We are afraid we’ll be tarred by the same brush said one anti-vivisection campaigner It is doing us no favours at all

We are afraid we’ll be tarred by the same brush,” said one anti-vivisection campaigner “It is doing us no favours at all. We have spent years getting to where we are today.”The hard-line Animal Rights Militia has threatened to “assassinate” 10 people if Horne, serving an 18-year sentence for a firebombing campaign, dies. They believe their public credibility has been severely damaged by the direct action of the ALF.The groups, which have about 30,000 members, say that although the profile of animals in labs has been raised by Horne’s hunger strike, public sympathy for the anti-vivisection movement has “dropped away” because of the extremist stance of “a tiny minority”.”This is very damaging to the animal rights movement as a whole. Last month, after a 12- year campaign supported by MPs and public figures including the actress Helen Mirren, the groups saw a British ban passed on cosmetic tests using animals.They fear, however, that the public will now view them as “extremists” favouring violence and firebombing to get their message across.

They were behind the high-profile advertisements featuring laboratory experiments using the eyes of white rabbits to test make-up. He may never regain his sight.Two leading animal charities, the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) and the National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS), set up more than a century ago to stop the dissection of live animals in experiments, fear Horne has set back their work. His liver and other vital organs are being damaged and his weight has dropped from 14 stone to eight. If he does stop his fast, he may be left with long-term health problems, including internal bleeding and perforation of the stomach. Les Stevens, a spokesman for the Animals Betrayed Coalition, which is supporting Horne, said the convicted arsonist’s health was deteriorating badly: “He saw his family today and they were having the chance to say goodbye to him.”Hope last week that he might decide to start eating again, because of Government moves to protect animals, is fading.Mr Horne has already lost most of his sight and is deaf in one ear. They are angry that the ALF “did not tell them” of the animal activist’s decision to fast, and say its members failed to share details of the publicity campaign organised around Horne’s action.
Yesterday Horne, who was in the 67th day of his fast, saw his family in prison. Mainstream anti-vivisection campaigners say that their image has been “severely damaged” by the extremist activities of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) which is backing his hunger strike.

ANIMAL WELFARE groups, campaigning to end vivisection in British laboratories, believe they have been set back “a decade” by the hunger strike staged by Barry Horne. Another million probably have the disease but have not been diagnosed. About one in 10 suffer from the insulin-dependent form of the disease which can only be treated with regular injections of insulin. Most diabetics are treated with a combination of drugs and a low-fat, high-fibre diet.The incidence of diabetes is rising sharply in developing countries, where more than half of the 220 million people forecast to get the illness by 2010 will live.. However strict guidelines on the claims made on food labelling mean it could take several years of clinical trials before foods containing detarium are readily available.Around 1.4 million people in the UK have been diagnosed as having diabetes. In addition, it could be invaluable for patients susceptible to the illness because of the link between surges in blood sugar, that put stress on the pancreas to produce insulin, and the development of diabetes.The King’s scientists are looking at several plants which have similar properties, but so far detarium has been shown to be the most effective.”The implications of moderating surges in blood sugar and reducing insulin and cholesterol levels in the blood with a natural dietary product that has no side-effects are very promising,” said Dr Ellis.Detarium is extremely palatable and large quantities can be mixed with food without spoiling the taste. Not only does it slow insulin production and sugar absorption, it also improves the absorption of nutrients and fats, thereby lowering blood cholesterol.

AN EDIBLE African plant which has been found to reduce blood sugar levels could prove crucial in the prevention and treatment of diabetes and a host of other illnesses. Flour derived from the Detarium senegalense Gmelin plant has been used as a thickener in soups and stews in rural West Africa for centuries, where rates of diabetes, heart disease and cancer are among the lowest in the world.
However it was only when a Nigerian researcher, Uchenna Onyechi, brought several of her country’s native plants into the life and health sciences laboratories at King’s College, University of London, that detarium’s remarkable properties were discovered.One of Dr Onyechi’s reasons for studying detarium was to identify substances produced in her own country which could tackle the dramatic rise in diabetes among Nigerian city dwellers who have adopted a more “Western” lifestyle.Scientists at King’s recently carried out the first studies of the effects of detarium on humans, which revealed that when the plant flour is taken as part of a meal, it reduces the surge in blood sugar usually experienced after eating.This is because the plant contains a high amount of water soluble fibre, which slows down the absorption of glucose from the digestive system into the blood.Dr Peter Ellis, who is leading the research group, said the “startling” results show detarium has “great potential in the treatment of diabetes and heart disease and could help to prevent these and other diseases including colon cancer”.It could also stave off illnesses such as kidney failure, heart disease and blindness, which are closely associated with long-term diabetes.People with diabetes experience high or fluctuating levels of blood sugar, because the insulin needed for the sugar’s absorption into body tissues is lacking or inhibited from working.Unlike many of today’s diabetic drugs, which have specific functions such as boosting insulin production – itself shown to be a risk factor in heart disease – or reducing plasma cholesterol, detarium has the potential to tackle the illness on several levels. The hymns, psalms, responses and prayers are merged into an hour-long meditation, which is stocked by mainstream record shops.Review, page 19. Half the Carthusian monks do not stay the course, and some stay considerably less time than five years.The CD, entitled In the Silence of the Word, is designed as an aid to a “spiritual mini-retreat” for people at the end of a busy day.

Ignace was one month away from making this transition when, in November, he left the monastery and returned to Belgium, something he had said he would never do.In turning his back on the austere way of life, Ignace is not alone. “It was great fun, but that’s nothing to do with what our life is about I haven’t come here to make CDs. I’ve come here to search for God and pray for the world,” said Ignace in October. “I would have loved to have a children’s choir, which is a place of healing, but I know being here is 100 times more useful.