Stop Aussie farm selling monkeys for experiments

[Guest guest]

Date 09:05 Aug 3

Subject LIBERATE: Monkey Farm

 

Exerpt from the Animal Liberation NSW mailing list

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SHUT DOWN THE MONKEY FARM IN AUSTRALIA

 

There is a dangerous push in Australia to breed more nonhuman primates for

animal experimentation than ever before in history due to perceived

successes in the field of genetics in this country.

 

Hundreds of monkeys will be bred in the near future for medical experiments

at a farm in Churchill, Victoria. These monkeys will be bred to order and

sold for research, which will include testing an HIV vaccine, and studying

Parkinsons disease, strokes and Alzheimers disease.

 

What is not mentioned however is how vivisectors induce a stroke or

Alzheimers or " Parkinson " into their hapless victims -- the monkeys.

This is done through brain-damaging the individual.

 

Take Alzheimer disease (AD) for example. This condition causes

confusion, memory loss and dementia in millions of elderly people

The cause remains unknown and there is no effective treatment.

In the brains of AD patients an abnormal build-up of proteins occurs,

in the form of plaques and tangles. No one knows if these protein

deposits are a cause or a result of the disease.

 

Eventually the brain cells start to die, the brain shrinks and there is a

loss of mental abilities with increasing age.

 

No animals suffer from AD in the way humans do, yet many animals have been

consumed in a attempt to find that perfect laboratory " model. " Macaque

monkeys develop protein deposits in the brain as they age, but they do not

suffer from the severe form of disease seen in humans. In any case, monkeys

in the natural would live beyond 30 years of age, and that means to a

vivisector that it is generally too expensive to keep them in laboratories

for that amount of time. " Blind Freddie " would know that to brain damage a

monkey to study Alzheime disease is bogus. AD is an aging, slow,

chronic degenerative disease. Brain damage is not.

 

There are so many more examples but due to lack of space

l cite only one more. For over 20 years chimpanzees and monkeys have been

used for AIDS research and what has been yielded? Rich primate researchers

and dead-ends,

that what! Never before in the history of disease research have in

vitro methodologies and the tools of modern molecular biology played such

important roles in the case of the AIDS epidemic. It is irrefutable that

the overwhelming body of knowledge we have accumulated on AIDS

has come from the cooperation utilising epidemiological, in vitro,

and clinical research together.

Nonhuman primates can't get fully blown AIDS. Only humans do.

Nonhuman primates get a monkey virus called Simian immunodeficiency virus

(SIV) but as AIDS vaccine researcher Dani P. Bolognesi notes,

 

No animal models faithfully reproduce human immunodeficency virus type-1

(HIV-1) infection and disease in humans, and the studies of experimental

vaccines in animal models of disease caused by lentiviruses have yielded

disparate results, making it difficult to determine what is required for a

successful HIV-1 vaccine?

 

So Animal Defenders is an Australian AR group who are strenuously opposing

plans by the National Health and Medical Research Council who gave this $5

million dollar grant away to fund a breeding and research centre.

 

Professor Stephen Harrap, head of the committee that manages the Melbourne

University macaque colony and will be on the committee that will oversee

this new centre is quoted as saying that research monkeys are treated with

respect. " We treat them as very precious creatures, " he said. Not precious

enough to spare their lives Prof. Harrap!!

 

The statement by chairwoman Elizabeth Grant from NHMRC that " there is a lot

of traumatic stuff that animals are used for but they can only be used for

one experiment " is sickening. The mentality which assumes that other

species are facilities placed here for our use and that their lives only

matter in

that context, is exactly the same thinking which relegated the slavery and

the black races for so long as an inferior status. Now we have come to see

Racism for what it is misguided prejudice, fuelled by self-interest and

with no logical basis whatsoever. Its time to take a good hard look at

its sister concept Speciesism.

 

We are asking you to e-mail or write your protest today.

 

Professor Stephen Harrap, Head of the Department of Physiology

North Wing Medical Centre, University of Melbourne

Corner of Royal Parade and Grattan St, Parkville Victoria 3052

Ph: 03 8344 5837 Fax: 03 8344 5818

Email: s.harrap

 

Let the Professor know that we are opposed to quarkery in all its forms and

to step out of the Dark Ages into the modern techno age where alternatives

lie and a more enlightened attitude will prevail for those that share the

earth with us.

 

Paste and copy to:

 

Senator Kay Patterson,

Federal Minister for Health

270 Clayton Road,

Clayton Victoria 3168

Tel: 03 9544 7411 Fax: 03 9544 5535

Email: senator.kcpatterson

 

Politicians are servants of the people. Dont be intimidated by them.

Tell the Minister that you dont want your tax dollars being spent on

murdering innocent monkeys.

 

And finally Mr Stephen Marshall will head this new centre.

Hes been quoted as saying " If we didnt have to use monkeys,

wed do away with animals in laboratories tomorrow.

 

Demand that Stephen Marshall does just this as there

are plenty of alternatives available.

 

Mr Stephen Marshall,

Animal Services,

Monash University

PO Box 40,

Monash University 3800

Tel: 03 9905 4872 Fax: 03 9905 5736

Email: Animal.Services

 

More information at this website: www.antivivisection.cjb.net

 

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