10 Travel Nightmares Worse Than Yours
There are a lot of headaches when it comes to air travel, but nothing compares to the pain that might be happening right below your feet. When you fly Air France, insufficient legroom and a lack of overhead storage space should be the least of your worries.
That’s because your Air France ticket is also supporting the abuse of monkeys, who are shipped to laboratories across the country, where they will be tortured and killed in cruel and pointless experiments.
Can you relate to the plight of monkeys shipped by Air France?
1. Dealing with baggage
You on Vacation: You try to squeeze all your clothes into one of those small carry-on bags to avoid extra baggage fees and cross your fingers hoping it’ll fit in the overhead bin.
Monkeys on Air France: Forced into cramped shipping crates, they’re left in the dark cargo holds for journeys that can last UP TO 30 HOURS.
2. Saying goodbye
You on Vacation: You visit with family and friends one last time for a few tearful goodbyes before your long trip, because you won’t see them again until the holidays.
Monkeys on Air France: Torn from the wild or from breeding farms in Africa and Asia, they aren’t able to say goodbye to their families, whom they will NEVER see again. Instead, they will suffer in cruel experiments in laboratories.
3. Showing up early
You on Vacation: You take a pricey taxi ride hours before your flight, stand in long lines to check your bags, and wait even longer to make it through those Transportation Security Administration checkpoints.
Monkeys on Air France: They’re trucked from breeding farms to airports where they wait for long periods of time in tiny wooden crates on the tarmac or in warehouses—sometimes in extreme weather conditions.
4. Refreshments
You on Vacation: You wait in a long line for small, overpriced food items or wait until you take off for the complimentary refreshments.
Monkeys on Air France: They’re often too stressed and scared even to eat during the long journey to their future prisons. They also sometimes eat their food too fast and finish it well before the end of the journey, leaving them hungry and afraid.
5. Crowded flights
You on Vacation: You try to score a window seat or a seat next to a healthy vegan who fits completely in his or her own seat. If all else fails, you can purchase a premium ticket or pre-select seats to avoid some of the hassle.
Monkeys on Air France: Though they try desperately to escape and to alleviate the stress of their tiny prisons, they aren’t able to stretch their legs, switch seats, or drown their sorrows in sky-high cocktails. This confinement will continue at the laboratories when their journey is over.
6. Annoying in-flight demonstrations
You on Vacation: You roll your eyes because you still have to sit through demonstrations on every flight about how to buckle your seatbelt, use oxygen masks, and deplane during an emergency.
Monkeys on Air France: Terrified, they have no idea what is going on or what will become of them when they arrive at the laboratory—assuming they survive the trip.
7. Terrifying turbulence
You on Vacation: You listen to the pilot and brace yourself for the bumpy ride ahead, because even though you’re a frequent flyer, it’s still stressful.
Monkeys on Air France: Holding onto the sides of their shipping crate for dear life as turbulence knocks them about in the cargo hold, they have no one to comfort them while their ears pop and they experience miserable motion sickness.
8. Crying babies
You on Vacation: You hope there won’t be any crying babies on board.
Monkeys on Air France: Crying out beneath your feet, they sit amid their own urine and feces as well as the waste that spills over from neighboring crates. Just because you can’t hear them doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
9. Boring layovers
You on Vacation: You sit bored with nothing to do and no way to entertain yourself without paying an arm and a leg.
Monkeys on Air France: They remain confined to crates while waiting for the next terrifying flight on their painful long-haul journeys to laboratories, where they’ll be confined again—this time to steel cages that they’ll leave only when they’re being experimented on.
10. Lost luggage
You on Vacation: You file a report and wait for your luggage to make it to the right destination.
Monkeys on Air France: After the flight, they suffer in the backs of trucks as they’re sent across the country to laboratories. This stress will only be followed by more suffering when they’re used in cruel and invasive experiments. In laboratories, monkeys are poisoned, crippled, cut into, mutilated, subjected to scary psychological experiments, and addicted to drugs and alcohol before being killed.
Flying can be a pain, but for humans, it’s a minor annoyance that ends quickly. Monkeys forced to fly Air France suffer through much more traumatic experiences that continue once they reach their final destinations at laboratories across the country.
Air France is the last major airline to support this cruel industry by shipping monkeys to their deaths in laboratories like Covance and Charles River Laboratories.
There are many other airlines to choose from, so the next time you fly, make sure it isn’t with Air France.
We have two opportunities for you to speak up for animals in your area! First,
please join Exposing Primate Exploiters and local PETA supporters in
speaking up for animals imprisoned in laboratories. To learn more, watch this
video about the injustice and inaccuracy of experiments on animals.
WHEN
Saturday,
May 2, 12–3 p.m.
WHERE
Please
meet at 12 p.m. in the Walmart parking lot—1570 Chester Pike, Eddystone, PA
19022—to carpool to the protest location. (See this map.)
CONTACT
Rachel
O. at 609-221-2832 or exposingexploiters@gmail.com
|
Cruel Experiments on Chimpanzees Must be Stopped.
Target: Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture for the U.S. Department of Agriculture
Goal: Ban the use of primates for laboratory experimentation.
Every year in the United States more than 100,000 primates are captured and kept in labs, where they endure painful and invasive experiments. It is a scientific fact that primates are highly functioning and sentient beings. They have the ability to feel a wide range of emotions, including fear. They are the closest relaive to humans that exists, which unfortunately makes them prime experimentation material. Unfortunately and disgustingly, the United States is one of only two countries that still allows experimentation on chimpanzees. Primates deserve respect, not to be treated like pieces of meat.
During their imprisonment, the primates endure horrors that need to be brought to light. The most common issue these primates face is deprivation, both from other primates and from their natural habitats. Primates, like humans, are social creatures and need to be in the company of their kind to thrive. Being taken from their families and habitats causes a myriad of psychological problems and often causes insanity. When the actual lab experimentation is taken into account, the conditions become horrific. Horribly invasive and painful techniques and experiments, including vaccine testing, military experimentation, brain experimentation, and forced deprivation techniques, from food to family: these are the terrifying realities these primates face everyday. We need to stop this. Animals aren’t ours to use however we want. They are sentient beings who deserve the right to life.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Secretary Vilsack,
The Animal Welfare Act is not sufficient in protecting primates from the conditions they face everyday. The Animal Welfare Act and the Department of Agriculture’s job is to protect animals from torturous conditions. The USDA is simply not performing its duty to protect animals from enduring these unacceptable practices. I find it disgusting that the United States is one of the only countries in the world that still allows experimentation on chimpanzees.
Animals need to be left alone. The mistreatment of animals in the United States is revolting. Primates are highly intelligent beings and it is nothing short of abuse to allow these practices to continue. I urge you and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to review my words and take action against this experimentation.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo credit: Thomas Lersch via Wikipedia
Stop Exports of Monkeys Destined for Labs
NO VACATION FOR MONKEYS IN MAURITIUS
STOP THEIR EXPORT
You may have recently heard in the news about a monkey
lab and breeding facility located in Florida called Primate Products. It's
currently under investigation by a local county council for possibly violating
zoning ordinances that do not permit the lab to conduct monkey research. Primate
Products is also under fire for importing primates from Mauritius, an island off
the east coast of Africa that is one of the largest suppliers of primates in the
world. Last year, Mauritius exported over 4,000 macaques to the U.S., over 50
percent more than in 2013. The majority of monkeys were shipped to laboratories
like Primate Products, which imported 1,000 of these animals. Please ask Mauritius to stop exporting monkeys for use in research.
The trade and transport of primates is inherently cruel and ignorant of animal welfare. For example, two shipments of macaques coming from Mauritius last year were cited in violations involving charges of inhumane shipment under the Lacey Act and violations of endangered species law. Additionally, primates who are caught in this trade are typically juvenile monkeys torn from their families. They are then packed into crates and sent on grueling journeys that can last for days.
Please help stop the exportation of primates from Mauritius!
Drug Testing, Now Without the Chimp - In the race for new drugs, researchers are moving past animal testing.
To test a potential cure for hepatitis B, Benitec Biopharma Ltd. could have infected as many as 50 chimpanzees with the liver disease, then given them the drug and watched what happened.Instead, the Australian company turned to a U.K. startup for “livers on a chip” contaminated with the virus. CN Bio Innovations, spun out of the University of Oxford, will pump Benitec’s medicine into its LiverChip, a complex piece of engineering not much bigger than a smartphone loaded with 600,000 human cells and designed to behave like a real organ. The LiverChip and similar devices allow researchers to hone treatments without experimenting on animals in early stages, making drug development faster and cheaper, with fewer complications. The ultimate goal of scientists -- who have also replicated hearts and lungs -- is to link ersatz organs into a “human on a chip” to test medicines on the whole body.
The LiverChip
Source: CN Bio Innovations via Bloomberg
That would benefit drugmakers as the race for new remedies intensifies, and health systems and benefits managers fight back against high prices. As researchers tackle more complex diseases, working with animals is also becoming increasingly problematic, said Alan Wells, a University of Pittsburgh professor who worked on the liver on a chip. “That has become a real Achilles heel for new drugs,” Wells said.
“Many animal disease models don’t reflect the human condition. You have to get into the human system.”
There are treatments for hepatitis B, but no cure. Researchers working on a drug for the disease have limited options because it doesn’t occur in most animals. Compounds can be tested using mice engineered with human liver cells or chimps infected with human hepatitis B. But the mice and chimps are expensive, and laboratory apes often have been subjected to multiple diseases and medicines, making results dubious.
Drugmakers can expect to spend more than $10 million on development before a medicine reaches clinical trials, or testing on humans, said James Sapirstein, chief executive officer of ContraVir Pharmaceuticals Inc., which is also working on a cure for hepatitis B. Benitec and CN Bio refused to say how much they expect to spend on drug-testing using LiverChips. But the savings compared to using chimps will be “significant,” said David Suhy, head of research and development at Benitec.
“It’s a very economical way for us to test the efficacy of our drugs,” said Suhy, though the U.S. Food & Drug Administration will still require Benitec to use animals for safety screening before it can begin human trials. While the data produced by the chips can supplement animal testing, it's not ready to replace it, Jeff Ventura, an FDA spokesman, said in an e-mail. "We look forward to the time when this technology -- 'organ on a chip' -- allows us to use it in place of other forms of testing," he said.
The European Medicines Agency didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Pentagon Interest
Prices for using the LiverChip start at about $22,000, according to Emma Sceats, CN Bio’s chief operating officer. The costs vary depending on the research program, and CN Bio may receive payments depending on how far a compound advances, or take an ownership position in the drug. Animal testing typically begins at $50,000 for 28 days and 40 rodents and climb past $1 million for more complex safety experiments, said Thomas Hartung, director of the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing at Johns Hopkins University. Experiments with animals are also time consuming, because they take months to schedule, Suhy said. Building the chips tasks both engineering and biology, and can be “incredibly hard to do,” said Lorna Ewart, a pharmacologist at AstraZeneca Plc, a U.K. drugmaker working on the technology.
Pentagon Interest
Prices for using the LiverChip start at about $22,000, according to Emma Sceats, CN Bio’s chief operating officer. The costs vary depending on the research program, and CN Bio may receive payments depending on how far a compound advances, or take an ownership position in the drug. Animal testing typically begins at $50,000 for 28 days and 40 rodents and climb past $1 million for more complex safety experiments, said Thomas Hartung, director of the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing at Johns Hopkins University. Experiments with animals are also time consuming, because they take months to schedule, Suhy said. Building the chips tasks both engineering and biology, and can be “incredibly hard to do,” said Lorna Ewart, a pharmacologist at AstraZeneca Plc, a U.K. drugmaker working on the technology.
CN Bio is focused just on artificial livers, with 12 employees working at a former Roche AG facility in Welwyn Garden City north of London.
Source: CN Bio Innovations via Bloomberg
“The biggest challenge is showing it has an organ-level functionality,” said Ewart.
“What we’re not building is complete organs. We’re building the smallest amount of an organ that delivers a functional response.”
The science has the attention of the U.S. Department of Defense, which is spending as much as $63 million funding research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University to deliver a “human on a chip” with 10 artificial organs working together. Tying together multiple organs would allow researchers to determine whether a drug intended for one area causes side effects in another. For example, a human on a chip could indicate if an anti-inflammatory lung medicine harms the lining of the stomach, Ewart said.
CN Bio, which licensed its technology from MIT and has 12 employees near London, will use LiverChips with hepatitis B to test Benitec’s therapies that “silence” harmful genes by targeting their DNA. Sanofi is among the drugmakers that have also evaluated the LiverChip.
The FDA is supportive of the technology, but animal tests are still needed to determine dosage levels and whether drugs cause birth defects and cancer, said David Jacobson-Kram, a former FDA toxicologist who works as a consultant. Rats, for example, are monitored for side effects during their two-year lifespans.
Artificial organs will “have to be able to answer those questions we use animals for today, and they’ll have to be at least as good as animals,” he said.
I Was an Animal Experimenter (by Paul Gazda)
How did it happen? How did I go from being a high school student who played in a rock band to a mad scientist conducting cruel animal experiments?
To this day, I’m not sure. As a child, I liked animals. Growing up, I loved playing with our family dog. I wasn’t particularly interested in science and didn’t even want to go to college. I was planning on making it big as a rock musician, but in 1966, when my band broke up and a college offered me a generous financial aid package, I found myself a depressed, bewildered freshman at a university. I wanted to study music, but without classical training, that door was closed.
At the end of freshman year, my roommate told me about a great psychology course he was taking where he studied B. F. Skinner’s experiments with rats and pigeons. I was amazed that someone was actually able to predict and control behavior. Why people behaved as they did had always been a mystery to me. So I decided to take the course.
I was fascinated by one class lab where we taught pigeons to peck at a colored disc for food. In my junior year, I attended a class in which the professor made a compelling argument for conducting animal research related to punishment. He promoted it as having the noble goal of finding ways to minimize the use of punishment in humans while maximizing its effect. When he announced he was looking for a student to work in his lab for class credit, I took the job.
First, I had to learn how to shock a pigeon. A graduate student demonstrated how one person held the pigeon upside down while the other plucked out the feathers in back of its legs, cut two lengths of stiff stainless steel wire from a spool and pushed them through the skin and under the pelvic bones. The wires were then soldered to a harness placed on the pigeon’s back. The harness contained a plug that would be connected to a source of electric shock during experiments. No anesthetic or sedative was used.
One day, while programming an experiment, I accidentally touched the electrodes and got a jolting shock that numbed my entire arm. I was amazed that, according to my professor, the shock level was the correct one to use for pigeons. I told myself that pigeons must not feel pain as much as I did.
The pigeons lived in individual wire cages about a cubic foot in volume, in a bleak, windowless cinder-block room. I was told that everyone had to take a turn killing the pigeons after the experiments were finished. A graduate student showed me how to dump a couple of dozen birds into a clear plastic garbage bag, then pour a splash of chloroform on them and tie the bag shut. I remember the first and only time I did the killing; I thought the birds on the bottom were already suffocating because they were completely buried in other birds.
In graduate school, and later as a research technician, I also conducted punishment experiments on rats. The rats were deprived of food or water for 23 hours each day so they would be motivated to press a lever or lick a tube to receive a small reward of food or water. After learning that behavior, they would be shocked through metal rods on the floor for pressing the lever or licking the tube. We were recording how much the pressing or licking was suppressed by the shock.
Each year dozens of animals would be brought into the lab to live their brief lives suffering deprivation and shocks before being killed. At least in graduate school and as a research technician I did not have to kill the animals. There was a full-time lab custodian who took care of that.
As I look back on this nearly 50 years later, I am astonished that the daily grind of depriving, shocking and killing these animals did not move me to leave my job. My rationalization is that I was a student and young worker in institutions of higher learning, programmed to receive the wisdom of academia. I was studying how the science that supposedly advanced our civilization was done. Speaking of his infamous experiments in which human subjects followed orders thinking they were giving extremely painful shocks to other humans, the Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram said, “Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process.” I think that describes me pretty well.
After a couple of years, I left my research technician job, not for ethical reasons, but simply because I became more interested in computer programming. I said goodbye to the lab, absconding with one of my lab coats as a souvenir.
It was almost 20 years later that I finally had my awakening, at a talk about factory farming given by the social activist John Robbins. That powerful talk made me realize that animals, like us, are sentient beings who have intelligence and experience fear and pain. I became a vegetarian. I also started thinking about what I had done to those animals in the labs.
I had pursued two careers in tandem since my teens; one to feed my body, the other to feed my soul. My soul career was creative: I began as a guitarist, then transitioned into photography, then into art. In 1996, I experienced an art epiphany that inspired me to start creating works dealing with social and ethical issues.
With my former life as an animal experimenter nagging at my conscience, I wanted to open people’s minds to the cruel reality of animal experimentation without using gory, repulsive images. I thought, what if I reverse the roles? What if we humans were the animals being experimented on?
My lab coat, weighing on my conscience as it hung in my closet, appeared in my mind as the clothing worn by an alien scientist from an advanced civilization who comes to apologize for abducting and using us as experimental animals. A new artwork, called “We Are Sorry,” began to take shape in my mind.
I sat with a small notepad writing the alien’s speech as my thoughts drifted back to my days in punishment research. The words flowed in almost final form as I drew on my own rationalizations for my acts of animal torture. Tears welled up in my eyes as I wrote: “We now recognize that you, too, are a sacred life-form. We deeply regret what we have done. We ask forgiveness. We are sorry.” Paul Gazda is a visual artist and an advocate for animal rights and pesticide-free environments.
Dozens plead to Hendry County leaders to shut down monkey farm
Neighbors are fired up and demanding a controversial monkey farm in Hendry County be shut down.
Tuesday night, dozens of people voiced their concerns to county commissioners about Primate Products, which sits on 600-acres toward the center of the state.
“I think this thing should be shut down now, today,” said one resident.
“Shut those monkey facilities down,” said another.
For well over an hour people pleaded with Hendry County Commissioners to shut down the monkey breeding facility Primate Products.
“Can you imagine if that facility, if a hurricane or something tragic happens and all the monkeys run off with all these diseases, god knows what they are doing over there,” said a concerned resident.
A WINK News exclusive investigation revealed the company performs tests and experiments on the monkeys.
Hendry County officials claim they had no idea what was happening inside Primate Products and launched their own investigation.
“Hendry county is looking at a number of aspects of all of these primate facilities,” said commissioner Karson Turner.
Some don’t think the counties own investigation is good enough.
“Excuse me for getting emotional, but there needs to be an investigation, non bias, to go in there and see what’s going on,” said one protestor.
County Commissioner Karson Turner tells WINK News he is listening to everyone’s concerns.
“I think there is a tremendous amount of mis-information out there, unfortunately many times that is what becomes the reality,” said Turner.
“I feel that Hendry county has done nothing wrong at this time,” said Turner.
Hendry County does have an active investigation to see if Primate Products is violating any zoning ordinances by performing tests on the monkeys. The commissioners did not comment on the status of that investigation.
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