Cyprus-Forum.com

[Sega]

I am a Greek-Cypriot from England, but I have recently moved to Cyprus. When I was in England every-so-often I would get rid of my old clothes and give them to charity. The charity of my choice was always 'Cancer Research UK'. If I wanted to do something similar in Cyprus where would I give my clothes, does anybody know if there is similar charities over here that do something similar.

[twinkle]

In Larnaca there is a cancer society shop next to St Lazarus Church. Near the police station, on the road Ora Ellados is on, there is a charity shop collecting for the Paphos Animal Shelter. I always donate there as the animals don't get much funding in Cyprus. Failing that I've heard that Agios Georgios home for disabled children needs clothes for children and young adults.

[phoenix]

Would people think twice about supporting Cancer RESEARCH charities, please.

They waste an awful lot of money on UNNECESSARY cruel animal experiments . . .

They are usually flooded with money and have very few proper ideas of what valid research to do . . so they fund lots of interesting but extremely CRUEL vivisection experiments with applicabilities that are under serious scrutiny.

Best to give to ones that spend directly on sufferers.

[devil]

Would people think twice about supporting Cancer RESEARCH charities, please.

They waste an awful lot of money on UNNECESSARY cruel animal experiments . . .

They are usually flooded with money and have very few proper ideas of what valid research to do . . so they fund lots of interesting but extremely CRUEL vivisection experiments with applicabilities that are under serious scrutiny.

Best to give to ones that spend directly on sufferers.

That is a load of male bovine excrement. As a person diagnosed with cancer 12 years ago, I'm very grateful for the medication, whether it was tested on animals or not. And, as an ex-supplier to the Swiss pharma industry, I KNOW FOR A FACT that no animal experiments are done unnecessarily. Apart from anything else, animal experiments are far too costly to do on a whim. A full drug regimen covering acute, sub-chronic and chronic effects lasts up to 5 years and costs in excess of $1,000,000 dollars for each new molecule. Furthermore, before an experiment is started, they need to obtain Federal approval for it, depicting all the foreseen stages, precautions taken, and measures taken to alleviate cruelty.

There is no point in giving money to the sufferers if they cannot obtain the medications necessary to cure their illness because of extremist animal-rights cranks telling lies about what really happens.

If you wish to give money to help animals, there is plenty of scope, here in Cyprus, to alleviate their suffering from the treatment they receive from stupid owners. This would be far more effective than believing the myths put about by activists.

[phoenix]

Would people think twice about supporting Cancer RESEARCH charities, please.

They waste an awful lot of money on UNNECESSARY cruel animal experiments . . .

They are usually flooded with money and have very few proper ideas of what valid research to do . . so they fund lots of interesting but extremely CRUEL vivisection experiments with applicabilities that are under serious scrutiny.

Best to give to ones that spend directly on sufferers.

That is a load of male bovine excrement. As a person diagnosed with cancer 12 years ago, I'm very grateful for the medication, whether it was tested on animals or not. And, as an ex-supplier to the Swiss pharma industry, I KNOW FOR A FACT that no animal experiments are done unnecessarily. Apart from anything else, animal experiments are far too costly to do on a whim. A full drug regimen covering acute, sub-chronic and chronic effects lasts up to 5 years and costs in excess of $1,000,000 dollars for each new molecule. Furthermore, before an experiment is started, they need to obtain Federal approval for it, depicting all the foreseen stages, precautions taken, and measures taken to alleviate cruelty.

There is no point in giving money to the sufferers if they cannot obtain the medications necessary to cure their illness because of extremist animal-rights cranks telling lies about what really happens.

If you wish to give money to help animals, there is plenty of scope, here in Cyprus, to alleviate their suffering from the treatment they receive from stupid owners. This would be far more effective than believing the myths put about by activists.

Devil, believe me it's not a myth. I have worked with these companies and many research institutes and I KNOW 95% of the experiments carried out using animals and 100% of the experiments using LIVE animals are unnecessary.

There are far more effective tissue culture techniques, some of which I helped develop that offer direct accurate precise results without the need for LIVE animals.

You obviously believe the hype you heard from the VERY powerful pharmaceutical LOBBY . . . who have a vested interest in NOT moving over to accurate model systems because most of their drugs will be shown for the waste of resources they actually are!

They may eventually even DISCOVER a cure for cancer . . and that would be just AWFUL because then their profits would plummet!

I'm surprised at you Devil you are usually so astute.

You also got male bovine wrong

[Sega]

Thanks for your help guys. I did not mean to cause an arguement, sorry. I will probably be donating to both animal and human based charities, just to balance everything out. Thank you all for your input

[devil]

As I said, MALE BOVINE EXCREMENT. I've never heard of the cow being used to describe it; bulls and horses, yes, but never cows. I only hope, for your sake, you are never afflicted with any long and painful disease which can be treated with a drug which has been tested on animals and which your conscience would refuse to allow you to take. Maybe you would even change your mind.

Histological specimens may demonstrate the effectiveness of a drug on certain kinds of disease and are widely used, before a full-scale animal test is considered, but they cannot demonstrate the metabolic uptake nor the side-effects. Nor can probable human posology be determined for the initial human trials.

I can assure you that I'm the last to be taken in with pharma hype. Just ask my wife who complains at my comments on publicity for pharma products on TV. As for your contention that the industry does not use mathematical modelling for determining the probability of a molecule having an effect on a disease, this is just plain ignorant nonsense. I suppose you think that the Cray and similar supercomputers are bought by the pharma industry to do their accounts? They work 24/7 determining the probable effects of potential molecules.

I am against the unnecessary use of animals for any purpose that does not take into account the animal's welfare, but I can assure you that, in Switzerland (where I lived before Cyprus) at least, there are NO unnecessary experiments. The Federal government ensures this, with a very close surveillance. If you visit the facilities of ISREC (Institut suisse de recherche expérimentale sur le cancer) at Epalinges, near Lausanne, you would be welcome to view the animals. The only condition would be that you would have to follow instructions regarding clothing. This is one of the foremost research institutes for cancer in the world. You will see that the animals (mostly mice) are treated well, probably a lot better than the majority of cats, dogs, horses, donkeys etc. here in Cyprus. (Of course, this is necessary when a particular mouse strain may cost hundreds for a single animal).

If you really want to think about animal welfare, it is not the pharma industry that uses the most animals. It is toxicology testing of chemicals. The EU REACH directive will imply the administration of toxic substances to literally millions of animals:

REACH will require a registration, over a period of 11 years, of some 30.000 chemical substances. The registration process requires the manufacturers and importers to generate data for all chemicals substances produced or imported into the EU above one tonne per year. The registrants must also identify appropriate risk management measures and communicate them to the users.

To determine the toxicity (hence the risk to users) of each chemical requires cohorts of animals of a minimum of about 100 and a maximum of 2,000 to determine the LD50, LC50 and OEL of each one. That is of much more concern than the pharma industry.

[phoenix]

I was not referring to computer modelling for toxicity studies but to tissue culture techniques. If you are unfamiliar with them they are basically cells from different organs that can be cultivated. They can be transformed to become specific cancers. You can then evaluate the effectiveness of each individual drug on a specific cancerous cell. The results are therefore more meaningful than direct comparisons with animals whose metabolism is generally different to that of Humans. After all if aspirin had been tested on cats . . we would have banned it as it is extremely toxic to them. Also if we had used tissue culture we would never have allowed thalidomide to be used by pregnant women.

The toxicology experiments you refer to are part and parcel of the cancer research industry as most anti-cancer agents are extremely TOXIC.

This is just a quick off the top of my head reply as I've only just seen your post, but I would welcome a more in-depth discussion if you wish.

[Get Real!]

...thalidomide to be used by pregnant women.

Now THAT was nasty! Terrible side effects...

[phoenix]

...thalidomide to be used by pregnant women.

Now THAT was nasty! Terrible side effects...

That's my point to devil . . . because thalidomide was tested on the wrong species it was assumed safe and prescribed accordingly.

Surely you can see the uncertainty caused by using other animals as models for Humans?