This article is a week old by now, but I haven't seen a lot of commentary about it, so I thought I'd throw in my twofive cents.
First of all, I think it's awesome that the European Union has banned animal testing for cosmetics beginning March 2009. Any time a use of animals is completely abolished, that is something to be happy about. If this pans out as intended, animal exploitation for cosmetic safety will be a relic of the past (at least in the EU).
Unfortunately, this event does not signify any meaningful shift in humanity's overall attitude toward animals. Rather, it merely acknowledges a fairly widespread welfare agreement among humans that it is unconscionable to harm animals for something as trivial as make-up (or fur, or foie gras...). It does not signal broad support for the idea that other animal uses are trivial as well (i.e., flesh, eggs, dairy products, entertainment, companionship, etc.).
However, the outcome of this ban does demonstrate some value in legislating against animal use, particularly where there is already much agreement between animal protectionists and your average person concerned about animal welfare. Companies that would otherwise not sink hundreds of millions into R&D for alternatives to animal-testing are working overtime to meet the deadline, sparking a new industry in the process, and soon several thousand animals a year will be spared from being tested for product safety on what most rational people would agree are non-essentials.
Regrettably, a lot of this activity stems from another piece of legislation, known as REACH, which will require companies to develop safety data on 30,000 chemicals over the next 11 years, which will likely result in increased animal testing.
In fact, the actual number of animals tested for cosmetics is small compared with medical or educational uses, according to a new European Commission report. But from 2002 to 2005 the tally grew 50 percent in Europe, to 5,571 animals.
So it's a mixed bag, but at least we're seeing one form of testing eliminated, rather than both continued.
This is the best sort of incremental shift we can expect to see in favor of animals as long as 1) humans consider animals commodities or property to be exploited for our own gain and 2) animal research is thought to be necessary. Welfare-oriented activism typically seeks to reduce, refine or eliminate testing by faulting research on non-human beings as cruel and unreliable. Rights activists argue that it doesn't matter whether the results are transferable to humans or not. After all, experimenting on humans would provide the most accurate results, but we rightfully reject anything but the safest, most consensual human research. Non-human animals cannot give their consent, of course, so they are caged and used against their will, a clear violation of their interests and, thus, a violation of their rights.
My informal survey of scientists in print and in person tells me that most would generally be thrilled not to use animals anymore, but they often ask what the superior alternatives are, arguing that, as soon as they are available, they will happily use them (though this is often lip service, since animal research nets so many researchers significant grant money, keeping them and their staff employed). Even this ignores the deepest interests of animals, justifying inferior, cruel research as better than nothing. For them, as long as they do their best to treat animals according to what they consider humane standards (the ones covered under welfare guidelines anyway), the good outweighs the bad. But this "lesser of evils" approach is inherently corruptive.
In other words, we have an arduous mission in front of us, "we" being those of us who believe that all animal use is wrong, because it violates the interests of independent, sentient beings. Either we succeed in collapsing support for animal testing by further disseminating the view that animals are not ours to do with as we please, or others succeed in convincing the majority of humans that animal testing is simply unnecessary, or even harmful to humans. The first approach leads to liberation for all animals, while the second approach may only see the end of animals being exploited for one particular purpose, permitting other animal uses to continue because they are still perceived as necessary. I am compelled to struggle for the former, while others struggle for the latter (and still others come at the issue with every approach they can muster).
Perhaps we could see bans on animal research, foie gras and fur occur in relatively short order. After all, a much larger percentage of the human population considers the "excess" cruelty involved in these practices as unnecessary (except, perhaps for medical research). However, I'm adamant that we must shift perceptions of animals altogether. If we shake the fundamental perception that it's necessary (much less acceptable) to violate animals' interests to suit our own wants and fears, we may eventually see a rejection of all animal exploitation based not on whether it's unreliable or unnecessary, but rather on moral outrage. And once a society rejects something, be it monarchy, slavery, racism or sexism, it is very difficult to slide back on that (despite some very concerted efforts to do so).
So, if we want to end all animal experimentation, we must erode support for all animal use, as any course that denies the shared interest of all animals in not being exploited is not true progress for the rights of animals (both non-human and human). It's merely a dressing on the wound.
I'll wrap this entry up with a few salient quotes:
... You do not settle whether an experiment is justified or not by merely showing that it is of some use. The distinction is not between useful and useless experiments, but between barbarous and civilized behaviour. Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character.
...If you cannot attain to knowledge without torturing a dog, you must do without knowledge.
And...
Atrocities are not less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research.
I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn't...The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further."
I abhor vivisection. It should at least be curbed. Better it should be abolished. I know of no achievement through vivisection, no scientific discovery that could not have been obtained without such barbarism and cruelty. The whole thing is evil.
Any honest accounting of the human costs and benefits of animal research must estimate the human benefits after subtracting the losses from ineffective treatments that looked promising on animals, the losses of those denied beneficial treatments that flunked an animal test, and the losses of those whose harmful treatments passed the animal tests. The real benefits to human beings are bound to be a lot less than it appears in pro-animal-testing propaganda, and we really have no good idea how great they are, or even if there are any at all, because the detailed accounting is almost never done.
I really wanted to do a bunch of individual updates but, when I get behind from traveling as I did last week, the potential posts add up, especially since I also cross-post at Zaadz, CrueltyFree.com, and MySpace, all of which have their own individual time-consuming idiosyncrasies (I've given up on VeganMySpace and VegSpace for now, as they are even harder to work with, and I barely have time as it is). So, I'll post another digest and endeavor to get back into a more regular routine again. Thanks for your patience!
The Associated Press (by way of Forbes) neglects to tell readers that the EU's newly-banned cat and dog fur is morally indistinguishable from fur torn from the backs of other animals in EU Douses Cat and Dog Fur Trade.
Also from AP, this time by way of The Boston Globe, an Alaska man pleads guilty to illegally selling seal parts. The man, who once agreed to help "conserve" the "depleted" northern fur seals, if you can believe that, faces up to one year in prison and a $20,000 fine for illegally selling "more than 100 seal penises to a Korean gift shop in Anchorage, where they were to be resold for about $100 apiece in the traditional Chinese medicine trade."
Bernard Matthews, the British poultry processor that last year claimed it was committed to the "highest standards" of animal welfare, is back in the news for animal cruelty at one of its plants (Daily Mail: Bernard Matthews worker caught playing football with turkeys), further demonstrating that animals' welfare will never be assured so long as they are commodified. The story includes the damning photos and video.
From MSNBC.com: Japan kicks off whaling season along coast (WARNING: Disturbing photo of a dead whale being flensed at the top of the page). Japanese whalers, who at this year's International Whaling Commission conference found themselves under pressure for their continued whaling under the guise of science, make clear the attitude toward whales, saying that they should be managed like any other natural resource, rejecting anti-whaling arguments that the animals should be protected. This anthropocentric view of animals as natural resources must be countered prominently with the fact that these are sentient individuals suffering at the hands of the whalers, not "resources." If we are to live by our own humanitarian ethics, all sentient beings ought to be protected from such so-called harvesting.
A more positive article I dug up, from DentalPlans.com of all places, is called Taking Animals Out Of Laboratory Research. It originally appeared in Science Daily, which itself adapted a press release from the University of Nottingham, but it still bears reporting. While the piece does suggest that the immediate abolition of animal testing is not possible overnight--a self-perpetuating perspective I find particularly frustrating--it does bring with that message the good news that FRAME (Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments) will be officially opening its new Alternatives Laboratory on July 6th:
Pioneering work to reduce the use of animals in scientific research — and ultimately remove them from laboratories altogether — has received a major boost at The University of Nottingham.
A laboratory devoted to finding effective alternatives to animal testing has been expanded and completely remodelled in a £240,000 overhaul designed to hasten the development of effective non-animal techniques.
Scientists hope that by developing the use of cell and tissue cultures, computer modelling, cell and molecular biology, epidemiology and other methods, they will one day be able to completely remove animals from medical research — while still maintaining crucial work to defeat diseases that affect millions of people.
While I'm encouraged to see efforts to end animal research, that day can't come soon enough for the nonhuman animals who shouldn't be kept in cages and experimented on for our own specious purposes in the first place.
Apologies for the paucity of posts this past week. I'm still "under water," as "they" say. Lots of projects in fairly time-intensive phases at once, though that should clear up a little bit later this month, I hope.
In the meantime, here are a couple more stories I've been meaning to blog about. I hope you'll settle for a digest version of my commentary. And stay tuned. You never know when something will set off my hot button and spawn a lengthy rant or possibly even a cogent analysis (it's been known to happen!).
I mentioned the Pepsi announcement previously, but Coke has also come through as of last week and announced that they will no longer fund or conduct animal experiments, according to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, lending credence to the "domino effect" theory relied upon by certain organizations in going after worst corporate practices. Knock one down publicly, and the others feel compelled to follow suit in order to stay competitive (though I wouldn't be surprised if corporations that don't test on animals came out and said that they don't fund testing, either, "just so's you know").
According to PETA's Bruce Friedrich, it's on now to Altria Group (you may remember the company as Philip Morris Companies Inc.), which the org went after as a shareholder in 2005. If Altria is persuaded to drop testing, too, that would indeed be a huge victory, but don't hold your breath.
Assuring that I will never again buy a pair of Adidas shoes (though, honestly, it's been years since I paid attention to the brand), the company has lobbied the California legislature to the tune of $435,693, asking lawmakers to legalize the import and sale of kangaroo skins so that they can sell shoes made from the marsupials' skin.
It's one thing to buy non-leather shoes from manufacturers who sell leather shoes, but who wants to buy shoes from a company that actively lobbies California to overturn its existing ban on certain flesh products so that soccer players can have lighter shoes? This needs little comment. It could have been directly lifted from The Onion. Here is a real quote from the president of the Los Angeles Galaxy soccer team:
Because my team represents California in a highly competitive sport, I believe that the full array of soccer products should be locally accessible to and be available for purchase by our players here in California.
I guess their highly paid, highly trained, world class athletes can't take an extra ounce of weight on their feet. Oh, wait, it appears they can... soccer superstar David Beckham,
the former English captain and the face of Adidas' soccer shoe line, finds himself in a precarious position just weeks before joining his new American club, Los Angeles Galaxy.
Last year he announced he would wear a synthetic version of Adidas' Predator soccer boots, instead of styles made from kangaroo skin.
Beckham, whose Spice Girl wife Victoria is a devout vegetarian, made the decision after viewing graphic videos of the culling of kangaroos in Australia, including a joey being cut out of its mother's pouch and battered with a blunt instrument.
I never thought I'd say this, but thank goodness for a Spice Girl.
Remember that this bill hasn't passed the Assembly yet, nor been signed by Governor Schwarzenegger. If you're in California, speak up now!
Wrapping things up, SuperVegan found a cool new toy to play with, and I want to join in the fun. I know several dozen bloggers link back to AAFL. Check it out and, if you like, please add the widget to your sidebar of blog or website. You can customize the look a little bit to better match your own design.
Chicago Tribune: Ruffling feathers "Movement leaders acknowledge that part of the reason animal rights doctrine is becoming more accepted is that the focus now is on education."
Evidently PepsiCo (the vast majority of whose products are almost entirely unnecessary to a healthy life: i.e., soft drinks & Fritos) was involved with a number of animal tests that will now be ended as a result of PETA's negotiations with the company. PETA may not do everything right, but the organization is certainly to be congratulated for their many successful campaigns to end animal testing by various large corporations.
According to PETA, PepsiCo's Gatorade Sports Science Institute funded a student research project in which mice were infected with a respiratory virus and then forced to exercise on a treadmill for three days.
In addition, its PepsiCo Foundation funded an experiment in which testosterone pellets and human prostate tumors were implanted in mice, PETA said.
PepsiCo spokeswoman Elaine Palmer said PepsiCo is not always aware of the specific projects it funds through partner institutions or organizations.
"The problem is, of course, that these are partners," Palmer said. "With an organization as large as PepsiCo, it's hard to fully police that, so we're hoping that this statement will make known that we encourage our partners to use alternatives to animal testing."
Despite this good news, I would like to take a sober moment to encourage a more fundamental approach to ending the use of nonhuman animals in research as PETA continues its campaign. So long as animal research is ethically accepted by consumers and the law, it will continue, and PETA will only be chipping away at the practice one company at a time, a Sisyphean task, to be sure. Perhaps the organization's efforts will reach a tipping point at which the public will reject all animal testing, but I foresee a much steeper mountain to push that boulder up once we get to animals used in pharmaceutical and biomedical research. Only widespread opposition to the use of animals for human ends can abolish animal experimentation altogether.
I think Neanderthal Guy from those Geico ads might object to that headline, but there's no doubt that testing drugs on animals is barbaric, cruel, and needs to be replaced with more sophisticated, ethical methods.
Europeans for Medical Progress, an anti-vivisection group, reports that after cancer, heart disease and stroke, the factor that kills the next greatest number of Europeans is unintended drug side effects. If animal tests were so accurate, why can't they predict those side effects?
"Adverse drug reactions kill more than 10,000 people a year in the U.K. (and more than 100,000 in the U.S.), costing (Britain's) National Health Service alone 466 million pounds per year," Europeans for Medical Progress reports.
My hope is that the more Americans learn about the cruelty of animal testing, the less they'll want it performed. Not only are most lab animals confined to tiny, depressing cages, they are also cut, burned, suffocated and drugged to death. If they happen to survive, most are "disposed of" after tests conclude.
The article includes a link for comments, but you must be a registered user at the seattlepi.com website. You can also send a letter to the editor in support of this opinion piece.
I know I haven't posted since Friday. I had a nice dinner at Native Foods, as planned. But, since then, I have been stretched very thin, and some computer issues that have plagued me over the past 30 hours only made matters worse. But you don't visit AAFL for the excuses! You want content! So, without further ado, here's what's been crashing my Safari browser lately (thank goodness for Saft):
World Week for Animals in Labs began Sunday the 22nd. The purpose of this annual event is "to expose the plight of animals used for testing and research. WWAIL seeks to arouse concern for animals in laboratories as well as educate the public about the scientific, moral, and economic objections to animal experimentation, also known as vivisection." To learn what's happening in your area this week, visit the WWAIL website set up by In Defense of Animals.
Perhaps it's a coincidence, but I found it striking that, on the same day that WWAIL began, The Los Angeles Times | West Magazine published a fairly lengthy piece written by J.R. Moehringer from the point of view of Cheeta, a former chimpanzee "actor" who, in all his 75 years, was fortunate to avoid becoming a research subject (yes, 75 years is a very long time for a chimp).
Cheeta Speaks is kind of a fluff piece, but it doesn't shy away from describing the cruelties involved with exploiting animals for entertainment and that's a good thing, especially because many people will no doubt be reading this story with fascination.
On Monday, SignOnSanDiego's Animals get Legislature's attention took a look at the considerable amount of animal legislation being voted on by lawmakers in Sacramento this year. Read the article for analysis and quotes. Below is a sidebar from the article highlighting the bills:
Spaying and neutering: Requires all dogs and cats to be spayed or neutered at 4 months. Breeders are exempt.
Farm animals: Requires ranchers to provide space for animals to stand, turn around and spread wings.
Elephants: Bans the use of bullhooks and chaining. Requires more space and exercise for those in zoos or performing in circuses.
Condors: Prohibits the use by hunters of lead shot in condor ranges.
Rodeos: Changes definition of rodeos to require small Mexican-style charreadas to provide an on-call veterinarian during events.
Restraining orders: Allows judges to add pets to restraining orders issued as part of domestic abuse cases.
Kangaroos: Authorizes imported kangaroo products, except those made of kangaroo species that are endangered.
Trapped animals: Requires trappers to inform property owners of nonlethal ways to remove pesky mammals, such as raccoons.
It's a pretty weak lot of welfare-oriented bills, if you ask me, but we can't afford to let pro-animal legislation lose and animal-hostile legislation succeed simply because we'd like to see animal exploitation end altogether. A couple of these measures could offer tangible improvements in the lives of animals while we're working to secure their freedom. If you live in California, you may want to contact your representatives to ensure your views are considered. Do I even need to suggest opposition to authorizing kangaroo product imports?
Let's hope this is not some flash in the pan, but a sign of a long and lasting trend toward compassionate fashion. For more animal-friendly shopping options, please explore the "Links" menu above.
It's not common to hear the deliberate killing of an animal "murder" in print, but here we have it:
"Leopard murder can only be provoked by cowardice or stupidity, in this case most likely by both," Pavel Fomenko, WWF's biodiversity coordinator in Russia's Far East, said in a statement.
Hunters in Russia's Far East have shot and killed one of the last seven surviving female Amur leopards living in the wild, WWF said on Monday, driving the species even closer to extinction.
Last week environmentalists said there were only between 25 and 34 Amur leopards — described as one of the most graceful cats in the world — still living in the wild.
When people poo-poo you for suggesting there are powerful interests at work to prevent animal cruelty from being exposed, show them this story:
Wyeth was known for strongly defending its drugs from claims of harm. It had rallied for its estrogen replacement and for its half of the fen-phen diet combo. Its veterinary subsidiary, Fort Dodge Animal Health, had sold 18 million doses of Proheart 6, worth tens of millions of dollars. It surely wouldn’t give up without a fight.
Many vets also liked replacing pills with the twice-a-year shot, which put heartworm prevention back into their hands. One vet with ties to Wyeth lectured colleagues about seizing on Proheart 6 as a “hook” to pull in healthy pets for profitable regular exams.
As the FDA meeting unfolded, the company said [Victoria] Hampshire was inflating her side-effect numbers. Things turned nastier when Hampshire said Fort Dodge had previously expressed its own concerns over tumors. Fort Dodge said it hadn’t.
“Either you’re lying, or I’m imagining it,” Hampshire erupted.
Dr. Stephen Sundlof, FDA’s veterinary chief, grabbed her hand under the table, silencing her, Hampshire says. (He didn’t answer messages seeking comment for this story.)
“Tory did not have experience dealing with animal pharmaceutical community people, who are not different than the human pharmaceutical people. They make a lot of money on this stuff. They will never ever admit there’s something wrong,” says Tollefson, who is now FDA’s assistant commissioner for science.
On Sept. 4, 2004, in the face of Hampshire’s damning data, Wyeth ordered all Proheart 6 back from vets — without conceding it was dangerous.
It was perhaps the largest recall ever of a pet drug.
Whenever I do these round-ups, I almost feel like I should just be podcasting again. Then I remember how long it takes to record, output, compress and upload the podcast, all in addition to writing up show notes. I could probably write full blog entries for each of these before I would have time to do all that.
So, in the interests of getting these links out while they're still relatively fresh, here goes another batch of news updates. I really do want to comment on them, as there is much to say. To that end, I have included very brief notes after each link, along with a sample quote from each article, but I don't have the time (a real problem lately) to dissect any of these thoroughly. I hope that my faithful readers will easily see the many issues with some of these pieces, including the first headline:
Retailers clearly see advantages in appealing to the demographic of kinder and gentler meat-eaters, according to Ron Paul, president of Technomic, a Chicago-based research and consulting firm for food suppliers. “There is a growing realization that the humane movement is a long-term movement,” he said. “It’s not going to go away.”
NOTE - Fair warning: The above quote is one of the least aggravating to be found in the article.Letters to the editor
Dairy, meat and poultry producers are urged to form a food industry "force" before activists distort even more benefits of modern production practices.
NOTE - I'm always interested to read industry newsletters and websites. It's clear from this and other recent industry reading that large-scale animal exploiters are reeling from the heightened scrutiny over their practices these past few years--including the announcements of this past week or so--putting them on the defense. It appears there is a concerted effort by some in the world of animal exploitation to stir up well-financed and unified campaigns to subvert activist campaigns with more misleading feel-good imagery. "Happy cows," anyone?
A few outlying countries continue commercial or dubiously scientific whale hunts, notably Japan, which clings to its whaling ways long past the expiration of any defensible reasons for doing so.
NOTE - The above quote is the most "vocal" criticism voiced in this New York Times editorial, which is the official (and in this case, seemingly rather guarded) opinion of the paper. I had noted not long ago that it seemed NYT was providing fairly animal-friendly coverage these days, but that it was trying to "balance" that out more lately, which the previously-linked "bacon" article would seem to corroborate.Letters to the editor
'It's untenable to talk of dividing humans and humanoid apes because there are no clear-cut criteria - neither biological, nor mental, nor social.'
NOTE - It seems just a little strange to me to give a chimp human rights, when what we ought to be doing is securing fundamental animal rights for all species, but I will be very curious indeed to see the outcome of this case. I will certainly be pleased to see rights recognized for at least one species, even as I rue the speciesist mentality that bars other animals from basic rights consideration.
Animal tests at least give a broad sense of the effects of a drug. In one famous early example, a pancreatic extract successfully tested in diabetic dogs in 1921 helped to illuminate how insulin would help people with the disease. And many experimental medications are eliminated after very serious side effects show up.
Many times, however, subtle results in animals are unclear and scientists just don't know what to make of them. In the case of the new Novartis drug Galvus, James Shannon, the company's global head of pharmaceutical development, told investors that Novartis researchers "do not understand -- do not know -- the mechanism of the skin findings" in monkeys. They do know that "humans appear to react to Galvus in a very different way."
NOTE - Yup, you read that right. This was published in The Wall Street Journal. Of course, the focus here isn't at all the rights of animals not to be treated as non-consenting experimental subjects. But, while the article falls far, far short of condemning all animal testing--in fact it ultimately concludes that we need to develop better translations (models?) to make animal research more effective--it does add a rather conservative voice to the scientifically-grounded criticisms of animal experimentation.
[Hooved Animal Humane Society] Executive Director Barbara Geittmann, who said she was disappointed Cavel sent the 200 horses back to suppliers, cheered that so many in the horse community had volunteered to help.
"I'm glad I don't have a face for those [horses] because that would make it harder for me, it would make them individuals," Geittmann said. "But it doesn't stop us. It makes us want to try harder."
NOTE - Focuses on the fall-out from the federal decision to uphold a total ban on horse slaughter in the U.S., including a note that some horses would likely be shipped to Canada for slaughter (until a federal ban on transporting horses for slaughter is passed). I can't help but remark that this would be a non-issue if horses weren't bred or "broken" for human purposes in the first place.
The main case on tonight's "Boston Legal" featured an animal rights activist brought to court for allegedly assualting Bella, a recurring character played by Delta Burke. She was basically dyed blue for owning a company that tests cosmetics on animals.
The activist featured in the show denies being part of the incident, but supports the act, and recommends a second coat of blue... Bella still argues that his organization harasses her unfairly with their protests.
Once in court, his lawyer, Bethany--who is Bella's daughter--describes in detail the procedures applied to rabbits, defending her client's allegations that Bella's company tortures animals. Bella tries to defend the use of animals in testing cosmetics for safety, but Bethany gets a good dig in when she asks "What's human suffering to you? Going without blush?" Bethany points out that Revlon, Avon, Clinique produce make-up without testing on animals. And she sums up by saying "At some point, people have to stand up and say, 'this is wrong.'"
Candice Bergen, whom I've often seen referred to as vegetarian, represents Bella, though only because she's a senior partner at same firm as Bella's beau, Denny Crane (William Shatner). In her summation, she brings up horse racing totally out of the blue, describing their use on the track and their end-of-life disposition to the slaughterhouse. All this is to say that, "despite our proclaimed love of animals, they really exist for our pleasure." She ties it back into her speech by asking where we draw the line. In order to make a point to her unpleasant client, she makes the preposterous, if mocking, argument that the rabbits and their families can take comfort in that they're serving their country, which prides itself so much on beauty.
And the judge's verdict (spoiler!): The coalition receives a restraining order preventing them from getting near Bella, but the judge upholds their right to protest the animal torture going on at her corporate headquarters.
Compared to the treatment of animal testing in a recent episode of Veronica Mars, this was a surprisingly light, and at times glib, approach to the subject, but at least a couple of David Kellyesque, quick-witted speeches made their solid hits. And, hey, I can't be disappointed when the arguments of animal rights activists are made fairly convincingly on television.
What's weird is that earlier today I wrote about both Barbaro dying and the successful introduction in Israel of a ban on testing cosmetics on animals. Just goes to show you how topical the issues are. Hopefully the episode gets fans thinking about them more deeply.
Having cleared the committee, the bill will be brought Wednesday to the Knesset plenum for a preliminary reading:
The bill, introduced by MK Gideon Sa'ar (Likud), is intended to bring Israel in line with states in the European Union, which three years ago passed a law banning all animal testing for cosmetic purposes by 2009.
The wording of the bill indicates that the experiments "cause enormous suffering to animals and are conducted without painkillers," despite the option of alternative methods for determining the effectiveness and poison levels of cosmetics that do not cause pain to animals.
According to the bill, 2,000-3,000 animals are currently used in these experiments every year.
I am so delighted--nay, giddy--to bring you this news. After recently receiving a letter from POM stating categorically that they would not discontinue animal testing, the prospect of being banished from Whole Foods has suddenly made their animal testing seem much less... necessary:
Pomegranate juice maker POM Wonderful, which became a target of animal rights activists because of research the company did into its juice's medical benefits, said Wednesday it has stopped testing on animals.
"POM Wonderful pomegranate juice has ceased all animal testing and we have no plans to do so in the future," Lynda and Stewart Resnick, owners of POM parent company Roll International, wrote to all POM retailers by e-mail or post on Wednesday.
Further proof that economic pressure is a powerful force, eh? But, for good measure, PETA told Reuters it would not call off a boycott of POM drinks until Resnick assured the organization that it wouldn't shift animal testing to another entity they control.
Not unlike the reply from KFC to PETA's free warehouse offer, POM declined to comment, directing Reuter to a letter that appears to be identical to the one I received. In it the company states it will not sign PETA's petition saying POM has stopped funding animal research, because the company will not be "bullied or extorted."
I wrote a letter to POM last month (after writing this post), complaining about their use of and support for animal testing. What they sent me in response was a full-page press release disguised as a letter. They have no intent to end animal testing unless animal testing starts to affect their business. On that note, it was encouraging to see that Whole Foods Markets has decided to drop POM's products for as long as the company continues to fund studies that include testing on animals.
I am very happy to relay this information to you, with special thanks to Food Fight! for making sure this customer reply letter from Whole Foods to a friend was made public:
We thought you would like to know.
Whole Foods Market has made a business decision to discontinue selling POM Wonderful pomegranate juice and associated tea blends by April 1, 2007 as long as POM continues to fund studies that may include the testing on animals. We continue to sell a variety of other brands of pomegranate juice within our stores that are fully in compliance with our quality standards for food and that focus their branding efforts on the juice itself.
We truly appreciate your feedback.
Regards,
Jessie Walker Customer Communications Specialist Global Communications Team 512-542-0670
Now that's a corporate response with which I can be satisfied, especially when compared to the non-responsive letter WFM sent to an AAFL reader several months ago. Thanks to all the WFM customers who continued to write in for this campaign, and to PETA for its part in getting the word out.
I'm back after an unexpected break from blogging. I did have an eye on the news, and nothing earth-shattering seemed to come up while I was gone. I did just see this piece from the Hartford Courant today. It's from Friday, but the story itself goes back a bit further than that.
A primate vivisector abandoned neurological research on rhesus monkeys last August, after being reprimanded by the university following a USDA inspection that found about a dozen violations in the lab. This, of course, amounts to nothing more than a slap on the wrist for David Waitzman
...for incorrect drug dosages and failure to follow approved research procedures, including unapproved injections into a monkey's brain that temporarily resulted in a severe head tilt to the left, an inability to look left and other problems.
Additionally, research staff members were barred from the laboratory and required to be retrained in animal care. Now, one obviously can't use these particular infractions to condemn all researchers but, frankly, one can easily find fault with all vivisectors for breeding, caging, manipulating, and killing animals as a means to their own ends, so it's not as if Waitzman is worthy of any special distinction.
However, with what little protection the government affords these innocent creatures, activists were able to bring enough pressure on Waitzman to end these cruel experiments.
The developments, which came to light this week, follow protests and petitions by UConn student and animal activist Justin Goodman to stop the research and free the monkeys. Last winter, Goodman chained himself to a railing and staged a raucous protest outside a gala hosted by UConn President Philip E. Austin after learning that two of the three monkeys involved in the project - Cornelius and Lips - had died.
We should all be thanking the likes of Justin Goodman for their efforts to bring these practices to light, and to end them.
You can click above if you want to learn just what abominations were perpetrated on the monkeys, but I'll spare the rest of you the details. I'm just not up for parading a horror show through here today.
I will take a moment to note my disgust at the official response to this incident, which is typical, and proves the point that drawing arbitrary lines between what is and isn't cruel is a farce. As long as animals are seen and treated as research models, and not as sentient beings with a right to live according to their own intentions, abuses will continue. In defending animal research without condemning the experiments cited by the USDA (not exactly the most radical defender of animal welfare), the Health Center places itself firmly in the camp of the cruellest researchers, those who would take such experiments to their most extreme end if their hands weren't tied by the most basic sensitivities of our society, and those who work tirelessly to expose their injustices.
Reports obtained by The Courant show that the Health Center's own animal care committee investigated findings in the USDA reports and made several recommendations. The committee found that researchers performed unauthorized procedures and employed unauthorized staff, and that discrepancies in drug dosing were the result of carelessness and typographical errors.
One monkey died during the research, and another was killed as part of the experiment protocol. Goodman and his fellow protestors have been pushing for some time to have the sole survivor, Mowgli, shepherded to an animal sanctuary. Alas, a University of Mississippi research is currently exploiting Mowgli, and there doesn't appear to be any recourse for him at this time.
On the off chance that anyone thinks this is an isolated incident, the story helpfully notes that the USDA has taken action against UConn twice in the past nine years for animal care violations:
In a consent decision in 2002, UConn paid $129,500 for failure to provide adequate veterinary care, Holladay said. The university paid a $4,500 fine in 1998 because the attending veterinarian did not have proper authority over the health and well-being of the animals, Holladay said.
UPDATE in The Scientist. It appears Waitzman is applying for a couple of new grants, including one involving near-space auditory sensing, which means more primate research.
For those of you who don't know, POM funds painful experiments on animals in order to sell pomegranate juice. In one of POM's ridiculous experiments, pregnant mice were fed POM juice and their week-old babies were locked in a chamber with almost no oxygen for 45 minutes, causing severe brain damage; the babies were then killed so that experimenters could dissect their brains. In another experiment, rabbits were fed POM and their arteries were damaged to study the juice's effect on erectile dysfunction. All of this just so that POM can claim that its pomegranate juice has magical healing powers ...
The author of the entry, Noah, reminds us that this does not mean POM has discontinued testing. Visit peta2's entry for information on how you can express your opinion to the CEO via e-mail, as well as the mailing address for the new corporate spokesperson.
As if obeying the laws of physics, pressure from animal rights activists on Western labs is forcing animal testing into areas where there is less pressure, like China. That's bad news for animals (and people who are sickened or killed the next time a dangerous drug tested on animals is cleared as safe for use in people).
There's a lot of reasons to be upset about how financially involved we are with China (human and animal rights abuses among them), but this has got to take the cake. Scientists are literally fleeing compassionate countries and their minimal animal welfare standards in order to carry out tests in a country that is more than happy to suppress dissent if it serves its economic interests.
Can the lack of ethics in the biomedical industry be laid bare any more plainly? (dog-lovers, prepare to be galled at the brazen -- and craven -- attitude some researchers take toward your beloved companions)
Glenn Rice wants to turn China's dogs into global economic assets.
Because animal rights groups make it difficult for drug companies to build or expand animal-testing laboratories in the United States, Europe, and India, Rice, chief executive of Bridge Pharmaceuticals Inc., is outsourcing the work to China, where scientists are cheap and plentiful and animal-rights activists are muffled by an authoritarian state.
"This is a country with a large number of canines and primates, and if we establish pre-clinical testing facilities here, we can change the dynamics of the industry," said Rice, who in 2004 created his San Francisco-based company out of the life sciences department at the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, Calif. "Animal testing also does not have the political issues it has in the US or Europe or even India, where there are religious issues as well," he said. "So now big pharma is looking to move to China in a big way."
Beijing is fast becoming China's leading biotechnology center, and Bridge, located in the lush sprawl of the city's Zhongguancun Life Science Park, was given "big benefits and a 5-year tax holiday" for choosing the capital as its home, Rice said.
"But beyond that, it's the whole menu of advantages that attracted us," said Rice, who now alternates weekly between Beijing and San Francisco. "In terms of animal supply, China is a good place to be, as it is the world's largest supplier of lab monkeys and canines -- mostly beagles."
Decidedly sick, isn't it? I would hope that the average person, AR sympathizer or not, is disgusted by this cavalier attitude toward bright, innocent animals.
Bridge's Beijing facilities have supposedly been designed to meet U.S. animal welfare standards, such as they are, expecting certification by the end of the year, presumably to address qualms anyone might reasonably have about standards being relaxed. But, as the Globe aptly points out,
...there is no avoiding the reality of the work done here: The beagles in Bridge's cages are infected with diseases, operated on, and fed substances that can severely affect their health. Eventually, their organs are removed and examined.
All the more reason to avoid consuming any pharmaceuticals that aren't truly life-saving, and for living a life that helps to avoid necessitating a drug fix in the first place.
Many would argue that we should avoid these products even if they do hold the power to save our lives. That decision is up to each one of us as individuals, but I hope you will search your conscience and, regardless of what you choose, speak out against animal research, in hopes that it will be banned for all applications that are obviously unnecessary (which accounts for a disturbing amount of actual animal testing) and for applications that can be replaced by more novel, animal-free methods where those applications continue to be deemed necessary by the powers-that-be.
I'm glad that animals are finally being recognized as having an inherent sense of fairness and justice. Certainly makes it obvious that, in many ways, we are not the only ethically concerned species on earth.
In fact, if we want to retain any moral high ground, we'd be better off welcoming primates and other animals into our moral community and ending experimentation on animals altogether.
Because, as this study demonstrated, using morally aware beings for experiments without their consent is decidedly unfair.
Don't forget your full name, address, and daytime contact number, so that you can be reached regarding possible publication.
Joellen sends word of a commentary from Julia Stephenson, The Independent's "Green Goddess," which calls for public re-examination of animal testing
Although the public have seen through the subterfuges put out by the Government and made up their own minds about issues like the Iraq war and GM crops, when it comes to animal testing the majority of people still buy the party line that it's necessary for human health to test drugs on animals - despite growing evidence to the contrary. How I wish British fair-mindedness and free debate could be applied to this issue as well. It's vital that the subject is properly debated because the EU is poised to pass devastating legislation.
Since 1981, all chemicals have been tested on animals as a precaution for human health. However, all the chemicals in existence before this date have not yet been tested for human safety. The legislation being debated is called REACH (registration, evaluation and authorisation of chemicals) and backs proposals to test these chemicals on animals - a process that will take at least 30 years and involve 50 million animals rather than just three years using non-animal methods.
If you were to subscribe online to read the rest, you would also learn about several animal tests that have slowed down medical progress for humans, which you can learn about in many other books, like Gary L. Francione's Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog?, or at websites that look at the flaws inherent in testing on animals.
Stephenson reminds readers that "animal testing tells us about animals, not people. Animals react differently to many substances.":
Eighty Aids vaccines worked in monkeys but all have failed in humans.
Hundreds of stroke treatments work in animals but not one is successful for patients. And let's not forget the catastrophic clinical trial that left six volunteers fighting for their lives.
They were given the new drug Testing TGN1412 because it was shown to be safe in monkeys.
The painkiller Vioxx was shown to be good for the heart in animal tests but is thought to have caused 320,000 heart attacks and strokes (up to 140,000 of them fatal) - the biggest drug disaster in history. The devastating effects of these drugs could have been revealed in tests on human tissue. Yet these sophisticated tests are not required in order to license a drug, while animal tests are.
Stephenson notes that doctors and politicians are joining the debate and demanding a thorough evaluation of animal testing. She asks that you join her in fighting for a thorough evaluation, arguing "this is no longer just an animal rights issue, it affects all of us, too." It always affected all of us, but I'm in favor of mainstream society taking up the issue, so please heed Stephenson's call for for locals to register their concern by sending "a short, polite letter to the Minister of State for the Environment, Lord Rooker, at: Defra, Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London SW1P 3JR."
Some weeks the animal stories seem to tumble forth with far greater frequency...
I've missed posting on some, due to commitments with The Artivist Film Festival, but with so many articles in major news media these past few days you'll not want for reading material and letters to write after this post.
I'm particularly fond of Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's October 31st piece at Common Dreams, From Cradle to Grave, in which she targets the considerations often missed by those busy patting themselves on the back for providing or eating "humane meat": That is, even organic, grass fed, "free range" animals live truncated lives, at the end of which they are trucked many miles to USDA-licensed slaughterhouses, where their demise is no better than that of any of the machine-reared beings with whom they share an identical fate.
With "compassionate carnivores" positioned as the next big market after organics, these points need to be raised ubiquitously, especially in response to compassionate people who've allowed mere window dressing to cloud their view of the issue.
Hat tip to reader for Christopher Jones for making sure we saw this.
In response to the numerous stories referred to YESTERDAY regarding the self-awareness studies on elephants at the Bronx Zoo, the editors of The New York Times have published a surprising editorial called Horton Sees an Image.
While much of the buzz surrounding these tests focused on how elephants joined the ranks of the self-aware, lifting them "above" most other animals, the editors of The New York Times argue
...what they really do is raise questions about the value we attribute to consciousness and our inevitably human definition of it. It is always us setting the rules.
How many tests set by elephants could we pass?
My jaw just about dropped to the floor when I read that. This sounds like something I'd hear when talking to one of my animal advocate friends, not the editorial board of The New York Times. Could it be that an editorial like this might persuade some people to look at animals differently?
There's no way to be sure, but the very existence of this editorial gives me hope. With an ending like this, how can it not?:
There is every reason to value other life-forms as much for their difference from us as for their similarity, and to act accordingly. That may be the only intelligence test worthy of the name.
They don't tell anyone what acting accordingly means, but the implication is that our treatment of animals is a sort of intelligence test, and one would imagine that the better we treat them, the better it reflects on us, and that's a sentiment I'm happy to share.
Please, please, please, please take a moment to write a letter to the editors of The New York Times, thanking them for this insightful, compassionate editorial, and ask them for more of the same going forward. Remember to keep your praise below 250 words, and to include your full name, contact number, city and state in order to be considered for publication.
Bob Barker, friend to Los Angeles Zoos' imprisoned elephants (and all animals), announced that he is finally retiring from the long-running game show The Price is Right, and plans to spend his time focusing on animal rights causes. Go, Bob!!!
Sticking with pachyderms for the moment, Deb posted a comment at an earlier post that I wanted to bring to your attention.
She tells us that In Defense of Animals is campaigning to have animal-friendly people sign a petition and send their comments to the USDA. Deadline is December 11, and you can find more information on how to help elephants at HelpElephants.com. Deb also points out that we can submit comments to USA Today here. December 11th sounds like a long time from now, but the weeks go by fast, so please start working on your letter today.
On to Japan, I've postednumeroustimes about the annual dolphin slaughter in Taiji. Activists around the world have been working hard to force the issue into the limelight, where Japanese authorities least want to see it.
Yesterday, The Japan Times covered the story on the front page in an article by Genesis Award-winning writer Boyd Harnell, titled Dolphin kill dogged by mercury, activists.
As he did in his previous piece on the subject, Harnell looks unflinchingly at the horror of the annual dolphin slaughter in Taiji, but you must see this slaughter for yourselves to truly comprehend it:
Please write a letter to the editors of The Japan Times to support them for putting this issue on the front page, and to express your dismay/outrage/disgust at this cruel, barbaric slaughter, during which randomly-stabbed dolphins have been seen dying an excruciating, prolonged death.
Remember also that there's more you can do. If you care about animals, please never give your money to a business that exploits marine mammals for entertainment, and do your best to dissuade friends and family from doing so, either. Many marine animals currently captive around the United States were taken from the wild, which is where they really belong. Regrettably, animals sold live for entertainment are worth around $20,000, whereas dead dolphins are only worth about $600 each, which means that marine park demand is a major factor in the annual drive fisheries in Taiji, so boycotts could have a meaningful on this practice.
Speaking of slaughter, Willie Nelson -- "Special to CNN," heh-heh -- followed up an open letter to congress with a commentary encouraging Americans to contact their senators and ask them to support the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, and to consider adopting rescued horses.
Foie gras continues to receive frequent coverage, including this lengthy piece in the Milford Daily News that gives some time to PETA's opposition, but lends most of its column inches to the American Veterinary Medical Association and chefs who serve foie gras, both of whom come out strongly in favor of allowing ducks to be force fed, slaughtered, and cut up for their livers, "an ingredient people enjoy."
Not this person.
Finally, The Scotsman published a story taking officials to task for a 4.5 increase in animal testing over the last year, despite government assurances that the "controversial practice" would be reduced:
The figures also reveal that Scotland is carrying out a disproportionate amount of animal testing in the UK, with tests north of the border making up 14.1 per cent of the UK's 2.91 million procedures even though Scots make up only around 8 per cent of the total population.
And testing is rising in Scotland much more quickly than in the rest of the UK. Total British animal testing in 2005 was 2.91 million, up from 2.8 million the year before, an annual rise of only 1.4 per cent.
Lest people assume these animals are all "unimportant" species like rats, the article puts things into perspective:
Among the animals used in the research in Scotland were: 910 monkeys, 1,308 dogs, 5,294 sheep, 3,016 rabbits, 941 pigs, 69 horses. 267,960 mice, 49,284 rats, 2,944 guinea pigs and four cats. Tests were also conducted on 7,854 birds, 238 amphibians and 56,993 fish.
Sure the vast majority are rodents, but what makes them so undeserving of our compassion, and what about the dogs, cats, monkeys, horses and pigs, among others? Everyone needs to know what is happening to all these innocent animals caged to satisfy human curiosity in a speculative quest for financial gain... Oh, yeah, and tantalizing possibility that such research could somehow provide clues for curing life-threatening diseases (forgetting for a moment all the testing done on drugs for sex enhancers, cosmetics, and other vanities). Bear in mind that 11,048 of these tests in Scotland involved animals with a harmful genetic defect, and think about whether that's something an animal-friendly person would ever find acceptable.
The article provides a number of other details, including specifics as to why certain animals are used in research, as well as comments from a researcher and an activist that don't shed much new light on the subject. That said, the article certainly merits your attention, so I hope you'll check it out. It's important for animal lovers to learn as much as they can about animal experimentation, because it's ignorance that allows it to continue and even grow like this.
Here's how it starts out: "How depressing, how utterly unjust..."
Well, yeah, that's how I'd describe the picture and caption as well, which appeared on the main page of nytimes.com when I saw it.
Look at the two rhesus monkeys for a moment, trapped in their cages at the infamous Wisconsin National Primate Research Center with nothing soft or natural to touch, a couple of cheap toys scattered about as if they could provide the stimulation a monkey needs. Just look at those expressions.
Then bear in mind that they are the subjects of an experiment. As research goes, this is not one of the more egregious abuses of animals I've ever seen, but it certainly is one of the most useless. We already know calorie restriction improves life expectancy in animals (experiments first suggested the connection as far back as 1935), and we can use ethically-designed human or epidemiological studies to measure the effects of these restrictions, if we truly feel such a study is still necessary.
It's completely inhumane to cage these animals simply to learn that Canto, on the left, is aging "fairly well" at the age of 25, on a restricted calorie diet, while Owen (right) is frail and moves slowly on his "normal" diet. I'm amazed he moves much at all in that tiny pen.
Michael Mason of The New York Times trivializes this further with his lead-in: "How depressing, how utterly unjust, to be the one in your social circle who is aging least gracefully."
Now, can you think of a more superficial response to all this? I'm horrified.
And then there's this passage:
“Have you ever tried to go without food for a day?” Dr. Phelan asked. “I did it once, because I was curious about what the mice in my lab experienced, and I couldn’t even function at the end of the day.”
I honestly don't know what to make of that. If he had freed the mice and ended the experiment after his own little experiment, I might have something positive to say.
But that's not all. Where calorie restriction is not enough or not effective for certain individuals, future drugs are meant to fill in the shortfall.
Of course. It had to come back to drugs. How else would these studies bear profitable fruit?:
One leading candidate, a newly synthesized form of resveratrol — an antioxidant present in large amounts in red wine — is already being tested in patients. It may eventually be the first of a new class of anti-aging drugs. Extrapolating from recent animal findings, Dr. Richard A. Miller, a pathologist at the University of Michigan, estimated that a pill mimicking the effects of calorie restriction might increase human life span to about 112 healthy years, with the occasional senior living until 140, though some experts view that projection as overly optimistic.
I'm not scientist, so read the following with a grain of salt, but I just don't see drugs extending one's "healthspan," as John Robbins puts it, as well as a low-calorie, plant-based diet. While the article calls a low-calorie diet like this "draconian," it certainly is a lot more natural and cost effective than engineering a synthesized antioxidant and hoping that it offsets the aging process.
In fact, all the benefits I'm reading that calorie restriction provides sound remarkably close to the benefits of an animal-free diet. According to Leonard P. Guarente, professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology:
"It mitigates many diseases of aging: cancer, cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative disease. The gain is just enormous.”
I will say this, though: Remarkably, a graphic accompanying the article actually does promote a vegan diet as low calorie and contributing to longetivity. So, despite my irritation at the glib nature of the article's opening, and the use of these animals, I can at least hope that people reading the article will start seeing the selfish benefits of a plant-based diet if nothing else.
One more animal study we didn't need to prove that a vegan diet is healthier for humans than the Standard American Diet (SAD).
Finally, the article comes to a close with sentiments stirred in myself while reading this story:
...some ethicists believe that the all-out determination to extend life span is veined with arrogance. As appointments with death are postponed, says Dr. Leon R. Kass, former chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics, human lives may become less engaging, less meaningful, even less beautiful.
“Mortality makes life matter,” Dr. Kass recently wrote. “Immortality is a kind of oblivion — like death itself.”
That man’s time on this planet is limited, and rightfully so, is a cultural belief deeply held by many. But whether an increasing life span affords greater opportunity to find meaning or distracts from the pursuit, the prospect has become too great a temptation to ignore — least of all, for scientists.
I can't go as far as Dr. Kass in my criticism of life extension, though I have additional reasons for opposing it. But I do agree with others in the article that there's nothing wrong with finding ways to extend the health of our species throughout the duration of the lifespans we do have. I just want those methods to be natural and wholesome. Taking pills won't help us live those short lives more meaningfully before shuffling off our mortal coil. Healthier lifestyles will. But it's just too tantalizing for some scientists to lust after the secret of easy life extension, as many have done before, and such is the stuff of "progress."
As I alluded to at the outset, here comes a request for letters to the editor. Feel free to use any of my points (not verbatim!), and get the conversation focused on any of the issues this story raises, whether confinement of and research on animals or the known and repeatedly proven benefits of a healthy vegan diet. Get the word out! I'll be writing my own e-mail here shortly as well. We should be among the first wave of letters the editor sees, too, because the story is dated Tuesday, and I'm posting this Monday evening.
As always, please remember to include your full name, city, state, contact number, and keep the letter short and pithy to increase the odds of getting published.
I was disgusted by an opinion published in Friday's The Daily Bruin, UCLA's student-run newspaper, and I felt there was no way it could go unchallenged. I ask that you first follow the above link and read the original piece to see why, as an alumni especially, I felt compelled to send a response.
I'm going to quote in its entirety the letter I e-mailed to the editors, and you can compare it to what they actually ran, if you like. I agree nearly 100% with their paragraph breaks, since those make it easier to read and lend greater impact to some of my statements and, while they did correct me from an alumni to an alumnus (thank you), they actually did some cutting that resulted in errors you will see by comparing the two:
As an alumni of UCLA, I was embarrassed to read Kenneth Hurst's opinion ("Animals vital to research") in Friday's Daily Bruin.
Hurst's callous disregard for the lives of animals and their physical well-being -- "animals should be treated no differently than any other tool at a scientist's disposal" -- is alarming, morally bankrupt, and completely unethical.
His assertion that "the only truly ethical treatment of animals is to use them for our benefit" is a truly twisted and deranged defense of an inhumane mindset. If a serial killer were to defend his actions with this sort of statement, the insanity of it would be much more readily apparent to the mainstream. Look no further than the torture of animals by kids that grow up to commit violence toward other humans if you want to see the continuity.
I would go so far as to suggest that Hurst be legally barred from keeping companion animals. Further, I would personally keep my own pets and children away someone so pathologically disturbed as to be unable to feel our commonalities with animals, instead seeing them as no different than the tools used to give them alien diseases and to vivisect them in university laboratories.
I would also be suspicious of anyone who asserts that the millions of animals used in laboratories every year promise a cure for diseases we have been fighting for decades, especially when so many diseases can be prevented through lifestyle and dietary choices, and when the vast majority of these animal lives are expended for tests that do not save human lives, like drugs meant to enhance erections. When did life become so cheap?
Our treatment of animals as a society betrays much about ourselves, and thus animals deserve our consideration as much for their own desires as for our own good. After all, as the great Mahatma, Mohandas K. Gandhi, asserted, "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." On that count, our nation rates an F.
In a rational nod to Labor Day here in the States, I'm going to make my life a little easier and less stressful with this post.
Busy since landing back in Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago, and inundated with links while gone (and since then), I've been unable to make much of a dent. I can't keep pushing these off, and it's not realistic for me to think I'll do as thorough a job as I'd like commenting on them, but they merit attention, and shouldn't take too long for you to read on this holiday weekend.
Obviously it's a good sign that there are so many items still to post after narrowing them down to what I felt were the most compelling pieces. I will list them with links below, breaking them up into opinions and news items, then list them in rough chronological order, starting with the most recent (I promise not to go back further than two weeks!):
Houston Press: Monkey Business (A lengthy, damning look at animal research, with a strong focus on primates and little cooperation from the secretive Charles River Labs -- courtesy of Joellen Secondo)
A minor success that nevertheless underscores a fundamental acceptance of leather, as if wearing the skin of any animal has a place in modern civilization -- US retail giant to boycott Indian leather
Finally, in a new poll, 79% of people in the UK opposed testing the safety of household products on animals, but 23% backed feeding a dog with a chemical found in food wrap for three months to test its safety. This despite poll results that showed that even though 58% of people agreed with testing for medical reasons, support slumped to just 16% when respondents were asked to agree to the use of surgery to make a dog incontinent in a bid to aid research into a bladder disorder.
The thinking behind all this is unfathomable. And, of course, they don't want their money going to this research: 57% of the poll respondents opposed the use of taxpayers' money to build new laboratories. Evidently, it's okay as long as the work is hidden from them, paid for by someone else (though they'll end up paying for it later, in the form of product costs), and so long as it appears to be done to cure some scary human disease, many of which are preventable or even reversible through exercise, meditation, and a diet free of animal-derived foods. It's like some kind of mental disorder, isn't it?
By virtue of the human material added to his brain, XO47 is a chimera -- that is, an organism assembled out of living parts taken from more than one biological species. The word comes from the monstrous creature of Greek mythology -- part lion, part serpent and part goat -- that is slain by the hero Bellerophon. Less fearsome chimeras occur naturally -- lichen, for instance, is a mix of fungus and algae. Most, however, are created in the laboratory by scientists like Dr. Eugene Redmond of Yale University, the soft-spoken, 65-year-old psychiatrist and neurosurgeon who operated on XO47. He set up the St. Kitts Biomedical Foundation on this island because that is where the monkeys are -- an overabundant feral population of them, ideally suited for research. Redmond has transplanted immature human brain cells into a region of XO47's brain that produces dopamine, a neurochemical that is depleted in the brains of people with Parkinson's disease. If the human cells can take hold and differentiate and bolster the monkey's own dopamine-producing machinery, a similar operation on a Parkinson's patient, the reasoning goes, should have an even greater chance of success.
This is a rather lengthy article, but a very important one to read when understanding where modern scientific research is attempting to take us. Please check it out.
Say what you will about PETA and their tactics (I know I've said my share elsewhere), but they do provide quite a large amount of useful, quality resources. For instance, the link I've shared here offers up a Word document that seems to be a fairly up-to-date list of which consumer product companies do and don't test on animals.
This list should be very handy to those hoping to live an animal-friendly life by purchasing cruelty-free personal products.
