No Yeo Valley

My brother recently sent me some interesting correspondence he’d had with Yeo Valley reps, due to stumbling across this fairly shocking content on their website:

the routine use of antibiotics as a preventative measure to treat our cows’ ailments is not permitted.

Well yes, good, but…

As a result of this Steve, the Herd Manager on one of our farms began investigating alternative options to the use of antibiotics and began studying a course on homeopathic treatments. Since then, Steve has been implementing what he has learnt by using homeopathic treatments and remedies to treat his cows for a number of issues, including warding-off flies and easing the cows’ stress levels when having their feet clipped.

The treatments have so far proved successful and, unlike with antibiotics, cows don’t build up immunity to these remedies. In fact, they encourage the cows’ immune systems to fight bugs themselves.The use of homeopathic treatments not only helps to develop a more robust immune system, it also means no withdrawal periods for milk and meat while the animal is being treated, as would be the case when antibiotics are used.

Argh. Seriously?! What a load of tosh.

So, ma bro sends them an e-mail.

Homeopathy huh – won’t be buying anymore of your products then if you believe in treatments with no scientific proof. What other woo might you be trying I wonder.

A little terse, but hey. They did reply, beginning with:

Thank you for your recent email, we always appreciate hearing from our consumers. We are always pleased to get feedback and thank you very much for your comments.

Sadly they went on to copy-paste from their website the chunk I’ve quoted above, followed with some more from the website:

However, this doesn’t mean we completely avoid more conventional treatments; if we need to treat an animal quickly and effectively we will always choose the treatment, either conventional or alternative, that will be most beneficial to the cow to aid its recovery and this may involve antibiotic use.

Oh good! That’s a relief.

Steve’s convinced that homeopathic treatments offer a viable, practical option so he continues to favour treating his herd homeopathically whenever appropriate. I shall pass your email along to the farm and they will contact you in due course if interested. 

Is he now. Sounds like he needs reporting to the appropriate welfare board to me.

I would like to reassure you that we operate the highest level of animal welfare standards on all of our farms.  Not only are we strong supporters of the welfare system developed by The Soil Association for cattle producing organic milk, we also take care of the environment in which we operate and act responsibly and ethically in how we do business. Organics standards strictly admonish zero grazing techniques; cows cannot be permanently housed, but must spend the majority of their lives outdoors. The cows must have appropriate bedding and adequate space when they are brought indoors during bad weather during the winter months.

All very reassuring yes indeed, thanks.

Being an independent, family owned British business, we value our reputation and the loyalty of every one of our customers who buy our products.  We have built our reputation on a combination of quality and word of mouth and would never knowingly do anything to jeopardise this.

Thank you once again for writing to us.

Kind Regards

Sally Laurie – Marketing Team

Unfortunately (for the company; fortunately more generally) plenty of people are well aware that homeopathy is bunk, it has no effect, being just water/sugar, and using it instead of actual treatments is simply irresponsible. Even if it is used in addition to proper treatment when required, this is still unnecessary, a complete waste of money and possibly traumatic for the animals depending on how it’s administered.

Interestingly, Zeno also contacted them back in January and received a very similar response from ‘Sally’.

Disappointing that a company claiming to value its customers’ views cannot answer such questions more effectively, but hopefully in time and with enough pressure, such ridiculous ideas will no longer be entertained and people won’t be employed to peddle such nonsense.

Edit: see also this correspondence between some of the Brighton Skeptics and the Soil Association regarding their use and support for woo in farming.

Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm

Now, I’ve had this in my drafts box for ages.

The zoo/farm is near Bristol and I’ve been kicking around the idea of a field trip for some time – the lack of desire to give them any money being one deterrent.

What is it? It’s a tourist attraction, specialising in school trips, pushing a creationist agenda. It’s the kind of thing I’d expect to see in the Bible Belt of the States but it’s been nestled in South West England for some time now.

You could be forgiven for thinking “that’s a bit harsh” and that they are in fact a decent, educational establishment. The website is fairly innocuous until you reach the far-right tab ‘Evolution and Creation‘, which links to a ‘sister website’, Earth History: A New Approach.

Some gems:

We believe the fossil record does not show one evolutionary tree of life but rather genetically controlled diversification from a number of original forms

As the currently measured value of an element’s decay rate (or half-life) has no theoretical basis, the only way we can test which is true is to compare the results against the primary evidence.

ORLY?!

They keep winning awards – including this year’s Learning Outside the Classroom Quality Badge – and this hasn’t gone unnoticed, at least by the BHA.

Edit: Righteous Indignation ran a report on the zoo back in August from Dr*T (from around 19:00), in which he explores the whole of the bible passage about Noah & the flood; it’s, um, interesting…

James Gray hits the nail on the head (emphasis mine):

‘This is an appalling decision. It is entirely inappropriate that the Council should support an establishment that advances creationism and seeks to discredit a wide variety of established scientific facts that challenge their religious views, such as radio carbon dating, the fossil record and the speed of light.’

‘Teachers and parents look to the Council for assurance that children will experience high quality educational visits that meet the relevant government guidelines. Awarding this particular zoo a Quality Badge risks exposing hundreds of children to anti-scientific dogma.’

‘This is not a freedom of speech or freedom of religion issue. The question is whether the information displayed by this zoo meets the tests of accuracy and truth that parents, teachers and other educational professionals expect.’

I was first made aware of the Zoo through Facebook as some people from one of the Atheist Bus Campaign/Richard Dawkins groups (I forget which) had visited and posted their photos, which included T-Rex models in the ark and shots of the merchandise in the gift shop; mostly books about Christianity’s creation myth. Marketed at school trips, remember.

Do have a look at Paul Sims‘ write-up and particularly the photos at the end. You can see the kind of things they put in their ‘educational’ material; why apes aren’t related to man, proof the ark was real and so on.

Welfare Worries

Aside from its religious fundamentalism and anti-scientific propaganda, the zoo has animal welfare issues too. Last year they had their BIAZA membership revoked because of a failure to disclose information about their acquisition of tigers from circuses. The RSPCA also criticised their plans for an elephant enclosure.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMLeqmvxiaM]

There have been (and probably still are) protests there because of alleged animal cruelty. If you look around reviews* of the place, they range from enthusiastic thumbs-up, through it’s-ok-if-you-ignore-the-crazy, all the way to outrage both at the ‘educational’ content and animal welfare.

*…The giraffe had one pole in a field with a empty twig to chew on. One of the tigers looked a little crazy as he just walked around the same route in his little house bashing his head on the glass each time. Most of the animals had cuts on their legs, is this normal?!

They were also accused of killing some of the animals to reduce Winter spending; however, it is difficult to pick out the substantial accusations as there are always plenty brought by ARE groups, which are likely to be full of twisted-truths and exaggerations. There are a few legitimate reasons why this may have happened; to feed the carnivores, to maintain healthy stocks, etc.

Reality Check

This is the 21st century; genetics tells us more every day about our evolutionary past and place in the gigantic web of life on this planet. In an increasingly secular state, why does a place such as this exist? Claiming to be educational yet ignoring much of what we already know.

This is not an alternative theory; it’s ridiculous denialism, likely permitted because religious belief is a handy excuse to push agendas whilst avoiding a lot of the controls placed on non-religiously-motivated activity.

Why is it still open after all this? How much more exposure is necessary?

Shall we go?

 

Testing the Water

Hello dear readers.

A Request

I’d like to conduct a little survey – I don’t really know how big my regular readership is (I seem to coast along at around 20-50 hits/day except for when someone amazing links to the site or writing about very popular topic) or indeed what kind of people it is composed of.

There’s something I have been considering writing about for some time now; that is:

Animals in scientific research

Others write about it, it probably wouldn’t all be unique content, but I wonder if the demand/interest is out there. Please do leave a comment if you have an opinion on my writing further articles in this vein.

Full Disclosure

I think most people who know me are aware that it comes into my work/studies. Also those people will be aware of my love of nature, wildlife, animals generally.

Lots of people seem to think that accepting animal research in science and/or doing it means that you must have little interest or respect for furry critters – this is simply not true.

I have shied away from writing about my work and the wider issue of animal research mostly, I will admit, out of fear. I felt I was not ready to deal with (what I thought would be) the inevitable tide of abuse and threats, but perhaps that is unreasonable.

A Changing Climate

I was inspired by a talk we had on Friday from a member of Understanding Animal Research – we were reassured that public opinion is a bit more on our side than it used to be, not least because of some horrendous action from the animal rights extremist (ARE) camp over the last decade or so. The most notorious incident probably being the exhumation of a woman’s body because her relatives ran a guinea pig farm. Purely terrorism, and I will always argue the fact that these people’s tactics do not give them the right to take any moral high ground whatsoever.

I have followed Pro-Test for some time, and they have had some relative success in mobilising residents/students of Oxford and the eventual building of the new facility there. There’s now an American arm, too.

There’s a lot of hypocrisy in the ARE group, as there tends to be in any absolutist movement.

They claim to care about animals, yet the release of lab-bred animals can be disastrous for the environment and indeed for the animals themselves (e.g. mink released from fur farms – not that I agree with fur in fashion at all). They get their food from humans, may have been captive-bred for many generations, and like Trafalgar Square’s pigeons or domestic pets, are generally crap at surviving in the wild. So releasing them may well be a death sentence, if they’re not hunted down first.

Upgrading animal facilities is vital to maintain a high standard of care, comfort and health for the animals within. Opposing upgrades is nonsensical, as it just mens inhabitatants will have to spend longer in the older, less adequate housing.

So aside from the extremist angle, there are a lot of people who join legitimate, peaceful protests against animal research too. They’re perfectly within their right to do so.

WWYD?

The only argument I’ve ever really used is a personal one; when faced with the death of a loved one, if you were to be offered the hypothetical choice of them surviving in exchange for some animals – it’s generally the case that people will choose their loved ones, even in the hypothetical situation alone.

That’s normal; we’re human beings, we have strong emotional ties to family and friends for many reasons – evolutionary and cultural (arguably linked anyway). That doesn’t mean we can’t also care deeply for animals. I know I do. But still, given the choice between, say, my mum’s wellbeing and that of our dog, mum comes first.

Animals in research have helped our drug development as long as it’s been going. No, animals don’t always respond in the same way, but without them we’d have to take new drugs straight to people and I for one don’t know of anyone who will offer up their kids (or indeed themselves) to random compound testing. It’s dangerous, it’d kill and injure a lot more people than it already does (testing new drugs is not without its dangers, even after animal testing phases – but that does not render that research useless either).

I absolutely do not support animal testing for cosmetics (which is in fact no longer permitted in the UK anyway) or other such non-medical products.

I don’t like the use of animals research, I don’t know of anyone who does. It’s never nice to have to make such sacrificies. But I realise the overall value of the work, even if I won’t be doing it myself forever. I don’t think I will – also, I eagerly await the day we can replace most or all of it with computer modelling etc. but that day really isn’t now (whatever campaigners try to tell you, it is not the case), our knowledge and technology are not sufficient to rely on those alternatives.

This is worth reading (though sadly full thing closed except to subscribers since last time I checked), for anyone still holding the misguided view that anyone working on animals must be some sort of heartless sadist. Most people are in medical science precisely because they care about and value life – not just that of humans, medical research also benefits animals. Chemo and radio therapy, surgical techniques, many developed drugs are also used in veterinary science.

What Say You?

So, if I were to write some more on the subject; the reality, the applications – would people be interested? Or would you just want to kill me (more)?

My sister (hi Jules!) is a vet nurse, as my mum was, and loves animals to the point where you can barely move in their house for them. If you’ve got a pet you don’t want and it’s sufficiently cute/dysfunctional, she might be able to take it off your hands

She is the only person I know who really doesn’t want to think about this subject but is still happy to go camping/boozing with me so I’m hoping most people out there are equally reasonable.

Please leave me your feedback should you have any, and I shall muse further on the topic. Otherwise, that’s the last you’re hearing about it!

Edit: you know what? I think I’ll leave it to the pros.

Edit II: Dean has been very brave writing this, and reading it as a guest report on the Pod Delusion. As anticipated, he’s already been compared to Hitler (amazing how you can often judge the strength of a side’s argument by its time-to-Godwin) and dubbed ‘mutilator‘. I hope none of those people ever use medicine or hospitals, goddamn hypocrites.