AnimalRights.Net

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has been alienating people across the country with its “Holocaust on Your Plate” campaign. It’s nice of PETA to go out and make the anti-animal rights argument so clear. But it turns out — and this will certainly come as a shock for everyone familiar with PETA’s idea of integrity — that PETA apparently obtained the Holocaust materials it is using on false pretenses.

The Holocaust images PETA features in its campaign were obtained from the United States Holocaust Museum. The Holocaust Museum has released two letters this year accusing PETA of using “deceit” to obtain the materials and demanding that PETA cease using the materials immediately.

On February 28, 2003, the Holocaust Museum sent the following letter to PETA,

February 28, 2003

Ms. Ingrid Newkirk
President
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
501 Front Street
Norfolk, Va. 23510

Dear Ms. Newkirk:

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (the Museum) has learned that PETA is using photographs and text obtained from the Museum for PETA’s “Holocaust on Your Plate” project. We demand that you immediately and permanently cease and desist this reprehensible misuse of Holocaust materials.

The Museum’s Photograph Use Agreement, which governs usage of photographic reproductions, states that “The USHMM reserves the right to restrict the uses of reproductions, to request prior review and approval of display formats and/or publication proofs, and to otherwise ensure that reproductions are used with respect and dignity.” Consistent with this provision, this letter constitutes actual notice that PETA is required to immediately remove from PETA’s website any and all photographic images and textual materials obtained from the Museum, and immediately cease using these materials in any pamphlets, public displays, and any other manner.

As America’s national memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, we find PETA’s exploitation of these materials a gross perversion of our mission. Furthermore, the use of these materials and citations of the Museum’s name on them improperly and incorrectly implies that the Museum, a Federal government establishment, endorses PETA’s project. Consequently, you are also instructed to immediately and permanently cease from using the Museum’s name on your website and in any other publicly displayed formats or materials.

By close of business Monday, March 3, 2003, please provide me with written confirmation of PETA’s compliance with the terms of this letter.

Sincerely yours,

Stuart Bender
Legal Counsel

PETA has apparently simply ignored this letter. On March 4, 2003, the Museum released the following statement from its chairman, Fred Zeidman,

The Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, Fred S. Zeidman, today expressed his outrage over PETA?s desecration of Holocaust memory and released the following statement:

?The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is appalled by PETA?s utterly shameless and contemptible public relations campaign equating the millions of men, women and children murdered in the Holocaust to animals.

?This organization has chosen to ignore common decency and desecrate the memory of Holocaust victims, survivors and their families in its perverted effort to generate headlines.

?We are especially offended that PETA has chosen to use materials obtained deceitfully from the Museum. We deplore this exploitation of the Holocaust and reprehensible misuse of Holocaust materials.

?We urge PETA to halt this campaign and find an appropriate way to build support for its goals. An organization so concerned about inflicting pain on animals should not be so oblivious to the pain it is inflicting on humans.?

Yeah, PETA really takes the prize for “ethical” behavior.

Source:

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Demands That Peta Stop Exploiting The Holocaust. United States Holocaust Museum, Press Release, March 3, 2003.

Chairman Fred S. Zeiman Expresses Outrage Over PETA’s Desecration of Holocaust Memory. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Press Release, March 4, 2003.

Okay, here’s something I genuinely don’t understand — why hasn’t People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sued Ron Arnold and the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise for libel yet? This is hard to understand for two reasons.

First, PETA is hardly afraid to file lawsuits. Just last February, for example, PETA said it would sue the state of New Jersey after PETA activists Dan Shannon and Jay Kelly hit a deer in that state while driving a PETA-owned vehicle. One news organization I wrote an op-ed about PETA for made me go over it with a fine-tooth comb because of PETA’s perceived litigiousness. This is not an organization known for holding their lawyers at bay.

Second, Ron Arnold has said a number of things which PETA and its attorneys say are patently untrue and would thereby be libelous. For example, here’s Arnold describing PETA in no uncertain terms for the New Jersey Herald earlier this month,

We believe the evidence shows that PETA’s leaders and personnel have been involved in criminal activities of such a magnitude for such a length of time that they have no legal right to a tax exemption.

Or how about its filing with the IRS last year where Arnold and CDFE asserted,

PETA openly and actively induces and encourages unlawful acts . . .

Maybe PETA agrees with Arnold that it actively encourages criminal acts. But no, PETA attorney Jeff Kerr tells the New Jersey Herald,

That is completely ludicrous and they’ve known about it for a long time. Everything it [PETA] does is directly related to trying to help end the suffering and exploitation of animals. Everything we do is consistent with the charitable mission of PETA.

Well, if Arnold’s assertions are really that ludicrous, it’s a bit odd that PETA doesn’t seek recourse in the courts through a libel action. Either they really know Arnold’s statement is, in fact, accurate, or they’re too busy suing states when their own activists hit deer to bother.

Source:

Animal rights group attacked; PETA integrity under question. Pat Mindos, New Jersey Herald, May 6, 2003.

A billboard advertising company in Texas has turned down People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ attempt to run an ad featuring David Duke with a photoshopped milk mustache. Duke is currently serving time in a federal prison in Big Spring, Texas, for mail and tax fraud.

Last November PETA ran two billboards featuring the ad in Duke’s home state of Louisiana. The ad features Duke in front of a Confederate flag with the copy,

Got (lactose) intolerance? The white stuff ain’t the right stuff

As I said last year, this campaign is indecipherably bizarre. On the other hand, it shouldn’t be too surprising that PETA would choose someone like Duke to feature in an ad.

Both PETA and Duke mastered the art of trying to put a respectable face on their respective movements, while at the same time encouraging and even funding more extremists elements in their midst.

Sources:

Jailed David Duke won’t get milk mustache. Associated Press, May 22, 2003.

White Sheet Won?t Come Off Ad Featuring David Duke, Says Billboard Company. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Press Release, May 22, 2003.

In April researchers at the University of Minnesota Medical School proved that stem cells could turn into any form of brain cell in research involving mice.

According to a University of Minnesota press release on the accomplishment,

Adult stem cells were injected into a mouse blastocyst, an early embryonic stage of a mouse. The result is the birth of a chimerical animal an animal that shows the presence of both the cells from the host mouse as well as cells that have developed from the transplanted stem cells. Within the brain, the transplanted stem cells developed into nerve cells that typically conduct electrical impulses, glial cells that provide support to the nerve cells, and myelin-forming cells that enhance the conduction of electrical impulses by nerve cells.

Co-investigator Catherine Verfaille said in a prepared statement that,

This tells us that these adult stem cells are capable of becoming nerve cells that communicate with other nerve cells within the brain and form proper neural circuits that permit the chimerical mice to function normally.

In fact, according to the BBC, the adult stem cells resulted in the growth of cells in parts of the brains of the mice that correspond to those effected by Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other similar disorders.

Source:

Stem cells ‘turn into brain cells’. The BBC, April 25, 2003.

Adult stem cells shown to develop into all brain cell types. Press Release, University of Minnesota, April 25, 2003.

The operators of a nonprofit organization dedicated to rescuing performing tigers were recently charged with 17 felonies after an April 22 raid of their home and tiger sanctuary allegedly turned up numerous health and safety violations as well as numerous dead tigers in various states of decay.

On a web site for Tiger Rescue, John Weinhart and Marla Smith claimed they had been rescuing movie and other performing tigers for over 30 years. But when police raided their property they found the carcasses of 88 dead tigers as well as numerous leopard and tiger cubs living in unhealthy conditions.

Prosecutors said that Weinhart and Smith had two full-grown tigers in their yard and, for good measure, two alligators living in their bathtub. The couple were charged with child endangerment due to the presence of their 8-year-old son who was removed from their custody.

If convicted, both Weinhart and Smith could receive up to 16 years in jail.

Sources:

Couple who ran animal sanctuary charged. Associated Press, May 22, 2003.

Many Dead Tigers Are Found at Big Cat ‘Retirement Home’. New York Time, April 2003.

Neglected Tiger, Leopard Cubs On Mend. CBS News, April 24, 2003.

90 Tigers Found Dead At Calif. Home. CBS News, April 25, 2003.

While searching Lexis for a related story, I happened to run across this well-written letter to the editor from a former animal researcher defending the importance of medical research. This originally appeared in the May 17, 2003 edition of the Columbus Dispatch (Ohio), and is reproduced here by permission of the author:

Shelley Finley’s May 3 letter, headlined “News of better treatment of lab animals is exaggerated,” contained the same nonsense that resulted in the funding cutbacks that cost me my career.

I don’t know of Finley’s qualifications for commenting on the evils of animal research, but as a former animal researcher at Ohio State University, I certainly feel qualified to offer a rebuttal.

Finley claims that thousands of primates are “often victims of the cruelest experiments.” But primates are valuable animals. Why would a researcher want to torture them?

Finley contends, “There are no real restrictions on what can be done to an animal during an experiment.” On the contrary, there are probably more rules and regulations governing the care and use of laboratory animals than governing my own health care. There are countless review and approval procedures that researchers must undergo here in the United States, and animal research in most European countries has nearly been brought to a halt because of similar regulations.

Finley then launches into a graphic description of brain mapping on conscious animals, which have portions of their skulls removed and are “forced” to respond to stimuli via brain electrodes. I once did that in bats, and I admit it initially sounds awful. My research concerned mechanisms of ear directionality. I would prepare small holes in the bats’ skulls under anesthesia, then record from brain cells with microscopic electrodes, which are considered painless. It was my intent to do all of my recordings under anesthesia, as it is hard to keep an electrode stationary in a squirming animal.

However, a few times my animals came out of anesthesia, unbeknownst to me. They would calmly listen to the soft beeps and whistles as I continued mapping their auditory systems, apparently comfortable enough that they had no reason to move. What the animal-liberation activists don’t tell people is that there are no pain receptors in the brain. They also don’t tell people that brain mapping is also done in conscious humans, for instance to locate epileptic foci.

Antivivisectionists such as Finley are well-meaning but deluded, and they consciously distort the truth of what researchers do, in order to make it sound as shocking and macabre as possible. In the real world, I have not once heard a scientist express pleasure at seeing an animal suffer, which is something I can’t say about much of humanity. Researchers do care about the welfare of their research animals, particularly when activists raid their laboratories at night, torture their animals for photo ops, and “liberate” them into environments where they cannot survive.

Finally, Finley bemoans that $23 million of tax money has been allocated for university research involving animals. This figure, if accurate, amounts to less than a dime per year per American citizen. If animal-rights activists believe even a dime is too much to pay for advances in medical technology, then surely their true objective is to shut down biomedical research entirely.

They are winning their campaign, and our biomedical infrastructure is indeed crumbling. Researchers such as myself are either teaching or finding other lines of work. Laboratories are closing their doors. Meanwhile, diseases such as SARS, AIDS, Alzheimer’s, cancer and heart disease threaten our well-being. Until Americans can muster enough common sense to see through these extremists’ distortions and lies, our future will be bleak indeed.

Sarah Fox

Columbus

This, which was posted on a number of animal rights e-mail lists today, pretty much speaks for itself,

5 Minutes of Silence for the Animals – Sundays @ 8:00 p.m.

Please forward to other groups.

A reminder to encourage our networks of friends and family members
around the world to spend 5 minutes this Sunday (and every Sunday)
evening at 8:00 (New York/East Coast time — sorry for my regional
bias) to pray/meditate/reflect/visualize on behalf of the animals.

Some people might want to get together in groups, preceded by a vegan
meal and discussion. Others may want to extend the 5 minutes to 20
minutes or an hour.

Suggested themes for thought/prayer/visualization include:

* imagine an umbrella of healing, powerful thoughts enveloping all
creatures and surrounding them with love and protection

* pray for/request/visualize special intervention, comfort and
healing to animals in captivity, labs, zoos, food factories, fur
factories and other institutions

* visualize this energy surrounding those humans who harm animals
either intentionally or unintentionally and imagine this healing
light surrounding their head and heart

* visualize our companion animals and thank them for sharing their
lives with us

* visualize the expanding network of people working together in
various ways to raise public consciousness about the rights and
welfare of our co-species

You might enjoy meditating on one of the beautiful photos at:
http://justnicephotos.homestead.com/moment.html

Other ideas for meditation themes are welcome, as well as suggestions
for an alternate morning time for those who are “morning people.”

I plan to meditate on the sheer beauty of barbecued chicken.

Researchers at the Imperial College, London, had been some of the last holdouts arguing that the mad cow disease epidemic could result in hundreds of thousands of deaths. When researchers at Saint-Antoine Hospital published a study in late 2001 suggesting that at most a few hundred people would die from VCJD, for example, the Imperial College researchers said that claim was far too low because it ignored initial underreporting of VCJD cases.

But Azra Ghani, Christl Donnelly, Neil Ferguson and Roy Anderson published a study this week that affirmed the findings of studies that projected more conservative results. The Imperial College researchers now project that over the next ten years only 50 to 540 people in Great Britain are likely to develop VCJD from having eaten tainted beef. In addition, most of those cases will occur in the next few years rather than being spread out over the next decade.

Essentially, the researchers looked at their model that had been projecting 50,000 or more cases and then looked at the actual data over the past few years which simply didn’t fit that prediction. Ghani, et al., note that there is now enough evidence to predict with more confidence the incubation period of VCJD which they estimate to have a mean of 12.6 years (which happens to be very close to the estimated 10-13 years that kuru takes to incubate).

Sources:

Updated projections of future vCJD deaths in the UK. Azra Ghani, Christl Donnelly, Neil Ferguson and Roy Anderson, BMC Infectious Diseases, 2003, 3:4.

Scientists cut predictions of human mad cow cases. Patricia Reaney, Reuters, May 20, 2003.

Don’t ever accuse Animal Alliance of Canada’s Troy Seidle of overlooking the obvious. Seidle charged earlier this month that a virology lab in Canada was abusing animals with its research efforts.

According to the Winnipeg Sun, the lab in Winnipeg is one of only a dozen around the world capable of working on the most dangerous of viruses including Ebola and SARS. Seidle was not impressed, telling the Winnipeg Sun,

Newborn mice are being infected by a virus, and the researchers know up front that they’re going to die from it.

Somebody move Seidle to the head of the class! Presumably, Seidle would prefer that when studying Ebola or SARS that researchers infect the mice with a nonlethal agent such as the cold virus instead (it probably won’t come as a surprise that this genius also has worked as a research associate with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals).

Source:

‘Peg lab abusing animals, group charges. The Winnipeg Sun, May 15, 2003.

The Whittier Daily reported recently that a California Court Commissioner exonerated the a rodeo that had been accused of cruelty charges based on video taken by Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK).

Shark took the video at a San Dimas Rodeo in October 2002 and turned it over to the Inland Valley Humane Society. The Humane Society then charged the Growney Brothers Rodeo C. with four counts of misusing a cattle prod.

California has a law that went into effect in 2001 that makes it a crime to use a cattle prod during a rodeo except to protect the participants or audience at a rodeo. SHARK and the Humane Society argued that the videotape showed workers at the rodeo using the cattle prods on four horses to force them out of the chute during a bucking bronco contest.

Pomono Court Commissioner Martin Goetsch ruled in favor of the rodeo, however, saying that he agreed with expert testimony provided by the defense that the use of the cattle prods was designed to protect the rider when horses failed to leave the chute on their own. The Whittier Daily News quoted Goetsch as ruling,

It appears clear to me everybody involved at the chute understands that . . . in each of these cases there was never an attempt to prod any of the horses while the gate was closed.

Goetsch’s decision cannot be appealed.

Sources:

Rodeo provider cleared by judge. Diana L. Roemer, The Whittier Daily News, April 25, 2003.

PRCA rodeo company running from cruelty citations? Showing Animals Respect and Kindness, Press Release, 2002.