeks, had
thrown them out of work.

"We have no income," said a worker who identified himself only as Chan.
"I have a family and it's very difficult."

Hong Kong has promised to pay farmers and vendors for the loss of their
chickens and to cancel rent at vendors' stalls in public markets for
three months.

Compensation figures will be fixed in coming days, but farmers have
already demanded much more than the $3.85 per bird that the government
has suggested.

Hong Kong people face the prospect of eating frozen chicken for weeks to
come, probably through the Lunar New Year on Jan. 28.

The Lunar New Year is the main holiday in the Chinese calendar and is
usually celebrated with family feasts featuring chicken. Few Cantonese
chefs would willingly use frozen chicken.

Restaurants and bars around Hong Kong, lacking other choices, posted
notices advertising their chickens were flown in from the United States,
Brazil, or other safe places. The diseased birds are believed to have
come from China. On Wednesday, South Africa banned import of meat from
Chinese poultry.

"For the last few days, our chicken sales have dropped down. But I would
like to tell all our regular customers they don't need to be afraid,"
said Tess Watson, owner of the Old China Hand pub, which is known for
its fried chicken.

Rosa Bartolome, an employee at the Midnight Express, which offers
chicken curry, posted a sign saying "USA chicken" in the window.

But she said most customers were regulars who don't seem concerned.

"They say, we are buying here a lot and nothing happens to us," she
said. She noted doctors have said cooking chicken kills the virus, but
added, "Of course, I am not eating chicken."

For abbot Yong Sing, the solution was simple. Eat vegetarian, as
Buddhist monks always do.

"Don't eat meat. It's not clean," he admonished before returning to
prayer.

By DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW, The Associated Press

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

This article is a good example of how news are presented in the media.

The Buddhist priest is "resplendent in saffron and gold-threaded red
robes", "a portly man with a shaved head and bristling gray eyebrows",
"fingering amber beads on his prayer necklace".  Not one word is said
about the appearance of those who ordered or performed the slaughter or
of the farmers and merchants who demand higher compensation, or of the
hellish scene of the mass slaughter.

Obviously, people bedecked in saffron and gold-threaded red robes, who
pray for the souls of chickens and advocate vegetarianism cannot be
taken seriously!  They are weirdoes, light years removed from reality as
we know it.

Animal rights activists are regularly presented in a like manner.  Their
words are taken out of context, their placards and costumes are shown
ridiculous and their concerns, plain silly.  Conversely, those on the
opposite side are shown as serious, altruistic and down-to-earth folks -
just like us, the readers!

Andy
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 20:56:24 -0800
From: Andrew Gach <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Human guinea pigs
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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MIT and Quaker Oats settle lawsuit over experiments half a century ago

The Associated Press
BOSTON (December 31, 1997 00:07 a.m. EST)

Quaker Oats and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have agreed to
pay $1.85 million to settle a lawsuit over an experiment in which
radioactive oatmeal was fed to more than 100 students at a boys' school
in the 1940s and '50s.

Boys at the Fernald School in Waltham were given the cereal containing
radioactive iron and calcium as part of an experiment to prove that
nutrients in Quaker oatmeal travel throughout the body.

Quaker wanted to match the advertising claims of their competitor,
farina-based Cream of Wheat, said Alexander Bok, a lawyer for the
plaintiffs said Tuesday.

The boys -- many of whom were wards of the state and inaccurately
classified as mentally retarded -- suffered no ill effects, Bok said.

The boys joined the "Fernald Science Club," which was used for the
experiments, but consent forms failed to mention that the oatmeal
contained radiation, a violation of their civil rights, Bok said.

The federal lawsuit, filed two years ago and seeking $60 million, said
some of the boys were exposed to more radiation than allowed under
federal limits. MIT issued a statement Tuesday saying the exposures were
about equal to the amount of natural background radiation people receive
from the environment every year.

The university said a state task force in 1994 determined the students
suffered "no significant health effects." The task force, however, said
the students' civil rights were violated.

MIT President Charles Vest apologized for the way the Fernald
experiments were conducted when reports about them surfaced in 1994.

Quaker Oats continues to deny it played a large role in the experiments.

"Quaker's role was limited to a small research grant to MIT's Department
of Nutrition," said Mark Dollins, Quaker spokesman. Quaker also donated
cereal for the studies, he said.

Dollins noted that MIT is funding most of the settlement.

Originally, the lawsuit had eight to ten plaintiffs. Last week,
newspaper advertisements were run inviting potential parties to the case
to identify themselves.

About 20 plaintiffs have come forward. The state is sending notice to
about 100 others believed to have been subjected to the experiments.

A hearing is set for April 6 to finalize the settlement. Bok said its
possible some of the people who took part in the experiments won't agree
to settle, in which case MIT could withdraw from the offer.

By LESLIE MILLER, Associated Press Writer
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 20:58:12 -0800
From: Andrew Gach <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Starving livestock fed from helicopters
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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New Mexico livestock getting fed, some from sky

The Associated Press
VAUGHN, N.M. (December 31, 1997 1:54 p.m. EST)

Tens of thousands of starving livestock stranded on snow-covered range
land in eastern New Mexico are finally getting something to eat, with
some of their food falling from the sky.

Ranchers broke through snowdrifts on Tuesday in an attempt to feed their
scattered herds and assess the damage, while two Air National Guard
C-130 cargo planes dropped the first 24 tons of hay on ranches in
hard-hit Chaves County. More food drops were planned for Wednesday.

"What we're trying to do right now is get calories into the cattle, to
keep their body heat up so they don't subject themselves to
hypothermia," said Lou Gallegos, chief of staff to Gov. Gary Johnson,
who toured some affected counties by helicopter.

"I saw a whole lot of cattle that were standing up and moving toward
water, which is a very good sign," Gallegos said.

The food drops were also intended for sheep, said Bob Redden, a
spokesman for the state Office of Emergency Management.

The New Mexico Cattle Growers Association estimated Tuesday that as many
as 35,000 head of cattle and 60,000 head of sheep could die in a
nine-county area after a series of snow storms battered eastern New
Mexico last week.

High winds blew the few feet of fallen snow into drifts that ranged from
8 feet to 14 feet. Crusted snow prevented livestock from grazing and ice
covered their water tanks.

"We've already got some dead, especially among young cattle," said Leo
Larranaga, ranch manager of the 260,000-acre Lobo Ranch near Vaughn.

Larranaga and his crew want to drive the cattle, which they hadn't seen
since Christmas Day, closer to the ranch house.

"A cow gives up awful, awful easy. ... They just won't move," said Norm
Plank, executive vice president of the New Mexico Farm and Livestock
Bureau.

Cattle will crowd together along a fence and stand still, tails to the
wind, while snow drifts over them and they freeze to death, according to
Plank. "It's a real dire situation," he said.

By BARRY MASSEY, The Associated Press


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