AnimalRights.Net

    Deviating from the moment from its “we’re just a public interest group”
script, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has launched a billboard
campaign against the March of Dimes Walkathon.

    The PCRM paid for billboards in parts of the country reading, “How many
animals will be killed with your March of Dimes donation?” A better question
would be, “How many people would die if PCRM banned animal experiments?”

    As March of Dimes spokeswoman Michelle Kling replied to a question about
the billboards from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, “Thousands of children
are alive today and millions of people are living healthier lives because
of advances in treatment and prevention made possible by March of Dimes-funded
research involving animals.”

    Meanwhile activists online were busy distributing sample letters for
people to write to corporate and celebrity sponsors of the March of Dimes.
The sample letter is typical animal rights cant claiming animal experiments
have played no role in better understanding birth defects.

Frankly, we are disturbed that MOD the charity has spent millions
of dollars on disturbing animal experiments that have contributed little
or nothing to the prevention and treatment of birth defects.

. . . MOD has also provided money for experimenters to give
nicotine, cocaine, and alcohol to animals, even though we already know
from human clinical experience that these substances can harm a developing
baby.

    That last line belongs in a college-level logic textbook as an example
of a false dichotomy – of course we now known cocaine and other substances
are potentially harmful to fetal development, but a) we gained a much
better understanding of the scope of such danger from animal experiments,
and b) studying exposure in animals allows for scientist to test a variety
of hypothesis on the total extent of such problems and possible treatments
much faster than could possibly be done in clinical trials. Scientists
might know that alcohol and cocaine can harm a human fetus, but there
is still so much we don’t know about the full effects of such exposure
and the best ways to treat or ameliorate such problems.

References:

“Write to March of Dimes Sponsors” Physicians Committee for Responsible
Medicine press release, April 2000.

“March of Dimes gets flak for its funding of research with animals.”
Michael Stetz, San Diego Union-Tribune, April 7, 2000.

“PCRM Steps Up Attack On March of Dimes.” Americans for Medical Progress
Newsletter, April 8, 2000.

“Billboard criticizes March of Dimes; group’s ad in Dallas denounces
animal experiments.” Jeff Prince, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, April 1, 2000.

    Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade member Joseph Bateman, 20, was to
be sentenced on April 12 after being convicted in February of felony criminal
mischief and misdemeanor possession of an “instrument of crime.” Although
Bateman still professes his innocence and called for demonstrations at
the court house, this conviction should strengthen the hand of Jacques
Ferber Furs’ lawsuit against CAFT.

    In that Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization-based lawsuit, Ferber essentially maintains that CAFT is
engaged in a criminal conspiracy to shut down its legitimate, legal business.
Such lawsuits have already succeeded against pro-life groups and individuals
who merely advocated breaking the law but apparently didn’t engage in
the act themselves. Having a CAFT member not only advocating breaking
the law but also being convicted for doing so, strengthens the Ferber
lawsuit immeasurably.

    If I were CAFT, I’d try to find a way to settle with Ferber quickly,
though since I’m not, the best outcome of the trial, beyond any verdict,
will hopefully be focusing a national spotlight on the endemic tolerance
and encouragement of illegal behavior by much of the animal rights movement.

    Americans for Medical Progress reported that after chicken magnate Frank
Purdue was involved in yet another major car accident (Purdue should have
been banned from driving years ago), Ingrid Newkirk sent him a bizarre
get well card which read, in part:

A chicken is like you in a lot of ways. The important difference
is that you can take pain killers, the police will arrest anyone they
find harassing you, you will never be transported for long hours in a
crate in which you cannot even stand up…

    I don’t really like to psychoanalyze people, but Newkirk’s behavior
seems to be getting extremely bizarre in the last 3-4 years. The card
of the text reads like she might be in dire need of some animal-tested
Prozac.

Reference:

“Ingrid Again,” Americans for Medical Progress News, April 8, 2000.

    United Poultry Concerns will once again make its presence known at
the annual egg roll at the White House. The even features 2-to-6-year
old children pushing hard-boiled eggs down a 10-yard lane with plastic
soup ladles on the White House lawn. According to UPC, about 20,000
people attend the event annually and more than 7,000 hard boiled eggs
are used.

    UPC plans to have an information table near the White House detailing
the evils of eggs, including a promotional pamphlet answering the burning
question, “Where Do Eggs Come From?” (I believe the correct answer is
chickens.)

Reference:

“Stick up for Chickens!” United Poultry Concerns Press Release, April
2000

Of all things PETA could choose to pick on, the group actually decided to go after Wyoming’s license plates of all things. That state’s license plate features a silhouetted image of a cowboy riding a bucking horse, which in PETA’s world means it is promoting cruelty to animals.

“We are hopeful that when you learn about the lives of animals used in rodeos, you will not wish to promote and glorify these inhumane events on state license plates,” PETA’s Kristie Sigmon wrote in a letter to Wyoming Gov. Jim Geringer. “Treating ‘livestock’ like mechanical bulls makes Wyoming a laughing stock.”

Reality check here, folks — the only group that is a laughing stock because of this is PETA (and, by association, the rest of the animal rights movement.) Wyoming Republican Senator Craig Thomas told the Washington Times that PETA was “bucking up the wrong tree.”

It turns out the image of the cowboy on a bucking horse has a long tradition, going back to 1918 when it was worn as an insignia by soldiers from Wyoming who were serving in World War I.

Still, Sigmon insists that “Rodeo events are intentionally violent acts against animals for nothing more than cheap thrills,” but I think most Americans would agree with Thomas’ assessment of the flap — “One uould think an opganization like PETA, that at least figures to `e taken seriously, would have more impoptant things to focus itr attenthon on than maligning a tin license plate.”

Then again, maybe really they don’t.

Source:

PETA Assails Wyoming’s License Plate. Audrey Audson, Washington Times, May 25, 2000.

    The Seattle Post Intelligencer recently ran an excellent series of articles debunking a lot of animal rights myths about medical research. That didn’t stop one eighth grader at a local school from writing in to claim that penicillin kills guinea pigs. This claim is straight off of fact sheets (they should call them false sheets) by PETA and other groups. In a fact sheet titled “Drug Testing: Pain, Not Gain,” PETA claims that:

Penicillin would not be in use today if it had been tested on guinea pigs–common laboratory subjects–because penicillin kills guinea pigs.

    PETA doesn’t bother to cite the source of this claim (surprise), but it is actually based on a rather bizarre misreading of a study that examined the effects of prolonged exposure to very large doses of penicillin which does indeed tend to produce toxicity and death. Similar problems, however, occur with human beings who are exposed to very large doses of penicillin for long periods of time, and for much the same reason — in both the guinea pigs and human beings, the prolonged exposure to penicillin kills micro-organisms in the gut which creates a whole host of other problems.

    Leave it to the animal rights activists to claim that studies showing extremely high doses of penicillin administered for long periods of time can produce toxicity in guinea pigs means “penicillin kills guinea pigs.” They might as well say that if penicillin had been tested in human beings it never would have been approved because “penicillin harms human beings.”

    But the interesting thing, it turns out, is that penicillin was largely ignored for many decades after its initial discovery because it didn’t appear to have any beneficial effect in human beings. Only tests done in the first half of the century with mice finally convinced medical researchers that penicillin might have some broad benefits worth exploring.

    Dr. Robert Speth wrote a letter-to-the-editor outlining of the Seattle Post Intelligencer outlining the strange winding path that penicillin took and the crucial role of animal tests, which he has graciously permitted me to reprint:

Animals: Penicillin’s Success Came From Tests on Rats

By Robert Speth

    The animal rights movement has made schoolchildren primary targets of their
anti-research propaganda. The letter (May 14) from Victoria Wilkins, an
eighth-grader at Eckstein Middle School, is an example of how the animal
rights movement is victimizing children. The letter, which no doubt she took
great pains to write, is founded in the litany of inaccurate information used
by the animal rights movement to disparage animal research.

    While each of the arguments she poses against animal research can be
rebutted, her comment regarding penicillin is so inaccurate as to require
immediate correction.

    When penicillin was discovered in the 1870s, it was tested on humans. Its
effects were so erratic and unpredictable that it was ignored as a drug until
1940 when Sir Howard Florey tested it on eight mice injected with a lethal
dose of bacteria. Only the mice that got penicillin lived. The experiment was
so compelling that it quickly led to the use of penicillin in World War II,
saving thousands of soldiers’ lives.

    Florey used mice because he had so little penicillin he could not test it on
humans. Indeed, attempts to use penicillin in humans after Florey’s discovery
were still inconclusive. But, because the results in mice were so convincing,
Florey and his chemist purified their crude penicillin extract to obtain a
grade that worked reliably in humans.

    When animal rights activists tell children that penicillin kills guinea pigs
and, therefore, “If we had relied on animal research we would not have
penicillin” they are lying to our children.

    That is why teachers must be extremely vigilant with regard to the materials
distributed by animal rights groups for their curriculum. Children’s
schooling should not be a means for the animal rights movement to spread its
false propaganda.

    Dr Speth is Professor of Pharmacology and Neuroscience at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Washington State University, Pullman WA. He is also a charter member and Past-President of the Society for Veterinary Medical Ethics, a Board Member of the National Animal Interest Alliance, an emeritus board member of the Washington Association for Biomedical Research, and a recipient of the Lewis J. Kettel award from Incurably Ill For Animal Research.

Over the weekend terrorists believed to be animal rights activists managed to destroy a vehicle at a meat processing plant in the UK with a firebomb and planted nine other bombs that police managed to defuse before they detonated.

The Times (UK) quoted a police officer saying, “The risk is that someone is going to get seriously hurt as these groups use more powerful devices.” Of course the most likely person to get hurt are the brave men and women asked to dispose of and defuse the bombs. I suppose in the twisted view of the terrorists, endangering law enforcement official is a legitimate act since the police serve the oppressive capitalist exploitation of life.

Nobody actually claimed responsibility for the bombs, but Animal Liberation Front spokesperson Robin Webb all but confirmed that this was the work of animal rights activists. “Due to the seriousness of the offences and the sentences handed out, it would be very unusual for anyone to claim responsibility. However, placing devices under refrigerated meat lorries bears all the hallmarks of the Animal Liberation Front and I’m confident this was their work.”

Source:

Police thwart firebomb attack by animal welfare activists. Daniel McGrory, The Times (UK), May 22, 2000.

    It’s not quite PETA-esque, but the Fund For Animals’ recent ranting and raving against the sport hunting industry for allegedly “targeting” women to join the sport is still downright bizarre.

    According to the Fund’s recent report, “Desperately Seeking Diana,” “hunting has been a masculine pursuit … throughout recorded history” an that’s the way things should stay. But, in fact, the status quo is not holding, and hasn’t for a long time. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service, almost 1.5 million women hunted in 1985 — about 9 percent of all hunters that year. In 1996, almost 1.2 million women hunted, or about 8.5 percent of hunters.

    According to the Fund for Animals, the million or so women who hunt in any given year are actually part of a giant industry conspiracy. See if you can follow the logic — most people who hunt began hunting before the reached their 20th birthday (83 percent of hunters began hunting before they were 19 according to The Fund).

    Furthermore, according to the report, since women’s role in American society today is far more egalitarian than it was in say the 1950s or 1960s, a woman’s opinion on hunting will greatly influence whether or not children are allowed to go hunting.

    Ergo, the hunting industry is trying to hoodwink women into hunting so that they will, in turn, transform their children into hunters as well.

    One of the really demeaning aspects of The Fund’s report, however, is its view that women are largely brainless dupes who are incapable of thinking for themselves. The report and an accompanying press release talk about hunters and gun groups “targeting our moms” and “recruit[ing] women — especially mothers — into sport hunting.” This is not just a queer choice in wording but seems to genuinely reflect the view of The Fund that women, in general, are so unsophisticated that they can easily be brainwashed by hunting interests. For example, here’s how the report describes a woman who told a newspaper reporter that she had changed her mind on gun control after becoming a hunter:

    With sponsors like the National Rifle Association (NRA), the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), and the Federal Cartridge Company, BOW, despite its organizers’ protestations of being “non-political,” advances a pro-gun political agenda. Consider this quote from a BOW participant that appeared in an Omaha, Nebraska newspaper: “I have never taken a position [on gun control], except to realize there is too much violence. So, naturally, I thought it would be a good thing to do away with guns.” But attendance at a BOW workshop opened her eyes: “Now I understand it’s not the guns that are dangerous. It’s the way people use guns.” (Porter qtd. in Thomas et al. 12-3) Before BOW, she favored strict gun control; after the workshop, she was repeating the NRA’s mantra that “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” Can that really be a coincidence?

    Well can it be a coincidence? Can a person who has maybe never shot a gun for any reason go to a seminar and learn about guns and hunting and come to the conclusion on his or her own that gun control is not a good idea? Or must it be, as The Fund report implies, that a woman would only change her mind about gun control if she was a helpless victim of NRA brainwashing? Regardless of which side of the gun control issue the reader comes down on, it is absurd to suggest that women are incapable of deciding on their own whether or not they favor gun control.

    This, of course, fits with The Fund’s generally sexist views of women which boiled down to its essence seems to be that women are incapable of violence unless brainwashed into it by men (The Fund includes a list of “Non-Consumptive Outdoors Experiences For Women” from which I deduce that men hunt, while women bicycle and hike).

    For the most part, The Fund’s report relies on stereotypical views of male and female roles, dismissing the experiences of women who choose to hunt as inauthentic because hunting is a “male” activity. Now that’s insulting.

Source:

Targeting Our Moms: Hunting and Gun Industries Set their Sights on Mothers and their Children. The Fund For Animals, press release, May 11, 2000.

Money, Motherhood, and the Nineteenth Amendment: The Hunting Industry’s Open Season on Women. The Fund For Animals, May 2, 2000.

Are the people who act as “spokespersons” for animal rights terrorists really just innocent bystanders who happen to act as conduits for information after a crime has been committed? Or do they get advance warning of criminal actions and/or engage in the planning and execution of terrorist acts themselves?

Its that sort of line of questioning that Craig Rosebraugh is desperately trying to avoid answering. Rosebraugh is a spokesperson for the ALF/ELF has been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury regarding what he knows about a number of prominent terrorist attacks in the United States (Rosebraugh himself has been arrested a number of times at animal rights protests, and by his own account left an animal rights group he founded because of a disagreement over terrorist tactics).

Rosebraugh has been the source of communiques from animal rights and environmental terrorists involved in a number of high profiled crimes. Rosebraugh, for example, was the activists chosen by terrorists to take credit for the December 25, 1999 arson attack against a Boise Cascade regional office that did more than $1 million in damage.

In February of this year, federal agents obtained a search warrant for Rosebraugh’s apartment and apparently seized several computers and a large number of documents (including, according to an Americans for Medical Progress brief on the raid, photographs of a primate facility along with documents that appeared to come from the facility).

The grand jury has subpoenaed three times this year but refuses to testify. If he refuses to testify at a May 24, 2000 session of the grand jury, Rosebraugh could be jailed on contempt charges.

In a unintentionally hilarious press release on his behalf, the North American Earth Liberation Front Press Office pretty much made the grand jury’s case as far as why it might want to question someone who is supposedly only a “spokesperson” for the terrorists. The Liberation Front Press Office claims only to be a conduit for information, but in its press release first informs the readers that,

…you are needed to use any means necessary to send a message to the US government that destruction and exploitation of life for capitalist benefit will not be tolerated.

And then in the next paragraph, in case that message wasn’t explicit enough, the press release urges activists to protest the treatment of Rosebraugh even if that means …

…taking cover action against corporations and entities profiting off the destruction of the environment and exploitation of life, your energy is needed and necessary.

No wonder the grand jury wants to investigate these folks.

There were two other items of interest that are worth mentioning about the Liberation Front Press Office release.

First, the group actually tries to portray itself as concerned about “…the oppressive grand jury system.” Now there may indeed be genuine reasons to reform the grand jury process in the United States, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard the animal rights activists bring it up. In fact, as far as I can remember they have cheered whenever someone was indicted by this “oppressive grand jury system” for violating animal cruelty laws. Does the word “unprincipled” mean anything to these folks?

Second, they cast the attempts by the grand jury to question Rosebraugh as an attack on “freedom of speech.” This is bizarre coming from the “spokespersons” to terrorists who seem more interested in burning buildings to the ground rather than engaging in speech to attempt to persuade others to their views. To the contrary, the animal rights terrorists are interested in anything but free speech.

As PETA activist Bruce Friedrich noted many months ago, the animal rights movement has already all but lost the larger rhetorical battle in the United States. The vast majority of people in the United States today are clearly in the animal welfare camp, favoring eliminating outright cruelty to animals and favoring regulations to reduce animal suffering where it is still necessary, but still embracing the role of animal industries in their lives.

When the animal rights debate is kept on the free speech level, the activists lose, which is why they feel the need to commit acts of destruction. If they can’t actually persuade the American people of the rightness of their cause, maybe they can frighten those in animal industries to leave the business or raise the costs of staying in business to unacceptably high levels.

In this they are no different than the racists of the 1950s and 1960s who tried to use violence to forestall the change in attitudes about racial matters, or the extremists in the contemporary anti-abortion movement who also favor taking “any means necessary” to drive abortion providers out of business since they seem to have lost the larger battle to render abortion illegal (this analogy breaks down only in that respectable mainstream leaders of the anti-abortion cause are quick to denounce the terrorist element in their ranks, while the mainstream leaders in the animal rights movement see to actively court the terrorists and those who support them).

These folks aren’t interested in free speech, but rather in using classic strong arm tactics to silence anyone who dares disagree with them. If Rosebraugh indeed had advanced warning of planned criminal acts or actively participated in such planning, one can only hope a grand jury will get to the bottom of his involvement and return any appropriate indictments.

Source:

“Day of Action Against State Repression III Called for May 24.” North American Earth Liberation Front Press Office, press release, May 16, 2000.

       In addition to the FBI’s investigation
of ALF as a terrorist organization from 1988 through 1990, and the ultimate
enactment of the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, federal authorities
have responded to animal rights extremism by launching a number of grand
jury investigations of major incidents. Some of these currently are ongoing,
including inquiries into the following incidents:

• June 1991 break-in and firebombing of mink farm facility at Oregon
  State University. The facility damaged by fire was used for storing
  feed and equipment. ALF claimed responsibility.

• June 1991 destruction by fire of the Northwest Farm Food Cooperative
  facility in Edmonds, Washington. The cooperative supplied animal feed
  and bedding to northwest fur farms. ALF claimed responsibility.

• October 1992 break-in, release of animals, and arson at Utah State
  University. The target was a USDA-sponsored predator ecology project
  in which coyotes were maintained for experimentation. [19: Many of the
  university-based research projects victimized over the years have been
  funded-either partially or in full-by government agencies such as the
  U.S. Department of Agriculture or the National Institutes of Health.]
  ALF claimed responsibility.

• On July 16, 1993, a federal grand jury in Grand Rapids, Michigan returned
  a five count indictment against Rodney Coronado-a suspected ALF member-in
  connection with the February 1992 break-in, vandalism, and arson at
  Michigan State University. [20: Rodney Coronado, who also is wanted
  in Canada on charges relating to the vandalism of fur retailers, is
  still at large.] The indictment includes charges of arson, destruction
  of government property, theft, and the use of an explosive. The targeted
  project involved fertility research using minks for experimentation.
  ALF claimed responsibility for the incident.

       Since the appearance of illegal
activity relating to the cause of animal rights, only nine persons have
been convicted in connection with a specific incident. Only one person-Fran
Trutt-was convicted on federal charges (see footnote number 27 below),
and only one person – Roger Troen-has been convicted of involvement in
an incident claimed by ALF. [21: In January 1988, Roger Troen was convicted
in an Oregon county circuit court on charges of first-degree theft and
second-degree burglary relating to his involvement in an October 1986
break-in and theft at the University of Oregon in Eugene.] To date, no
one has been charged under the Animal Enterprise Protection Act of 1992.

        Since 1988, 32 states have
enacted laws aimed at protecting-animal enterprises from animal rights-inspired
violence and destruction. They are, by year of enactment, as follows:

       As of June 1993,
similar legislation was being considered by legislatures in New Jersey,
Alabama, and New Hampshire.

Next
Section: Animal Rights Extremism in Other Countries