Episode 30 NZ Pig Transplants

Explicit content warning

07/02/09 • -1 min

Episode 30
New Zealand Pig Transplants
Hello and welcome to Jay Wont darts podcast, this is episode 30, about Living Cells Technology, testing on apparently Disease Free pigs near Invercargill, where I live.
My intro was from a 60 minutes episode, talking about people who eat less willingly, and appear to live longer.
A little history about the Auckland Island pigs.
The Auckland Islands are some sub Antarctic islands, Auckland Island is the main island from the group of Auckland Islands. The Auckland Islands are about 500 kilometres south of Invercargill, where I live.
The islands are quite beautiful looking, its mostly shrubs and rock from what I can see on wikipedia, but I think it has a lot of forest too.
The pigs were released onto Auckland Island in 1807, as a source of food for whalers and shipwreck survivors, they were like living emergency rations for any people who needed food. Pretty dark huh? Living in paradise, all alone, just in case some people crash a boat into a rock, they can swim to your island and eat you. For over a hundred years, the pigs were left alone. They basically became a separate breed of pigs, now called the Auckland Island pig. In more recent times, the pigs were judged as an introduced species, they didnt belong on Auckland Island, and they had been eating too many of the plants, and had supposedly been squashing birds eggs, I dont see how this is a big problem to humanity, but DOC and other wildlife groups in New Zealand did.
12th of January, 1999, a party of volunteers left from Bluff, a port town very close to Invercargill. They returned back on the 23rd, with seventeen pigs, including some pregnant sows. The pigs had been lower in number than expected, and were hard to find, forest covered the area they were in, the only way to find them was to use trained dogs to find and hold the pigs. The hunters would then tie their legs and jaws shut, and the pigs were carried back to the base camp where they were put into cages. The site I'm reading from, rarebreeds.co.nz, in the source notes, says that injuries happened, (not always to the pigs!). So, 17 pigs were rescued, and according to the 3news page, the rest were killed by DOC, for being an introduced species, they had to die according to our Department of Conservation. Department of Culling sounds more accurate to me.
The 17 pigs who were "rescued from auckland islands" as the media have reported, were moved to Invercargill. Rescued? from paradise? Taken to a secret location near Invercargill?
It was found the Auckland Island pig is basically disease free, The Southland Times newspaper here often calls them "disease free pigs". They have been biocertified, acceptable for animal to human transplants.
There is now a company setting up Auckland Island pig farms around Invercargill, theres one currently one building that has just opened, the location is kept secret I believe. The name of the company is Living Cell Technologies, they will handle breeding the pigs and extracting cells from the pigs, to be used in people.
I should mention now, anything I say from now on is pretty much just my opinion, what I think based on what I've found from other sources. I asked for information from Living cell Technologies, and also from Mayor of Invercargill Tim Shadbolt, because I honestly dont know what is going to happen inside the Pig Farms.
Tim Shadbolt, our Mayor, is a big supporter of the pigs being bred, the amount of money being made in Southland is mentioned as being billions of dollars. I wish Living Cell or Mayor Shadbolt had taken up my offer to appear on this episode of my podcast, because I honestly want to know whats going to happen, instead you just get to hear me coming up with crazy ideas. Living Cell didnt get back to me, but I got a text reply from the Mayors office.
Living Cell is going to use liver cells from the pigs, for people with Diabetes Type One, pig cells will be injected into people and they will help the person's liver produce Insulin. In the media, the local Southland Times newspaper, the story about the pigs is only mentioned positively, I seem to be the only person in Invercargill against the use of these animals. The facilities are mentioned as costing millions of dollars to build, and that the pigs will be well treated, and the paper calls them "pig palaces". I've seen a photo of the Mayor inside where the pigs will live, it looked like concrete prison cells, probably only a metre or two across, slabs of solid concrete from what I saw in the photo, that was from when the building was being constructed, I dont know what it will be like inside with the pigs now. I'll now mention some newspaper articles
Ok, sure thing Alex, I'll use you again, just for short things though.. I'll read these news stories myself with a 3 news clip in between.
From The Southland Times,
Living Cell Technologies has received approval to begin clinical trials involving ...

Next Episode

Episode 31 Michael Jackson's Memorial

Episode 31
Michael Jackson's Memorial
MJ INTRO CLIP SONGS
This episode, I'll mention the memorial to Michael Jackson that happened early this morning New Zealand time. I'll play plenty of emotional songs, interspersed with clips from the memorial service. The intro clips were, in order,
I Want You Back,
I'll Be There,
Aint No Sunshine,
Rockin Robin,
Little Bitty Pretty One,
Who's Lovin' You,
My Girl
This is part of an unreleased song, For All Time, it was included on Thriller 25.
Today there was a public memorial, it was held in the Staples Centre in Los Angeles, 17 and a half thousand tickets were given out to lucky Michael Jackson fans to attend. A private Jackson family service was held beforehand, and then Michaels closed casket was unexpectedly taken to the Memorial, it was just in front of the stage for the event. Many famous celebrities took to the stage and talked about how much Michael Jackson meant to them, some performed his songs. Notable people included Mariah Carey, Magic Johnson, Koby Bryant, Usher, Al Sharpton, Brooke Shields, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, Smokey Robinson and John Mayer.
This is from today Memorial, Stevie Wonder talks about Michael, and mentions a song he wrote for him that was included in the Off The Wall album, I play a clip from the song.
Heres an early demo clip of Michael with his brothers, working on a Jacksons song together, notice the fighting at the end, in lots of the demo clips, recorded at the Jackson Family studio, you can hear the siblings argue. See how long it takes you to recognise the song.
Ok, so thats not really fighting, but on some of the demo tracks, you can hear the jacksons yell at each other, normally Michael will be saying to turn something up or down, and one of the brothers will say something like "do it yourself", and Janet will take Michaels side.
Often when musicians die, fans go through their music and find odd back masked messages, or hints about the singers death. When I heard about Michael going into Cardiac Arrest, and that he had been injected with a drug shortly before, I thought of his song Morphine, from the album Blood On The Dancefloor. They lyrics are all about Michael and his drug addictions to painkillers, Elton John was thanked as helping him off the drugs.
The lyrics to Morphine are kind of scary to listen to now,
He got flat baby
Kick in the back baby
A heart attack baby
Oh God he's taking demerol
I'll play some of the song
Its kind of odd, he named a drug he was addicted to, and mentions a heart attack a decade or so before he pretty much dies from exactly that.
This is one of my favourite sad songs, Someone In The Dark, it was included in the E.T soundtrack and storybook Michael recorded. Michael Jackson said of all the awards he had gotten, he was most proud of the 1984 Best Recording for Children grammy for this song.
Smokey Robinson, a famous Motown artist who wrote songs for other singers, had some fond memories of Michael, he appeared at the Memorial.
This next song is a Michael Jackson Tribute song, called Better On The Other Side, with Puff Daddy, The Game, Chris Brown, Boys II Men and others. It came out the day Michael died.
Al Sharpton had very nice things to say about Michael today at the memorial, he got lots of applause for his message to Michaels kids, its a great quote.
A song that came up at the public service was We Are The World.
Almost through this episode now, I'm trying to keep this episode relatively short. Michaels brother Marlon spoke at the service today, Marlon had a stillborn identical twin brother, Brandon Jackson, who gets mentioned by Marlon at the memorial to Michael.
Very touching.
I'd like to play my second last song, before a clip from one of Michaels children, its very rare for one of his three children to be seen in public, he hid them away from the paparazzi.
Michaels daughter, Paris Jackson was onstage with the other celebrities near the end of the public service, with Janet Jackson and other family members beside her, when she spoke, it reminded me of Steve Irwins daughter talking at her fathers public service. It breaks my heart to hear Paris Jackson talk, for the first time in public.
That was janet giving her advice at the start.
So far, Michael hasnt been buried, theres talk the family would like to have him buried at Neverland Ranch, possibly near the train station he used everyday to go from his house to the small zoo he had near the back of his property. Its an interesting idea, having Neverland Zoo as a Graceland type tourist attraction, I'd certainly like to visit sometime. Whatever happens to Michaels body from now on, his public memorial was very successful.
I'd like to thank you very much for joining me, with episode 31 of Jay Wont dart's podcast. My outro is one last sad song.
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