This doesn’t sound so good:

On the front page of its Business section, the New York Times (2/7, B1, Pollack) reported, “Opening the barn door to a new era in farming and pharmaceuticals, the Food and Drug Administration [FDA] on Friday approved the first drug produced by livestock that have been given a human gene.”

According to the Wall Street Journal (2/7, Dooren), “the drug, Atryn, developed by GTC Biotherapeutics Inc. from the milk of a genetically altered goat, will be used to treat patients with a rare blood-clotting disorder known as hereditary antithrombin deficiency.” Atryn “could be used by some pregnant women and patients undergoing surgery who cannot be given blood-thinners normally used to treat the condition.” Initially, “Atryn’s use would be…limited to about 100,000 patients.”

The medication combines “human DNA for antithrombin with goat DNA in such a way that goat’s milk glands would express human antithrombin,” the Washington Post (2/7, A5, Vedantam) explained. According to Thomas E. Newberry, a vice president at GTC, “the mammary gland is designed by nature to make proteins for offspring in a substance that we call milk, so all we have done is provide the extra bit of coding so it makes this particular protein.” Newberry said that “researchers are seeking to produce drugs in animals because they can be manufactured faster and more cheaply than by synthetic processes.” Antithrombin, for instance, “can be extracted from plasma in donated blood. But if all the blood donations in the country were used to extract antithrombin, scientists would have about 220 pounds of the protein a year.” Newberry claimed that “the same amount can be by made with 150 goats, and the company already has 200 animals producing the protein.”

The AP (2/6, Alonso-Zaldivar, Perrone) added that, “amid the growing questions about GE technology, the FDA last month issued guidelines on how it will regulate products made from the animals.” The agency “said it will not allow any such products to be sold without first submitting them to scrutiny by independent advisers at a public meeting.” However, “consumer groups said the FDA’s long-awaited policy will not require all genetically engineered foods to be labeled as such. And they said the government has not done enough to examine the potential impact of genetically engineered animals on the environment, particularly if some escape and begin to mate with animals in nature.”

The Boston Globe (2/7, Wallack), Bloomberg News (2/7, Larkin), the Wall Street Journal (2/6, Goldstein) Health Blog, the Chicago Tribune (2/7), MedPage Today (2/6, Fiore), WebMD (2/6, Hitti) and the Forbes (2/7, Herper) The Science Business blog also covered the story.

Man I love Arabic food!

A table full of my favorite food. I’m standing by my veggie chili, but this is the biggest test yet.

It’s the strangest thing. I have been vegetarian now for over half a year and the only food I miss and I mean really miss, is hot dogs. I mean I crave the damn things. Since I don’t eat soy all the fake dogs are out, but something tells me that they wouldn’t do much to scratch this itch.

Man. What I wouldn’t do for a plain hot dog right now.

So I’ve been getting solicited by everyone for Girl Scout Cookie orders again. I first thought I was going to be out of luck trying to find vegan options, they are cookies after all.

I found a few pages that made it sound like there were no viable options, but going through their web site I discovered they have two bakers that make all the cookies.

• Little Brownie Bakers
• ABC/Interbake

The good news is that ABC seems to make a few vegan options. Here’s a link to their nutrition information.

It looks like Peanut Butter Patties, Thanks-A-Lot, Lemonades, and Daisy Go Rounds are all safe, although they all contain soy.

Here’s a link to a pdf of Little Brownie Bakers nutrition info, none of the cookies they make are vegan.

These cookies all contain Milk:

Lemon Chalet Cremes

Trefoils

Do-si-dos

Samoas (this one hurt!)

Dulce de Leche

Sugar Free Chocalte Chips

Tagalongs

Thin Mints

Carmel delights

Shortbread

Peanut Butter Sandwich (makes me oh so sad)

I’m all for getting the word out, and stopping torturing testing on animals, but this is just not the way to go about it.

Activists with the group Students and Workers for the Liberation of UCLA Primates claimed responsibility for the attack, stating on an animal rights website that the destroyed car belonged to Goran Lacan, a UCLA “vivisector.” …”

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-animal-arson29-2008nov29,0,3282650.story

I was having a conversation with one of my many bosses, and being vegetarian came up. He mentioned that some of his friends were vegan, and he said they had to do quite a bit of planning to be sure they got all the nutrients they needed. So I went online to research this for myself.

And that’s when I stumbled upon this video:

A big part of me wishes I hadn’t seen this, but as they say, some bells you can’t un-ring.

Watching this video, and doing some more reading, I came to the only logical conclusion, animals have it really really really bad, and I cannot support this.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I really don’t have a problem if animals have to work for a living. I mean, I work for a living, while not preferred, it’s ok. And, in fairness, it’s ok if a cow has a bad day at work every now and again, life’s not perfect, and that too is ok. What’s not ok, is animals being born into a life of misery and torture, and who’s only escape from this is when it comes crashing to an end in some pain ridden, horrifying, callus, execution. That is not acceptable.

My next step after watching that video, was to stop all animal product consumption from sources that were not “cruelty free”. Which turns out, is not so easy. You have companies like Horizon, who position themselves as being good to animals, but with a few minutes of research, you can find they are one of the most evil, and it’s all just marketing.

I have yet to find any reason not to use Organic Valley (http://www.organicvalley.coop/) products though. In all my research on them, I haven’t not seen one complaint about how they treat their animals. In fact, I really gained respect for them after reading how George Siemon, the CEIEIO of Organic Valley pulled out of Wal-Mart when they couldn’t meet Wal-Mart’s demand.  http://www.inc.com/magazine/20070701/casestudy.html

And this is where I am today. When I am outside of my home, I am 100% vegan. No animal products in my food, clothes, or anything I am currently aware of (which is growing every day). When I am home, I’ll use milk, eggs, and cheese from Organic Valley. I really hope that Organic Valley is as good as I think they are. They are my last hope before having to keep my own chickens.

Well. The Thanksgiving weekend could not have gotten off to a worse start. Of all the bad things to happen, we hit a deer driving up the expressway. No one was hurt (at least in our car) and the deer had less then a second of suffering (I believe), but it was pretty awful, and I think my wife is still crying.

We had just gotten back on the expressway after getting some vegan fast food (bean burritos) and were about half a mile north of exit 212 (West Branch) on I75 in Michigan. We were in the right lane coming up on a minivan in the left lane. They were about 15 feet ahead of us. That’s when I saw the break lights, and just in front was a set of eyes looking back over a broad set of shoulders.

She was standing in the center median, about 3 feet from the lane and about 10 feet in front of the minivan. I slammed on the breaks. Then, in one fateful flash, she sprung up, and landed right in the center of the lane in front of the minivan. BOOM! In a flash, that poor deer exploded. It was horrible. The deer was in pieces in the air, and I can still hear nothing but my wife’s quiet, quivering voice: “oh no.”

The impact sent the deer through the air right in our path. We hit it dead on. It went under our car. It felt like a giant, horribly out of place speed bump. It was very quiet and sad.

It was an odd feeling. I got really numb, and the only thing I could think of was that I needed to get my wife away from this scene. She was instantly balling, and was very concerned, and scared for the deer. The car seemed to be ok, and I believed there was no good in stopping on the expressway at night, though my wife asked if we needed to make sure the deer was not suffering. If I thought there was a chance the poor thing was still alive, we would have stopped and used the Glock 26 I keep in the car.

We said a prayer for the deer (and her family and her friends) and proceeded to the next major exit to inspect the situation off the road and under the lights.

There was no damage to our car, but there was a bit of blood and hair and flesh. I took a couple pictures, if you want to see them, follow the link below.

Definitely not a good way to start my first vegetarian Thanksgiving, but I am very thankful that this did not end up worse then it did.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9398741@N07/sets/72157610285782652/

So stopped at Barnes & Noble on my way home from work today. I wanted to get some stuff to read for the weekend up in Da U.P., eh? I’m not sure if the lady was really giving me a funny look, or if I just perceived it, but when she asked me if I needed a gift receipt I told her “no, these are all for me.”

I’m very much looking forward to the new issue of VegNews, I love that magazine. I’ve never bought Special Weapons before, but when I picked up the latest issue of Combat Handgun (my favorite magazine) and found yet another cover talking about Kimber 1911’s, I figured I’d take a shot at something new…and from the same publisher, so I assume it should be at least ok.

I also picked up “Naked” by David Sedaris. I’m not much for fiction reading, but my boss recomended it, so we’ll give it a whirl.

Here’s an action shot of the day’s purchases…

Guns and Vegan Mags

So if you’re wondering what made a crazy gun nut turn vegan, it’s been a pretty quick journey.  Here’s what kicked it off.

http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/originals/30days/episodeguide.php#

<Click on Episode 3>

We enjoy most of the 30 days shows when we get to catch them, and I got the PETA email telling me to keep an eye out for this one.

So I watched it, and simply put, we I was moved. It sparked a dramatic change in my life.

Over the next few days I went from a mainly meat diet to vegetarian. The last steak I had was 3 days after watching this program. I remember thinking so much about what was on the plate in front of me, and what it really meant. How it got there. What the cow went through, and just thinking it wasn’t fair. Since then, no more meat.

Vegan came about a month later. I’ll dig up the research that lead me there in another post.

30 Days Animal Rights

PARTICIPANT – George Snedeker, 42
RESIDES – Chapel Hill, NC
OCCUPATION – Handyman
AIRDATE – Tuesday, June 17, 2008

George Snedeker is an avid hunter who considers it much more than just a sport; to George, hunting is a way of life. George hunts mainly for deer meat and tries to use the entire animal in order not to be wasteful.

For 30 Days, George will live in Los Angeles with vegan Melissa Karpel, 29, and her vegan family: parents Don and Madeline Karpel and her sisters Stephanie and Kimberly, who are 25-year-old twins. Melissa is a Los Angeles Campaign Coordinator for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), a non-profit organization that fights for animal rights on factory farms, in laboratories, in the clothing trade and in the entertainment industry.

George will participate in PETA initiatives including a demonstration at a popular fast food chain, work at a local farm animal rescue center and meet with various organizations such as Last Chance for Animals, a non-profit group dedicated to animal rights.