Animal rights activists and pet lovers yesterday gathered in front of the Atomic Energy Council (AEC) to protest against the use of beagles in animal experiments.
The group was protesting against toxicity and safety tests for a new drug being developed by the council’s Institute of Nuclear Energy Research (INER) that are being carried out on beagles.
Holding up a banner reading “Protest against animal abuse! The AEC disregards life!” and accompanied by 10 beagles, the group of about 30 protesters urged the council to stop testing new drugs on animals.
Photo: CNA
Animal rights advocate Huang Tai-shan (黃泰山) said the council made a worldwide call for bids on the Internet earlier this month for 40 beagles to conduct drug tests.
The council is asking for beagles who have cancer, Huang said, adding that the council dissects some of the dogs on the second day after being injected with an experimental drug and that more are dissected on the 15th day of the testing.
“The lucky ones that survive the experiment are sent to other research centers for other experiments until they die,” he said.
The council denied asking for cancerous dogs, saying that the beagles imported are healthy dogs.
Wang Hsiao-hua (王小華), a member of the Kaohsiung Concern Stray Animal Association, said the beagles that were experimented on were just like any other pet beagle, and experienced fear and pain during the tests.
Many animal experiments to develop drugs have already proven ineffective, so the council should find alternative methods to test drugs, Huang said, adding that they were also strongly against the establishment of a dog radiotoxicological experiment lab at the council, as it would encourage more experiments on dogs.
The protest group submitted a petition to INER deputy director-general Shen Lie-hang (沈立漢), asking the council asking to stop the experiments on beagles.
Shen offered the group a report on the experiments they conducted inside the building.
“We don’t want to hear about the inhumane experiments, we want a clear answer from a higher authority. Life is nonnegotiable!” the protesters shouted, refusing to go inside the building for talks.
Following this, Atomic Energy Council Deputy Minister Chou Yuan-ching (周源卿) met with the protesters and agreed that the council would use official documents to inform the association of the council’s decision on the tests within two weeks.
Shen said the experiments were used to test the safety of a new drug being developed by the institute for treating colon and rectal cancer and that procedures had been carried out according to legal regulations.
Shen said that according to the Department of Health’s Guideline for the Nonclinical Pharmacology/Toxicology Studies for Medicinal Products, testing on rodents and non-rodents is necessary to ensure the safety of medicines on the human body and that the experiments should be monitored by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.
Shen said the use of beagles as non-rodent experimental animals is common in many countries because of their stable gene structure
The council limited the number of dogs used to the fewest possible, Shen added.
According to Council of Agriculture statistics, about 1.52 million animals (including 291 dogs) were used in research experiments in 2009 and about 1.3 million (including 247 dogs) were used last year.
Yangmingshan National Park authorities yesterday urged visitors to respect public spaces and obey the law after a couple was caught on a camera livestream having sex at the park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) earlier in the day. The Shilin Police Precinct in Taipei said it has identified a suspect and his vehicle registration number, and would summon him for questioning. The case would be handled in accordance with public indecency charges, it added. The couple entered the park at about 11pm on Thursday and began fooling around by 1am yesterday, the police said, adding that the two were unaware of the park’s all-day live
Fast food chain McDonald's is to raise prices by up to NT$5 on some products at its restaurants across Taiwan, starting on Wednesday next week, the company announced today. The prices of all extra value meals and sharing boxes are to increase by NT$5, while breakfast combos and creamy corn soup would go up by NT$3, the company said in a statement. The price of the main items of those meals, if ordered individually, would remain the same. Meanwhile, the price of a medium-sized lemon iced tea and hot cappuccino would rise by NT$3, extra dipping sauces for chicken nuggets would go up
Yangmingshan National Park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) nature area has gone viral after a park livestream camera observed a couple in the throes of intimate congress, which was broadcast live on YouTube, drawing large late-night crowds and sparking a backlash over noise, bright lights and disruption to wildlife habitat. The area’s livestream footage appeared to show a couple engaging in sexual activity on a picnic table in the park on Friday last week, with the uncensored footage streamed publicly online. The footage quickly spread across social media, prompting a tide of visitors to travel to the site to “check in” and recreate the
Minister of Digital Affairs Lin Yi-ching (林宜敬) yesterday cited regulatory issues and national security concerns as an expert said that Taiwan is among the few Asian regions without Starlink. Lin made the remarks on Facebook after funP Innovation Group chief executive officer Nathan Chiu (邱繼弘) on Friday said Taiwan and four other countries in Asia — China, North Korea, Afghanistan and Syria — have no access to Starlink. Starlink has become available in 166 countries worldwide, including Ukraine, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, in the six years since it became commercial, he said. While China and North Korea block Starlink, Syria is not
RSS