MEDIA RELEASE
For immediate release: Wednesday 14 December 2005

Call for xenotransplant ban continues

CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND:

The NZ Anti-Vivisection Society Inc. (NZAVS) is continuing to call for the permanent ban of xenotransplantation, following the public release today of a Bioethics Council report.

The Report focuses on the cultural, ethical and spiritual aspects of animal to human transplants, noting that it is not the Bioethics Council's role "to say whether or not xenotransplantation is safe or effective". (page 6)

NZAVS Director Phil Clayton says, "the safety concerns regarding transmission of disease carrying organisms from animals to humans are more than enough to call for the present moratorium on xenotransplants to be transformed into a permanent ban."

"Bacteria, prions, fungi and viruses are potential dangers that could be transmitted via xenotransplants, with the added risks of bypassing the body's natural barriers such as skin or gastro-intestrinal tract. Once inside the human body, these organisms could mutate into forms that could be fatal and easily transmissible form person to person. Xenotransplantation puts the public at risk.", he said.

ENDS

Note to Editors and Journalists:
The Submission of the NZ Anti-Vivisection Society to the Bioethics
Council can be read at
http://www.nzavs.org.nz/submissions/bioxeno.html

For more information on xenotransplantation refer:
http://www.nzavs.org.nz/xeno.html

The New Zealand Anti-Vivisection Society Incorporated was founded in 1978 by Bette Overell, and during the 1980s and 1990s organised spectacular marches through the streets of Wellington and other NZ cities each year, in support of our Petitions to Abolish the LD50 Test (1984), and to Abolish Vivisection (1989). The latter Petition achieving over 100,000 signatures. NZAVS campaigns for the abolition of vivisection on the grounds that it is medical and scientific fraud. That, due to differences in reactions between species, there can be no extrapolation of results between species.

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