From their website:

A new digital journal for the global animal liberation left, Animal Liberation Currents will begin publishing this November. Offering fresh new perspectives, criticism and analysis entirely missing from contemporary debate, we will be covering every facet of the animal liberation movement: politics, activism, culture, history, theory and strategy.

We will debate the essential questions of building effective liberation.

We will not pretend to have all of the answers, but we will insist that new questions be asked, new organizing approaches be attempted, new constituencies be engaged with and new democratic conversations started. These will not be easy, but they will be necessary.

See more on:

• animalliberationcurrents.com
• their Facebook page

Chimera mice.
(Picture taken from the NIH website.)

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), primary funder of biomedical research in the US, is reviewing its policy on human-animal chimera research. In light of the abject failure of animal ‘models’ of disease to translate into treatments for human subjects, some researchers are chasing a new holy grail: the possibility of engineering animals with enough human genetic material to make them better models for human pathologies. This research involves appalling pain and suffering for animals, and the prospect of millions more sacrificed on the altar of medical science until such time as this new enterprise is revealed, like much previous animal research, to be a hollow promise.

The NIH is inviting comments on their policy here. For an excellent discussion of human-chimera research and the NIH policy, see this blog posted on the Hastings Bioethics Forum.

A lab mouse used for testing. Photo courtesy of Rama, Creative Commons.

A recent Animals in Science Policy Institute press release indicates that the number of animals used for science research in Canada increased by 24% according to the latest annual report released by the Canadian Council on Animal Care. This dramatic annual increase demonstrates the hollowness of the research community’s professed commitment to replacing the use of animals with new technologies and approaches. The largest increases are for fish, birds and non-human primates.

We know that Queen’s University is one of the last Canadian universities to do experiments on non-human primates (NHPs) such as monkeys. No wonder Queen’s has repeatedly refused to disclose information about its research on NHPs (and other animals), since it would have to explain to the public why these numbers continue to increase, when other institutions are shutting down NPR research altogether. In refusing to disclose information, Queen’s insists that the statistics are too “sensitive” (i.e. the public would be upset by them), and that the numbers need to be put into “context”. (Of course there is nothing stopping Queen’s from providing “context”, or explaining its rationale for harming and killing animals.) We can only surmise that the University is terrified of any outside scrutiny of their research programs.

In the growing climate of public concern for treatment of non-human animals, and insistence that their use be ethically and scientifically justified, Queen’s knows that some of its research activities simply wouldn’t pass muster.

For more on this story, see “Latest stats show whopping increase in animals used for Canadian science” in the National Observer.