When you think about medicine and animals, what comes to mind? For a lot of us, we first think of animal testing; clinical trials, lab mice, etc. But we don’t tend to think so much about the ingredients in our medicines and what animals they come from. Many common drugs and medicines like blood thinners, treatments for menopause and even vaccines contain pig, horse or chicken byproducts. In some countries such as several in Asia, some medicines contain products from animals that are endangered such as tigers and rhinos. Others involve extractions from live animals that can involve considerable pain to animal, damage to its health, and quite horrendous living conditions. Use of bear bile is one example of this latter category.
Today, we are going to devote a lot of time to the subject thanks to our guest Dr. Mandala Hunter-Ishikawa. Mandala is a veterinarian with Animals Asia which is a charity headquartered in Hong Kong that has been working for decades to rescue and rehabilitate bears from the bear bile trade in China and Vietnam. It aims to end the bear bile trade through awareness, education and rescue efforts.
Links:
Video of Tuffy, a rescued Moon bear jumping for joy in water for the first time: https://youtu.be/GN4svy6iGT4
Fear Free Pets: https://fearfreepets.com
Social Media links:
https://www.instagram.com/animalsasia
https://www.facebook.com/AnimalsAsia
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