Don't you just love the way animal rights activists are portrayed in the media?

international | animal rights | opinion/analysis

Sunday May 21, 2006 01:46

by Hedgehog

Daily telegraph chooses an animal rights bashing story for their coveted front page.

Dont you just love the media coverage animal rights activists get?

Front page of telegraph no less:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/20...0.xml

GlaxoSmithKline want to prevent people selling cheap drugs to aids victims in poor countries by grabbing patents then controlling licencing, but that DOESN'T get front page coverage even though that WILL result in people dying

AFAIK Nobody has been killed by animal activists in pursuit of animal rights although whenever the media mention the death of pim fortuyn, they always emphasise the fact that his killer was an animal rights activist (peace be upon him :> excuse twisted humour!!)

On that topic, it is worth reading these 2 links and note how wikipedia is actually more even handed than media in spite of all the flak it gets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkert_van_der_Graaf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pim_Fortuyn

in contrast some random examples showing usual bias
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=24&art_id=qw102..._id=1
http://www.cgfi.org/materials/articles/2002/may_13_02.htm
http://www.fbresearch.org/AnimalActivism/violence.htm

and the so called respectable guardian newspaper:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/farright/story/0,11981,711480....html

Back to the original topic
Glaxo smith kline AIDS drugs licencing Link:
http://www.aegis.com/NEWS/BW/2002/BW020901.html

Quote from article:
"They lied to the patent office in the 1980's about discovering AZT's ability to treat AIDS, and in doing so secured exclusive rights to manufacture it," said AHF President Michael Weinstein. "AZT was developed with federal assistance in the 1960's, and the National Institutes of Health tested it for HIV use in the 1980's, but Glaxo secured patents on the substance in the'80s and locked competitors out. They then priced AZT at thirty-two times the cost of manufacture, a practice repeated with every new AIDS drug since then."

A short google session on the side effects of drugs like paxil and many others licenced by GSK and some of the shenanigans such as supression of reports etc makes interesting reading and balances the impression they like to portray in the media which would leave you thinking of them as poor vulnerable well meaning guys being unfairly attacked and targeted by nasty animal rights terrorists.

Slightly off topic but of interest and in a similar vein is the case of enviromentalist jeff leurs and the disproportionate sentence he received for an action that merely damaged some property but which he sure would not harm anyone.
http://freefreenow.org/index.html
http://freefreenow.org/23.html
Send him an email if you get a chance! :)

Would be interested to hear other peoples thoughts on the subject of media bias against animal rights activists, vested interests and any good examples they might have

HH

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