Progressive Wednesday

Drug rehab for Asian vultures

This comes out of Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine:

In an effort to save its dwindling Asian vulture populations, India has announced it will ban veterinary use of the drug diclofenac.

Lindsay Oaks of the Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine and The Peregrine Fund discovered that the drug used as an anti-inflammatory in cattle was highly toxic to the vultures when they ate carcasses of treated animals.

The drug causes renal failure in the birds, which kills them rather quickly. More than 95% of these animals are now gone from India, Pakistan, and Nepal, forcing the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources to put the bird on their critically endangered list.

Feral dogs, now thriving because of the die-off of their rival, are now adding to the 30,000 human deaths in India caused by rabies each year. This is the largest number in the world, with more than two-thirds of infections coming from dog bites. India has made rabies vaccines much more available recently, but that increase hasn't kept up with the increase in dog bites. Why? The feral dog population has gone up by seven million since the pandemic started.

But the news isn't all bad. As we told you, last May, India ordered that diclofenac be replaced by similar alternative drugs that do not poison vultures such as meloxicam. Nepal and Pakistan followed suit shortly thereafter, banning both the manufacturing and importation of the drug. Breeding programs have also recently been successful in hatching Asian vulture chicks, with hopes that in a few years the chicks will be able to survive on their own. And in Punjab Province, they are already seeing the number of vultures start to rebound.

There are several organizations involved in the repopulation effort. The Peregrine Fund and VulturesDecline.org are two of the leaders. If you want to help out, click here .

Oh, and in case you were wondering, diclofenac is still a widely-used drug in both human and veterinary medicine, and is even sold over-the-counter in the United States. Many vets have discontinued use, but the next time Fido strains a ligament, make sure diclofenac ain't what the doctor ordered.

A tip of the cap to Gov. Ted Kulongoski

The good governor of Oregon has done it again, thank goodness. To shed light on the inadequacies of food stamps, Gov. Kulongoski (or “The Ku-Man,” as we like to call him) is living for a week off $21, “the same amount that the state’s average food stamp recipient spends weekly on groceries.”

According to the Associated Press:

Kulongoski is taking the weeklong challenge to raise awareness about the difficulty of feeding a family on a food stamp budget.

How’d “The Ku-Man” do?

At the check-out counter, Kulongoski’s purchases totaled $21.97, forcing him to give back one of the Cup O’Noodles and two bananas, for a final cost of $20.97 for 19 items.

After the hour-long shopping trip, Kulongoski said he was mindful that his week on food stamps will be finite and that thousands of others aren’t so lucky.

“I don’t care what they call it, if this is what it takes to get the word out,” Kulongoski said, in response to questions about whether the food stamp challenge was no more than a publicity stunt. “This is an issue every citizen in this state should be aware of.”

So what are the national facts about food stamps?

• There is an 8-step process to get approved for the Food Stamp Program.
• In 2005, 25.7 million people received food stamps each month. To put that in perspective, that’s 6 million more people than live in all of New York.
• 40% of food stamp recipients live in households with an income. They work, people. They work. In fact, only 15% of all households receiving food stamps collected TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), sometimes incorrectly referred to as “welfare.”
• In 2005, 54% of the households receiving food stamps contained children.

This, of course, raises the larger problem of poverty in America. We’ll touch on this subject more one Wednesday, but we’ll at least say this: it’s hard to pursue happiness when you’re dirt poor. And according to the U.S. Census Bureau: “The number of people below the official poverty thresholds numbered 35.9 million in 2003, or 1.3 million more than in 2002.” Imagine if every single person in California lived in poverty. I think we’d do something about it. I think we’d stop ignoring it.

Photograph thanks to this fine person.