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Published online 31 January 2006 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news060130-2

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Switching vet drug could save vultures

Alternative livestock drug should be used to avert bird extinctions, say researchers.

Conservationists battling to save South Asia's vultures have renewed their calls for a regional ban on the widely prescribed livestock drug diclofenac, which is responsible for the fatal poisoning of millions of birds over the past decade.

Their case has been boosted by new research showing that an alternative drug, with the same pain-killing effects as diclofenac, does not harm the vultures; they argue that this should be brought in as an immediate replacement.

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