Pharmaceutical industry tries to drive stake through the heart of the ghost of Hans Ruesch ZURICH, Switzerland––Voters in Switzerland on February 13, 2022 crushed a proposed national ban on biomedical research using either animal or human subjects by a margin of 21% for, 79% against. Switzerland has some of the strongest animal protection laws […]
Robert Dole: why did Pacelle, Amundson, & Bershadker inflate his record?
Robert Dole, at best, had a good record on animal issues for a Trumpist––but he was no Hubert Humphrey, nor even a Richard Nixon Robert Joseph Dole, 98, the 1996 Republican presidential nominee, U.S. Senator from Kansas 1969-1996, and a Kansas member of the U.S. House of Representatives 1960-1968, died on December 5, 2021. Lauded […]
Soon-to-retire NIH chief Francis Collins went both ways on lab animals
“We are not rats and we are not even other primates,” Collins said, but NIH is now using more of both WASHINGTON D.C.–– Francis S. Collins, who both de-emphasized animal research and presided over expanded animal research during his 12 years as director of the National Institutes of Health [NIH], on October 5, 2021 disclosed […]
The Body Shop to go “100% vegan” by 2023––but wasn’t it already?
Expanding the gulf between image and reality is what the cosmetics industry is all about LONDON, U.K.––Cosmetics and personal care industry media are abuzz with the June 1, 2021 announcement by The Body Shop that every product it offers will be 100% vegan by the end of 2023. Many consumers, on the other hand, […]
Animal labs get free pass on inspections; AV groups mostly don’t notice
Harvard law student discovers animal lab inspections have been cut short since 2019 CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts––The silence from a cage of dead monkeys could scarcely be more deafening. Three business days plus a weekend of apparent near-complete non-response from the animal advocacy community have elapsed since the Harvard Law School Animal Law & Policy Clinic […]
Anti-vivisectionism goes to the dogs
Or, “A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy, except in their capacity to raise funds.” WASHINGTON D.C.––Lest there be any doubt that antivivisection advocacy in the 21st century has gone to the dogs, the White Coat Waste Project, the Humane Society of the U.S., and Stop Animal Exploitation Now in recent […]
Rabbit sperm donors may be retired from service, but not rats, mice, & birds
And not most rabbits in laboratory use, either WASHINGTON D.C.––Former Environmental Protection Agency chief Andrew Wheeler, in one of his last actions before leaving office with the Donald Trump presidential administration, “issued a January 20, 2021 directive instructing the agency to plan for the retirement of the last remaining rabbits in the EPA’s taxpayer-funded […]
How does anyone run a monkey through a washing machine by accident?
Technicians at Oregon Health Sciences University, Shin Nippon Biomedical Laboratories, Harvard, & Bristol-Myers Squibb have managed to do it HILLSBORO, Oregon––An Oregon Health Sciences University internal investigation into the deaths of two rhesus macaques who were killed on August 13, 2020 when their cage was run through a cage-washing machine with the monkeys still inside […]
COVID-19: seldom has animal testing offered so little to so many
Still no animal models, three months into global crisis BEIJING, WASHINGTON D.C.––A hint of the desperation of practitioners of traditional animal-based biomedical research to contribute something of relevance to the global fight against COVID-19 was posted late on March 18, 2019 by the online periodical Live Science. “When exposed to the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 […]
Why is Trump EPA chief cutting animal testing while the NRDC defends it?
Natural Resources Defense Council has fought for 50 years to make EPA enforce chemical safety standards WASHINGTON D.C.––How has the Natural Resources Defense Council, whose emblem is a polar bear, become the front line of public defense of the animal testing industry? Why is Environmental Protection Agency administrator Andrew Wheeler leading the most aggressive effort […]