Indianapolis – When Eli Lilly shareholders join the company’s virtual annual meeting on Monday, they’ll have the opportunity to vote on a proposal from PETA—which owns stock in the company—that the company assesses the effectiveness of the forced swim test and report its findings to shareholders.
Since November 2018, PETA and more than 325,000 members of the public have contacted Eli Lilly to request a formal policy banning the use, funding, or commissioning of the test . In the widely discredited test, mice and other small animals are placed in inescapable beakers filled with water and made to swim to keep from drowning, purportedly to shed light on the effectiveness of anti-depressant medications. But it has been heavily criticized by scientists who argue that when the terrified mice begin to float, it isn’t a sign of depression or despair, as some claim, but rather a positive indicator of learning, saving energy, and adapting to a new environment.
“While the fear of drowning is very real for the animals involved in the forced swim test, the experience in no way represents the enduring and multidimensional nature of depression,” says PETA neuroscientist Dr. Emily Trunnell. “When nine of Eli Lilly’s biggest competitors have banned this atrocity at PETA’s request, it’s baffling that it refuses to acknowledge that it’s defending archaic practices.”
Between 1993 and 2019, Eli Lilly employees published at least 20 papers and submitted at least 11 patent applications describing the use of the forced swim test in experiments involving more than 3,400 mice and rats. Yet the test did not reliably predict the success of a single medication. Eli Lilly’s one successful antidepressant that’s known to help humans, Prozac, doesn’t yield consistent results in the forced swim test.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview that fosters violence toward other animals.
For more information, please visit PETA.org or clickhere.
People are so ready to get back to life, forgetting that in 1918 the second wave of the Spanish Flu reportedly killed 20-50 million. The first wave only killed 3-5 million. History does indeed repeat.
The horrific scale of the 1918 influenza pandemic—known as the “Spanish flu”—is hard to fathom. The virus infected 500 million people worldwide and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims—that’s more than all of the soldiers and civilians died during World War I consolidated.
While the global pandemic lasted for twenty-four months, a significant amount of deaths were packed into three exceptionally rough months in the autumn of 1918. Annalists now accept that the deadly sharpness of the Spanish Flu’s “second wave” was caused by a mutated virus dispersed by wartime company actions.
When the Spanish Flu first appeared in early March 1918, it had all the hallmarks of the seasonal Flu, albeit a profoundly transmissible, infectious contagious, dangerous, and destructive strain. One of the first recorded cases was Albert Gitchell, a U.S. Army cook at Camp Funston in Kansas, who was hospitalized with a 104-degree fever. The virus expanded swiftly through the Army base, home to 54,000 troops. By the end of the month, 1,100 soldiers had been hospitalized, and 38 had fallen after contracting pneumonia.
As U.S. troops stationed en masse for the war effort in Europe, they carried the Spanish Flu with them. Throughout April and May of 1918, the virus flowed like wildfire through England, France, Spain, and Italy. A predicted three-quarter of the French military was tainted in the spring of 1918 and as many as half of British troops. Yet the first wave of the virus didn’t appear to be particularly deadly, with symptoms like high fever and malaise usually lasting only three days. According to restricted public health data from the time, fatality rates were related to annual Flu.
Historians believe that the fast spread of Spanish Flu in the fall of 1918 was somewhat to impute on public health officials opposed to imposing quarantines during wartime. In Britain, for example, a government official named Arthur Newsholme understood full well that a strict private lockdown was the most reliable way to fight the scope of the profoundly infectious virus. But he wouldn’t jeopardize damaging the battle manufacturers by keeping munitions industry artisans and other noncombatants homely.
According to many researchers, “the constant needs of warfare proved to incur [the] risk of spreading disease” and encouraged Britons to “carry on” during the pandemic.
A severe nursing shortage further thwarted the public health answer to the crisis in the United States as thousands of nurses had been deployed to military camps and the front lines. The deficit was worsened by the American Red Cross’s refusal to use trained African American nurses until the worst of the pandemic had already passed.
1918 Pandemic (H1N1 virus)
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The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. Although there is no universal consensus regarding where the virus originated, it spread worldwide from 1918-1919. In the United States, it was first identified in military personnel in spring 1918. It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000 occurring in the United States.
Mortality was high in people younger than 5 years old, 20-40 years old, and 65 years and older. The high mortality in healthy people, including those in the 20-40 year age group, was a unique feature of this pandemic. While the 1918 H1N1 virus has been synthesized and evaluated, the properties that made it so devastating are not well understood. With no vaccine to protect against influenza infection and no antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections that can be associated with influenza infections, control efforts worldwide were limited to non-pharmaceutical interventions such as isolation, quarantine, good personal hygiene, use of disinfectants, and limitations of public gatherings, which were applied unevenly.
Pet microchips are small, permanent identification chips that are about the size of a grain of rice. They are injected between the shoulder blades with a needle, and the process is about as quick as a vaccination. Most pets go through the one-time process without so much as a squeak. The estimated cost to implant and register a microchip ranges from about $25 to $75. However, VIP Petcare charges only $19, with free lifetime registration.
VIP Petcare microchips are internationally recognized and meet ISO requirements (International Organization for Standardization). This promotes compatibility between chips and scanners. VIP Petcare uses universal scanners, which read multiple microchip frequencies sold by different microchip manufacturers.
Your pet’s microchip ID code, just like your pet, is one of a kind. When your lost pet is taken to an animal shelter or veterinary clinic, they will scan your pet for a microchip and read its unique code. This code is stored with your pet’s profile and linked to your contact information.
Registration and keeping your contact information updated is just as necessary as microchipping. VIP Petcare automatically registers every recorded and implanted microchip into the found.org database within five days. Found Animals Microchip Registry is a free, national, nonprofit database that was conceived in support of a single belief: all lost pets need to find their way home.
Identification tags can become lost quickly, and tattoos may not always be legible. Only about 15% of dogs and 2% of cats without permanent identification return home to their owners. Approximately 9 million companion animals are admitted to shelters in the U.S. every year. Many of these are euthanized because their owners cannot be found.
Only a pet microchip can offer a genuinely permanent identification. Hundreds of thousands of pets have returned home thanks to a chip.
The American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Animal Hospital Association, and the Humane Society of the United States all recommend microchipping.
Anaheim, California (August 15, 2019) — Online retailer and pet media outlet iHeartDogs.com has announced the full launch of their “Pet Product Accelerator” program, seeking to partner with up and coming innovative pet brands by introducing them to their 1 million+ customers. This announcement comes at the perfect time right before the industry tradeshow – SuperZoo.
“Our goal is to find more amazing products that improve the lives of pets and people. We’re looking for inventors pursuing the “American Dream”, cause-driven brands, and purpose-driven products that make a difference in pet health and wellbeing to launch to our passionate customers.” says Justin Palmer, CEO of iHeartDogs. Think of it as a “Shark Tank” for pet products.
iHeartDogs.com, an Inc 500 company, has charted its own course since it launched 5 years ago. Focused more on educating customers about quality products and brands, the goal was to become a trusted, safe, reliable resource for pet parents everywhere. Is it working? With 30 million followers, 1.5 million email subscribers and 5 million readers, the company believes it definitely is.
“We see ourselves as an alternative to brandless, faceless online channels like Amazon or Chewy where products from around the world compete on price, not quality or uniqueness. A place where customers can get trusted, quality brands at a great value,” says iHeartDogs.com President, Marshall Morris. In addition, every product sold gives back to shelters and rescues in big ways creating loyalty not typically seen in an online company.
Last year, iHeartDogs piloted their Pet Product Accelerator program with several product partnerships. One product, a popular toy that allows dogs to brush their own teeth, sold over 75,000 units. “The smashing success of this and other product launches and told us we need to formalize this program,” says Palmer.
Between now and the end of the year, iHeartDogs is looking to partner with 10 new brands for their Pet Product Accelerator program.
For brands that meet certain requirements, the program also includes $20,000 worth of advertising provided by the iHeartDogs blog and email newsletter, currently reaching over 5 million dog owners per month.
