Another proud moment for Blair's government - item 2. A promised inquiry into evidence of horrific suffering as part of transgenic experiments has now been suppressed by Blair minister, Jack Straw.
But then the Blair government's support for "progressive pro-science attitudes" has consistently encompassed bending the rules and flouting the law in favour of powerful commercial interests.
"Rest assured, the government is ready to support and enhance the competitiveness of the biotechnology industry. We believe you are a real success story in the UK...We want the UK to remain a leader in this field." -- Mo Mowlam January 2000
5 items:
1. Sheep with human genes in China
2. Straw Stops Inquiry into Horrific Suffering in Experiments
3. Too Soon for Animal-Human Heart Transplants
4. Jailed xeno surgeon claims pig-to-human transfusion
5. Cows with human genes in Quebec
for what's wrong with xeno see: http://www.crt-online.org/wrong.html
for more on animal genetix see: http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/gmanimal.htm
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1. Transgenic Sheep Born in Beijing
From Xinhuanet: http://202.84.17.11/english/htm/20001224/282594.htm
2000.12.24
BEIJING, December 24 (Xinhuanet) -- Chinese scientists have made a breakthrough in transgene fields by creating sheep with human genes, according to a press conference held in Beijing Sunday.
The three sheep, two male and one female, are now living in the Shunyi county in Beijing, said scientists from the China Agricultural University.
The transgenic sheep were created through the "sheep mammary bio-reactor" project, which integrated some human genes with the embryo of a sheep.
The project started in 1998. Four transgenic sheep were born this June, but one female died three days later.
Through the use of transgenosis technology, scientists said, people are able to obtain valuable protein and medicine from the milk of the transgenic sheep.
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2. Straw Vetoes Inquiry into Horrific Primate Suffering
High Court Hearing Will Put Home Office on Trial
Uncaged News Release (UK)
Tuesday 12 December 2000
In an extraordinary announcement, the Home Secretary has refused to investigate a research programme involving the horrific suffering and deaths of hundreds of higher primates. The research into cross-species transplant experiments also involved breaches of the law and was littered with hundreds of errors, some of which had painful and lethal consequences for the monkeys concerned.
Imutran Ltd, the Cambridge-based biotech subsidiary of the multinational drug company Novartis, was responsible for the research programme. On Thursday 14th December (commencing 10.30am) Imutran will attempt to obtain an injunction against anti-cruelty group Uncaged Campaigns and the organisation's Director, Dan Lyons, at the High Court in London to prevent the evidence from being placed in the public domain.
Several thousand pages of documents leaked to Uncaged Campaigns from Imutran in spring were reported on by the Daily Express on September 21. They reveal starkly how monkeys and wild-caught baboons had been observed shivering, unsteady, in spasm, swollen, bruised and with blood and pus seeping from wounds after Imutran scientists had transplanted transgenic pig hearts and kidneys into the primates. In one of the most grotesque studies, one monkey which had a pig heart transplanted into its neck was seen holding the transplant which was "swollen red" and "seeping yellow fluid" in its final days. The experiments were performed at controversial testing company Huntingdon Life Sciences, who were responsible for many of the errors in the conduct of the research.
The episode highlights the cosy relationship between Home Office Inspectors - charged with regulating animal research - and the establishments they are supposed to regulate. These experiments were conducted with the blessing and support of the Home Office, despite a legal ban on "severe" suffering. Breaches in laws and regulations went unpunished even when they lead to the suffering and death of animals.
After the story was revealed in the Daily Express and by Uncaged Campaigns on 21 September, the Junior Home Office Minister Mike O'Brien announced that allegations of wrongdoing in animal research would be investigated by the Home Office Inspectorate, and overseen by the advisory Animal Procedures Committee.
However, in a quite breathtaking move, a subsequent announcement by Home Secretary Jack Straw has quashed the inquiry.
Dan Lyons, author of the 150 page Diaries of Despair report based on the documents, comments:
"This is the most deplorable and desperate reaction I have witnessed from this Government. It is clearly a last-ditch attempt to keep a lid on what will inevitably be an embarrassing episode for the Home Office.
The Home Office appears to be content for companies involved in vivisection to break the law and inflict horrific suffering on animals - and is committed to protecting them from justice. This is a scandal of profound significance."
The injunction hearing will effectively put the Home Office on trial. One of the central arguments for the Defence is that there is a clear public interest in the facts about this research being widely known because, among other reasons, there is evidence that:
The Home Office has failed to regulate the research properly because of its indulgent attitude to the researchers and corresponding disregard for animal welfare, in contravention of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986. Imutran's experiments caused severe suffering, which is illegal. Imutran have distorted the truth in their public statements about the success of the research and the welfare of the primates.
Dan Lyons comments:
"The stakes in the case could not be higher. Apart from being a test case for freedom of expression under the new Human Rights Act, the Home Office is effectively on trial. We have a very strong case and, if the judgement is favourable to us, it will send a clear message to the Government that it can no longer bend the rules and flout the law in favour of powerful commercial interests. By publishing the documents, we have merely sought to stimulate public debate and try to ensure that the Home Office gives the interests of animals the consideration that the law and the public demands."
For further information and interviews, please contact Dan Lyons - 0114 2722220 / 07733 326068
Notes for editors
· No legal action has been taken against either the Daily Express or Uncaged Campaigns regarding the truthfulness of the published articles and the Diaries of Despair report.
The case will be heard by the Vice Chancellor, Lord Morritt. Solicitor for Uncaged Campaigns and Dan Lyons is Martin Smith, at Simons, Muirhead & Burton (020 7556 3111). The Counsel for the Defendants is David Bean QC from Matrix Chambers. An Early Day Motion will be tabled this week by Liberal Democrat Animal Welfare Spokesperson Norman Baker MP, calling upon the Government to establish an independent judicial inquiry into the xenotransplantation research programme and the adequacy of the Home Office regulation of the research. The following stars have signed a statement prepared by Uncaged Campaigns which calls for an independent judicial inquiry: Peter Gabriel, Jilly Cooper, Bruce Forsyth, Benjamin Zephaniah, Vernon Coleman, Alexei Sayle, Chrissie Hynde, Hayley Mills, Julian Clary, Annie Lennox, Joanna Lumley. Copies of Home Office letters and further background information, including the Daily Express articles, are available on/via our dedicated website at www.xenodiaries.org
Uncaged Campaigns 2nd Floor, St Matthew's House, 45 Carver Street, Sheffield, S1 4FT. Tel: 0114 2722220. Fax: 0114 2722225. Email: [email protected] Web: www.xenodiaries.org & www.uncaged.co.uk
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3. Too Soon for Animal-Human Heart Transplants
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Dec 14 (Reuters) - It is too soon to start experimenting with animal-to-human transplants of hearts or lungs because the procedure is still far too risky, an international transplant group said on Friday.
Although taking organs from farm animals such as pigs offers the possibility of an almost limitless supply, the organs still do not work well in people and there is too big a chance that an unknown virus could pass into the human population, the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation said.
"There are two major concerns -- one is, can we get the immunology right, can we get the science right," said Dr. David Cooper, a former transplant surgeon and president of the International Xenotransplantation Association, said in a telephone interview.
"The other major concern is, are we going to do any harm by transferring infectious agents to the patient ... then infect the community."
Several studies have shown that pigs carry viruses known as porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERVs). People carry their own versions of such viruses, and it is not clear whether they can be passed on from tissue or organ transplants, although they have been shown to pass from one species to another.
"We wanted to add our weight to the fact that we felt this should not be considered safe and at the moment there is not enough information about it," Cooper, who worked on the statement and who is currently at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, said.
Scientists fear that not only could the patient be infected but that the viruses could change in their bodies, become more dangerous and then spread to the population at large.
In August Charlestown, Massachusetts-based BioTransplant Inc. said it had bred miniature swine that carried the viruses, but that did not transmit them to human cells the way normal pigs do. It hopes to further develop the pigs.
But even before that hurdle is crossed, Cooper pointed out there is the bigger problem of making such transplants work in the first place.
"No transplanted pig lung has functioned for even 24 hours," the group pointed out in its report, published in Friday's issue of the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation.
The reason is that pig cells are covered with a sugar that human bodies reject. Scientists are trying to genetically engineer pigs whose cells lack this sugar.
MUCH DISCUSSION, NO GUIDELINES
Cooper said his group felt there was a lot of discussion about the issue of animal to human transplants, known as xenotransplants, and too few guidelines.
"So we decided to come up with our own recommendations," he said. "There is quite a bit of research going on in this field. The society thought it would be better to plan ahead and not wait until somebody came up and said 'I am ready to do it'."
Among their recommendations -- that 60 percent of primates such as a baboon live for at least three months with an organ transplanted from another animal before tests on humans could even be considered.
There is a dire need for organs. More than 70,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of people around the world are on waiting lists for new organs, but there are not nearly enough to go around.
An estimated 10 people die every day in the United States alone while waiting for a heart, liver, kidney or other organ.
Cooper said he feared that reports of using pig organs would make people less likely to donate their own or their relative's organs.
"It has got to be made clear to the public that we are not ready for xenotransplants at the present time," he said.
Companies researching xenotransplantation include Geron, Imutran, a British subsidiary of Switzerland's Novartis, Nextran Inc., a division of Baxter Healthcare Corporation, DeForest, Wisconsin-based Infigen, Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. of New Haven, Connecticut and Boston's Genzyme Transgenics Corp..
13:10 12-14-00 Copyright 2000 Reuters Limited
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4. Pig-to-man Blood Transfusion May Be Just the Start
Monday, December 18, 2000
The New York Post
http://www.nypost.com/health/19029.htm
By BILL HOFFMANN
A heart doctor has given a patient a transfusion of pig's blood in an operation that may pave the way for animal-to-human organ transplants.
Dr. Dhaniram Baruah, a London surgeon, injected more than half a pint of the blood into a man suffering from severe anemia.
Baruah, 50, says he has developed a method of preventing the rejection of animal tissue by the human body, and hopes to continue research on animal donors in human medicine.
The experimental transfusion took place when critically ill laborer Hussan Ali, 22, agreed to receive the blood last month in a last-ditch effort to save his life.
Almost four weeks later, Ali - who has an undisclosed illness - is alive and has been discharged from the hospital.
Test results confirm Ali has "nonhuman" blood cells circulating in his body.
Baruah believes he is on the way to a medical breakthrough that will provide a plentiful supply of blood for operations - particularly in underdeveloped countries where human blood donors are in short supply.
Pig blood might be used in the treatment of AIDS, hemophilia and other blood disorders, he claims.
"I believe I can use the same technique to make donor bone-marrow cells compatible from unmatched donors. It will be of great value in treating leukemia patients," he told The Sunday Times in Britain.
He says the key is an "antigen-suppression agent," necessary to prevent the body from rejecting tissue from another organism.
But he won't discuss details because he is planning to patent his discovery.
Animal-to-human transplants have been controversial because of the seemingly insurmountable problem of new, untreatable diseases getting into humans from transplanted animal organs.
The creators of Dolly the cloned sheep announced last August that they were abandoning work on animal-to-human transplantation.
Three years ago, Baruah caused outrage in India when he performed the world's first pig-to-human transplant.
The patient regained consciousness after receiving the heart and lungs of a pig, but died a week later, apparently from acute infection.
The surgeon spent more than a month in jail before prosecutors dropped charges that he had contravened India's organ-transplant act.
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5. GM cows for Canada
http://www.hoovershbn.hoovers.com/bin/story?StoryId=CoKRi0b9DtJi4ndyXotKX
By Julie Remy
TORONTO, Dec 28 (Reuters) - A Netherlands biotech company is in talks with Quebec government's investment agency to develop genetically modified cows' milk that could be used to treat diseases in humans. Jean-Yves Duthel, vice-president of the Societe generale de financement du Quebec (SGF), said his agency has started "exclusive" talks with Pharming Group NV to study the feasibility of a farm in southeastern Quebec that would raise the genetically modified cows.
According to the plan, "transgenic" cows raised in Pharming's labs in Wisconsin would be transferred to the farm when they reach milking age. The milk would then be collected to extract human proteins used in the treatment of genetic diseases, blood conditions or infectious diseases. One of the proteins, for example, could help the body stop internal or external bleeding, an application especially useful in surgery, Pharming spokeswoman Tonua Fedusenko said.
Duthel said the Quebec government would be ready to invest a minimum of C$10 million in the project. He added that several Montreal companies have the expertise needed to develop Pharming's products, he said. "All of this is part of the negotiations," he told Reuters. The results of the talks are not expected to be announced for five or six months, Duthel said. Pharming is also in talks with the states of Wisconsin, Maryland and Virginia for its transgenic operation.
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