CivAb index


FDA has not banned pig to human transplants

                from Campaign for Responsible Transplants  - Alix Fano

Deadline for comments July 6, 1999

Docket No. 99D-0557

Dockets Management Branch (HFA-305)

Food and Drug Administration

5630 Fishers Lane, Room 1061

Rockville MD 20852


Vaccine assault on infants and children worsens  with introduction of hepatitis B requirement


Letters needed to defeat VP Gore's High Production Volume Challenge program

Please write again to VP Al Gore pointing out the absurdity of testing chemicals we already know to be toxic when the only sensible thing to do is limit, or, if possible avoid, exposure to them.  Tell him we already know the effect of many of these chemicals on humans from medical records and that there are better scientific methods of looking for their effect on humans than overdosing other species which have specific physiological characteristics making the responses of one species unpredictable for another.

Vice President Al Gore

The White House

Washington DC 20500


Canada retains ban on use of bovine hormone

despite tremendous pressure and sneakily incomplete report of study being furnished to members of the Senate Agriculture Committee


Canada and EU continue to ban American beef     

because of use of growth hormone.  Secretary of Agriculture

Dan Glickman seeks to impose tariffs on European goods.  more


The hormone debate

The Food and Drug Administration and the World Health Organization consider the six sex hormones and combinations thereof, used to make 90% of American cows grow faster, are not harmful for people who eat the cows when the hormones are planted under the thin skin of the cows' ears.


Rather than fiddling with cows' ears, some beef producers have jabbed them into the neck muscles where more blood circulates.  This gave the cows a big dose in a hurry instead of a gradual one.


The FDA says this is no longer a problem, but epidemiologist Dr Samuel Epstein at the University of Illinois wonders why amounts equivalent to "what a young boy produces in a day" have been found in 500 grams (c. 17 oz.) of beef.


Johanna Fink-Gremmels, professor of veterinary medicine at Utrecht University and coordinator of the European commission's scientific group on sex hormones, cites evidence that links one of the hormones, estradiol-17beta, to edometrial and breast cancers.  There is a difference of opinion on whether this is because the hormone alters DNA or attacks receptive cells.  -  The Economist May 15, 1999


Canada bans blood from donors who have visited the UK

in case they have been exposed to  "mad cow" disease.


GM corn poisons larvae of monarch butterflies


ON THE DRUG SCENE

"Think about women's bodies.  We go on the pill practically at puberty and then we take it until we want to get pregnant.  By then we need fertility drugs because we waited so long.  And then we go on hormone-replacement therapy for the rest of our lives.  So we spend only our first 12 to 13 years without taking drugs."  -  Dr Susan Love, MD                 

     

      High blood pressure treatment leads to additional problems

       Transplant drug (cyclosporin) ups risk of cancer

       Canadian Dental Association advises moderating fluoride intake

       FDA maintains Celebrex is safe despite hemorrhages and 10 deaths

       Rezulin recommended as drug of last resort only


".....a healthy population means a dead pharmaceutical industry..."

Hans Ruesch, Naked Empress  page 14


RESEARCH WITHOUT ANIMALS

     New cancer diagnostic tool possible  - x-raying hair

      Iron cooking pots are effective in warding off anemia

      More potassium means fewer stroks

      Vitamin D contributes tobone strength

      Minnesota study finds screening cuts colon cancer deaths

      Clinical trial of new drugs on stroke victims


A Tale of Fright by Jack Tanis discusses holocaust in relation to animal experimentation.


MAILBAG

Letters from: Pauline Blanc, San Francisco; Irwin Bross, PhD, Amherst, NY; Michael Burman, Birmingham, England; Hans Ruesch, Switzerland; Celeste Silva, Chile; Adam Watson, Brooklyn NY; Rhona Zaid, PhD, Simi Valley CA

             

News from New Zealand by Bette Overell


The A-V Situation in Italy by Lisa Terzariol


Letter to The Scotsman from Jackie Shortland


Researchers neglect to disclose funding sources


Environment a factor in Parkinson's and Schizophrenia


National Anti-vivisection Society loan library of superior

materials that replace animals in education.       

1-800-888-6287 (NAVS) and ask for Linda Petty


Schedule of Primate Freedom Tour June 1 - September 4

                  Starting in Seattle, WA and winding up in Bethesda MD


A message from Monsanto

           "Our genes are incorporated into approximately 19 million acres around the world, covering an area largerthan Switzerland and The Netherlands combined.  Can Europe at this point really resist?"

Tom McDermott, Monsanto's head of public affairs for Europe


                At the UN summit conference in February, Monsanto Rep Val Giddings said the company had 60 GM crops in 45 countries and spoke against regulation that would "massively disrupt" trade in GM materials.


                                                                                                                CivAb index

Volume 10  Issue 2                                                                                                                   Summer 1999

The Civil Abolitionist


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