Help Humane Research Australia stop unnecessary testing on animals.
Baboons used in experiments
Recently, surgeons at the Royal North Shore Hospital used 8 baboons in an invasive study of the healing process of shoulder tendon surgery. Three surgeons surgically cut the tendons and damaged the rotator cuff in healthy baboons in an attempt to replicate the healing process in humans.
The eight baboons, all over 15 years of age, Eight had been used in experiments and breeding programs all their lives and were scheduled for death, but were taken from Australian Baboon Breeding Colony to be used in these highly invasive experiments.
The researchers acknowledge the problems that could arise in extrapolating results to humans because the primates were healthy and their bones and tendons were normal whereas this is not the case with human patients. The results themselves are flawed because while with human patients after the operation, immobilization would be standard procedure, this was not possible for the post-operative baboons.
The final conclusion of these experiments was a recommendation “that excessive tension on the repair site should be avoided for at least 12 weeks” – somewhat obvious statement!
Humane Research Australia
Humane Research Australia feels that putting non-consenting, highly sentient, beings through the pain and suffering of serious surgery (and death), to merely demonstrate what is already known in the field of orthopaedic surgery and rehabilitation cannot be justified.
The Australian and New Zealand Council for the Care of Animals in Research and Teaching states that: “Using animals for scientific purposes is acceptable only when any harm done to the animals is very greatly outweighed by the benefits of their use”. This study that was undertaken with baboons is not only highly unethical; it is unscientific. Data cannot be extrapolated from one species to another with certainty of success.
Supporting Humane Research Australia
Phoenix Rising For Children (PRFC) is an accredited out-of-home or foster care provider based in Sydney, N.S.W, Australia. PRFC was founded in 2001 to provide quality foster care to children and young people across Sydney, including contemporary, quality, family-based foster care and effective and specialist support services to children and young people and their families. PRFC operates ethically, effectively and empathically with a view to achieving quality outcomes and a satisfying working environment, and as such we support such organisations as Humane Research Australia as they encompass similar ideals.
Have you considered fostering a young one? PRFC undertakes regular planning and evaluation and has a focus on personal development and training. If you would like to become a foster carer and join our team providing effective and meaningful care to children and young people, please contact us!
We can be reached at mail@phoenixrising.org.au
Learn more about our foster care agency in NSW at www.phoenixrising.org.au
Take Action
We can help Humane Research Australia in their quest to convince the necessary people to stop funding animal experiments.
Write/Email :
University of New South Wales Animal Ethics Committee
Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research)
University of New South Wales
NSW 2052
Email: enquiries.research@unsw.edu.au
and
Central Sydney Area Health Service Animal Welfare Committee
C/o Executive Support Unit & Secretariat
PO Box M30
Missenden Road NSW 2050
Email: SLHD.ESU@sswahs.nsw.gov.au
to demand that they never again approve experiments such as these.
Read more about the experiment on baboons: http://www.humaneresearch.org.au/case-studies/eight-baboons-used-and-then-killed-to-study-the-healing-process-of-shoulder-tendon-surgery
They profit, you pay – the Fukushima disaster
Fukushima
On March 11, 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Japan, followed by a tsunami triggering the biggest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. The earthquake and tsunami caused a complete black out at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant leading to a failure of the cooling systems. As a result, although the reactors were stopped, it only took several hours for the fuel to overheat and melt in reactors #1, #2, #3. Glowing fuel formed hydrogen gas that exploded and damaged four reactor buildings (units #1 to #4), opening a pathway for a massive radiation release from both the reactors and ponds storing spent fuel next to the reactors. The accident was finally rated with the highest rating 7, on an international scale (INES), the same rating as Chernobyl.
Consequences
The consequences of the Fukushima nuclear disaster still continue to unfold for over 150 thousand people who had to evacuate their homes, and many more others who continue to live in contaminated areas. They have not been taken care of or compensated adequately.
A survey by the newspaper Mainichi Shimbun computed that of some 300,000 people who evacuated the area, approximately 1,600 deaths related to the evacuation conditions, such as living in temporary housing and hospital closures, have occurred.
In terms of the worldwide future cancer burden from accumulated radiation exposures caused by the accident, in the years and decades ahead, Stanford University professor and anti-nuclear advocate Mark Z. Jacobson predicts that there will be an eventual 130 fatalities and 180 additional cancer cases, with the majority of these cases occurring in populations in the most heavily contaminated areas of Fukushima. A 2013 WHO report predicts that for populations living around the Fukushima nuclear power plant there is a 70% higher risk of developing thyroid cancer for girls exposed as infants, a 7% higher risk of leukemia in males exposed as infants, a 6% higher risk of breast cancer in females exposed as infants and a 4% higher risk, overall, of developing solid cancers for females.
The cost of the disaster
The cost of the Fukushima nuclear disaster is estimated at $250 billion US dollars. General Electric, Hitachi and Toshiba designed, built and serviced the reactors which directly contributed to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, yet these companies have not paid one cent of the cost for the reactor failures. Hundreds of thousands of people in Japan lost their homes, jobs and communities. None of them have received enough compensation to rebuild their lives.
All of the costs from the nuclear meltdown fell on TEPCO, the operator of Fukushima, which could not afford it and was nationalised. The costs of Fukushima are being paid by the Japanese people themselves, as taxpayers they are footing the bill for this nuclear disaster.
The situation in Japan is not an exception, if you live in or near a country with nuclear reactors, it is likely that nuclear companies could walk away from an accident near you without paying any of the costs. General Electric, Hitachi and Toshiba should pay for the damage caused by their reactors!
Supporting Greenpeace
The Wishing Well was established in 2010 to offer children in out-of-home care, such as foster care and residential care, a range of healing and treatment options usually not accessible as a free therapy in mainstream health.
The Wishing Well raises funds to enable children and young people to access developmentally-appropriate and trauma-informed treatments shown to be highly effective in dealing with severe trauma and neglect. These therapies respond to the unique needs of each child and young person.
The Wishing Well is a not-for-profit incorporated charity organisation, established and managed by people seeking to improve oucomes for children and young people in out-of-home care and their families.
Wishing Well operates ethically, effectively and empathically with a view to achieving quality outcomes and a satisfying working environment, and as such we support such organisations as Greenpeace as they encompass similar ideals.
The Wishing Well gratefully receives donations, funding and resources through bequests, corporate partnerships, fundraising events, grants, online donations and other fund raising activities. Please see our website for more information:
What can we do?
Don’t let General Electric, Hitachi and Toshiba walk away from the Fukushima disaster.
Sign the petition and let it be known that they should pay for the damage their reactors cause in disasters like Fukushima.
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/getinvolved/They-profit-you-pay/
Help provide clean water and sanitation to families in refugee camps.
Refugee camps
With more than 25% of Syria being driven out of their homes, the situation in refugee camps is dire. In a camp opened one year ago in Jordan for 60,000 people, more than 150,000 people are now living there. Every day the camp costs $500,000 to run and relies on 350 tankers trucking in water and 300 tankers removing sewage.
In Lebanon, the numbers are just as bad. About 600,000 refugees have crossed the border, and if numbers keep rising it is estimated that by the end of the year, one in four people in Lebanon will be a Syrian refugee. Another 400,000 have crossed into southern Turkey. There are even tens of thousands of people who have decided that Iraq represents a safer option than Syria.
“Our financial status is horrible since we arrived in Iraq…My husband has never been able to find a job. We can buy meat or chicken only every few months. Our daily meals are tinned cheese or tinned cream, which cost 500 Iraqi dinars [28p]. We have potato with rice for lunch or beans with rice. Dinner is tomato and cucumber. My children want better food but we can’t get it. All we have is donated to us by the clerics in the mosques and tribal leaders.” Hadiyia Ali is from a camp in Iraq where she lives with her four children.
The problem in Jordan
Amman, the capital of Jordan, seems to be in state of perpetual construction and deconstruction. It is quite interesting to be here for the first time and what strikes me is that there is rubble everywhere – buildings going up and great cavernous holes in the ground where they have come down. It is also very dry – it is a city built in the middle of a desert.
Jordan has become the temporary home for over half a million Syrian refugees. In a desert land it is not surprising that water is a key focus for our work. But here in the refugee camps and settlements, just finding enough to eat or having access to clean, safe water is often a daily struggle.
Supporting Oxfam
The Wishing Well was established in 2010 to offer children in out-of-home care, such as foster care and residential care, a range of healing and treatment options usually not accessible as a free therapy in mainstream health.
The Wishing Well raises funds to enable children and young people to access developmentally-appropriate and trauma-informed treatments shown to be highly effective in dealing with severe trauma and neglect. These therapies respond to the unique needs of each child and young person.
The Wishing Well is a not-for-profit incorporated charity organisation, established and managed by people seeking to improve oucomes for children and young people in out-of-home care and their families.
Wishing Well operates ethically, effectively and empathically with a view to achieving quality outcomes and a satisfying working environment, and as such we support such organisations as Oxfam as they encompass similar ideals.
The Wishing Well gratefully receives donations, funding and resources through bequests, corporate partnerships, fundraising events, grants, online donations and other fund raising activities. Please see our website for more information:
What can we do to help?
You can help more families by providing life saving clean water and sanitation.
Donate now through Oxfam
https://www.oxfam.org.au/2013/09/their-homes-had-been-razed-to-the-ground/
Take the pledge with WSPA to choose cage free eggs
Helping animals doesn’t have to be complicated, time-consuming, or even expensive. It’s about being informed and making simple, every-day choices that can free animals from suffering and abuse. The first step is knowing which choices to make.
Choose cage free campaign
In 2012, WSPA launched the Choose Cage Free Eggs campaign to encourage consumers to buy cage free eggs.
“Keeping hens in cages is one of the cruelest and most inhumane practices in modern farming. The suffering is so vast. Over 300 million hens live in small, barren cages, but every single day, people can make the simple choice to help these animals. Buying cage-free eggs supports better hen health and welfare, and provides safer, more wholesome eggs for consumers.” – Anne Lieberman, executive director of New York-based WSPA USA.
Why choose cage free?
“Whenever we buy eggs at the grocery store or order them at a restaurant, we’re making a choice about the kind of food we want to eat and the kind of world we want to live in. If we can let consumers know how much better cage-free eggs are for hens and for people, we know more of them will make the right choice.” – Anne Lieberman, executive director of New York-based WSPA USA.
Today, over three hundred million hens are suffering, squeezed into cages so small they can’t stretch their wings or even turn around. It doesn’t have to be this way. As consumers, we have the power to say no to caged egg production.
Food produced through humane farming methods, including high welfare free range and organic production, can also have health benefits for you, and is better for the environment.
Supporting WSPA
The Wishing Well was established in 2010 to offer children in out-of-home care, such as foster care and residential care, a range of healing and treatment options usually not accessible as a free therapy in mainstream health.
The Wishing Well raises funds to enable children and young people to access developmentally-appropriate and trauma-informed treatments shown to be highly effective in dealing with severe trauma and neglect. These therapies respond to the unique needs of each child and young person.
The Wishing Well is a not-for-profit incorporated charity organisation, established and managed by people seeking to improve oucomes for children and young people in out-of-home care and their families.
Wishing Well operates ethically, effectively and empathically with a view to achieving quality outcomes and a satisfying working environment, and as such we support such organisations as WSPA as they encompass similar ideals.
The Wishing Well gratefully receives donations, funding and resources through bequests, corporate partnerships, fundraising events, grants, online donations and other fund raising activities. Please see our website for more information:
What can we do?
There are lots of things you can do to promote buying free range eggs, and other ethically approved options.
Choose wisely. When buying eggs, dairy products or meat, make sure they are certified higher welfare by a recognised scheme, free range or organic.
Don’t trust the label. Beware of labelling like ‘fresh’, ‘farm fresh’, ‘country fresh’ or ‘farm assured’. These labels say nothing about animal welfare, and the products may be produced on a factory farm. Look for higher welfare labels such as ‘free range’ or ‘organic’.
Demand high standards. If the shop you use doesn’t stock welfare friendly foods, write to them requesting that they do. Try to maintain your animal-friendly eating habits when you go on holiday.
Take the Cage-Free Pledge with WSPA, and encourage your family and friends to do the same.
The truth about sugar – ‘Behind the Brands’
Oxfam have taken part in an 18 month investigation into sugar, an essential ingredient in many of our favourite brands. The Big 10 brands buy and produce huge amounts of sugar – but have you ever wondered where this sugar comes from? Oxfam finds out.
They have compiled a report into the matter which can be viewed here:
http://www.behindthebrands.org/en//~/media/Download-files/bp166-behind-brands-260213-en.ashx
In this report, Oxfam assesses the social and environmental policies of the world’s ten largest food and beverage companies and calls on them to take the critical next steps to create a just food system.
Behind the Brands
Behind the Brands is part of Oxfam’s GROW campaign to help create a world where everyone has enough to eat. Right now, nearly one in eight people on earth go to bed hungry. Sadly, the majority of these people are farmers or farm workers supplying the very food system that is failing them. Yet there is enough food for everyone. That’s an outrage – but we can be the generation that ends this crazy situation.
While the food system is complex and its problems multi-faceted, we know that the world’s largest food and beverage companies have enormous influence. Their policies drive how food is produced, the way resources are used and the extent to which the benefits trickle down to the marginalised millions at the bottom of their supply chains.
Oxfam’s Behind the Brands campaign aims to provide people who buy and enjoy these products with the information they need to hold the Big 10 to account for what happens in their supply chains. In putting together a scorecard based entirely on publicly available information on company policies, we posed the question “what are they doing to clean up their supply chains”?
Supporting Oxfam
The Wishing Well was established in 2010 to offer children in out-of-home care, such as foster care and residential care, a range of healing and treatment options usually not accessible as a free therapy in mainstream health.
The Wishing Well raises funds to enable children and young people to access developmentally-appropriate and trauma-informed treatments shown to be highly effective in dealing with severe trauma and neglect. These therapies respond to the unique needs of each child and young person.
The Wishing Well is a not-for-profit incorporated charity organisation, established and managed by people seeking to improve oucomes for children and young people in out-of-home care and their families.
Wishing Well operates ethically, effectively and empathically with a view to achieving quality outcomes and a satisfying working environment, and as such we support such organisations as Oxfam as they encompass similar ideals.
The Wishing Well gratefully receives donations, funding and resources through bequests, corporate partnerships, fundraising events, grants, online donations and other fund raising activities. Please see our website for more information:
What can we do?
You can show your favourite brands that you care about supporting farmers and the planet.
You’re more powerful than any of the Big Ten food companies. Without you, they won’t stay big for long. Use Facebook and Twitter to nudge your favourite brands. Contact the CEO personally and tell them what needs to change.
Select a brand to target here:
https://www.oxfam.org.au/grow/behind-the-brands/
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