Resources & Archives Mark your calendars! Cleveland Amory Humane Achievement Award: October 21st in New York City (Summer 2000) — The setting will be different - the Algonquin Hotel in New York City - but the sentiments of pleasure and pride will be the same when NEAVS presents its second Cleveland Amory Humane Achievement Award on Saturday, October 21, 2000, to an acknowledged leader in the animal protection movement: Ethel Thurston, PhD. Our first award recipient was Marian Garth Probst, co-founder and president of The Fund for Animals. "Dr. Thurston is universally recognized and admired as one of the first and leading supporters of non-animal testing methods. Because of her commitment to end the suffering of animals in laboratories worldwide, she has been selected as the second recipient of NEAVS' Cleveland Amory Humane Achievement Award. We are honored that Dr. Ethel Thurston has accepted NEAVS' recognition of her on behalf of the world's anti-vivisection movement," said NEAVS President Theodora Capaldo, EdD. A founding trustee and board member of the American Fund for Alternatives to Animal Research (AFAAR), Dr. Thurston has been a protector of animals from an early age. As a child, she saw many examples of animal abuse and cruelty, and vowed to do all she could to ease animals' misery. This promise to help animals was reinforced when her family lived within hearing distance of a slaughterhouse in a small Berkshire farming community. Dr. Thurston studied organ music and composition in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and later served for many years as Chair of the Department of Music History at the Manhattan School of Music. Even during her academic career, Dr. Thurston remained devoted to helping animals. She assisted friends in England and studied the philosophy and strategies of the Lord Dowding Fund for Humane Research. In 1977, Dr. Thurston was instrumental in establishing AFAAR as a charitable trust dedicated to promoting and financing alternatives to animal experiments. "There are so many advanced possibilities in groups of human cell cultures, computer models and other alternatives," she said. AFAAR works to finance research to develop validated alternative test methods. Working in conjunction with NEAVS on many occasions, AFAAR has supported the work of Swedish toxicologist, Bjorn Ekwall, MD, PhD, and other pioneers in non-animal testing. Over the years, AFAAR has raised funds to award support grants to scientists worldwide to develop or teach non-animal testing. The projects focus on developing in vitro (test tube) alternatives to the LD50 test, the Draize test, protein destruction and recovery tests, and others. Since 1990, AFAAR has co-sponsored work by Dr. Ekwall's Multicenter Evaluation of In Vitro Cytotoxicity (MEIC) to designate batteries of non-animal replacements for most animal tests. A long-time friend of NEAVS, Dr. Thurston currently serves on its Advisory Board. Said Dr. Capaldo, "Over the years, it has been our pleasure and privilege at NEAVS to work with her and with Dr. Ekwall as we joined together in providing funding for Dr. Ekwall's ground-breaking research into non-animal toxicity testing methods." NEAVS supporters and friends are urged to contact the NEAVS Office, 617-523-6020, for further details of the award ceremony. Mark your calendars now and plan to join NEAVS for this special tribute that recognizes the achievements of a special person who has done so much to alleviate the suffering of so many animals over the years. Back to UPDATE 2000 Series, Vol. 1, No. 2 Summer mainpage.