This week I will focus on those who can’t stand up for their rights.
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I’m referring to the appalling use of animals in medical experiments reported last week (SMH online) in a story, Baboons used in 'Frankenstein-like' medical experiments, in NSW public hospitals.
It tells how hundreds of primates have been imported into Australia for experiments each year, while animals are also bred specifically for medical research at the National Health and Medical Research Council baboon colony in Wallacia, in the west of Sydney, and marmoset and macaque colonies in Churchill, Victoria.
It is known that most of these trafficked primates are born to wild-caught captive monkeys in Asian facilities set up as lucrative money making facilities, which effectively 'launder' wild caught monkeys and sell them as captive breeds. They are caught in barbaric ways, kept in filthy crowded conditions, and transported inhumanely.
Some of the experiments that have come to light, too numerous to itemise here, include animals being used for tests before being ‘euthanised’, while others die as a result of testing.
A spokeswoman for the University of Sydney said: “All researchers would prefer not to use animals in their research. However, in their quest to cure blindness, diabetes, cancer, epilepsy and many other illnesses, animal research is currently the best hope for finding a cure.”
However, a recent publication Animal Law in Australasia has said that many Australians “still assume that current animal welfare laws provide animals with sufficient protection from human mistreatment, that cruelty is the exception and that, when exposed, perpetrators are prosecuted. They are wrong on all counts.”
The revelations about the experiments comes as a Senate inquiry gets under way into the import of primates into Australia for medical research, prompted by Greens Senator for NSW Lee Rhiannon, who is also Greens Animal Welfare Spokesperson. The committee will report in the first week of March before a private member's bill banning the practice of importing primates is put before the Parliament by Senator Rhiannon. She told Fairfax Media she believed the public would be “deeply shocked” to know what has been going on behind closed doors.
It is of course encouraging to learn that the live animal trade is under scrutiny, but it won’t stop the primate colonies in NSW and Victoria supplying locally bred animals. What we really need is a total ban on all live animal medical experimentation, at home and overseas.
And then we need to tackle the use of animal testing by cosmetic and ‘personal care’ companies, of which all the big name multinationals are guilty, as the Shop Ethical guide makes quite clear. At least Cruelty Free International is on the ball, saying recently that “the preclinical testing of pharmaceuticals in animals cannot currently be justified, ethically or scientifically”.
Support for Joe Williams
Good on Joe Williams, Wagga’s Citizen of the Year, for not standing up for the National Anthem at last week’s ceremony.
As I commented in my column last week, our First Peoples have nothing to celebrate on January 26, and the national anthem, claiming that we are a ‘young and free’ people, is a constant reminder of that. It ought to go, and be completely re-written. And as people can’t seem to do without flags, let’s replace our current homage to Great Britain at the same time. – Ray Goodlass