About 30 animal rights activists yesterday protested in front of the Council of Agriculture against a proposed rabies experiment to be conducted on 14 beagles, with 14 of the activists volunteering to replace the dogs.
The Central Epidemic Command Center last week commissioned the Animal Health Research Institute to conduct an experiment to determine whether the viral strain found in Formosan ferret-badgers can also infect dogs.
The institute is under the council’s Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine.
The plan to use 14 beagles as test subjects in the experiment has sparked a public outcry and strong objections from veterinary and animal welfare groups, which are calling the move unnecessary and inhumane.
Led by Huang Tai-shan (黃泰山), founder of the Taiwan People’s Association for Cats and Dogs, 14 volunteers wearing signs reading: “Let the beagles go, take me instead,” chained themselves together and sat on the ground, while other protesters waved banners that read: “Absurd experiment will be a global laughingstock,” or “Evil officials will be paid back for their evil acts.”
Injecting the rabies strain into beagles would be pointless because whether they get infected does not change the policy of urging everyone to have their cats and dogs inoculated against the virus, Huang said, adding that the activists are willing to replace the beagles as test subjects.
He urged the bureau to “not hurt anymore innocents,” adding that “the experiment would not further efforts to fight the disease, it would only trigger public panic.”
In addition, the laboratory selected as the venue for the experiment has been out of use for a long time and is not certified, so if any tests are conducted there, they would be illegal, Huang said.
A protester surnamed Tu (涂), who volunteered to substitute the dogs, said she has already made the necessary arrangements in preparation of her death with her daughter.
Tu said that sacrificing her life to save a dog’s would be worth it if doing so helps ignorant people understand why this kind of animal experimentation is wrong.
Feng Hai-tung (馮海東), the bureau’s deputy director, responded to the demonstrators’ calls by saying that he would relay their opinions to the officials in charge of the proposal, but said he could not promise the experiment would be scrapped since the bureau is not in charge of it.
Feng added that the plan has been scientifically evaluated and discussed by specialists.
Unsatisfied with his response, a few protesters shouted at Feng and were pushed back by the police.
After the scuffle, the crowd walked to the council building to start a sit-in hunger strike until the experiment was called off.
The protesters dispersed later in the afternoon after learning that the center had decided to suspend any testing until it discusses the plan further with specialists.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its