We have conceived this Web site
to provide knowledge of what
we must root out.
JBS

(With some exceptions)

The following data was compiled from Peta's Media Center 
A plethora of relevant information can be found at: media center fact sheets

1. Stem Cell Research: Moving Beyond Vivisection
2. Animal Research: Overview
3. Why Sport Hunting Is Cruel and Unnecessary
4. Animal Abuse and Human Abuse
5. Fishing: Aquatic Agony
6. Keeping a Healthy Heart
7. Frequently Asked Questions About Animal Rights
8. Inside the Fur Industry: Factory Farms
9. Puppy Mills: Dogs Abused for the Pet Trade

1. Stem Cell Research: Moving Beyond Vivisection

Stem cell research is one of the most promising areas of medical research. It may hold the key to curing some of our most baffling illnesses and disabilities—from cancer to HIV to spinal cord injuries. Moreover, stem cell technologies could potentially replace animals in the majority of medical research. Such a change would save millions of animals each year from cruel experiments.

What Stem Cells Are and Where They Come From
Stem cells have unique characteristics that make them different from regular specialized cells, which have a set design and function based upon their type. For instance, liver cells behave one way, and heart cells another; no two types are interchangeable, and each specialized cell can only produce more of its own type. By contrast, stem cells are like blank slates. They have no set design, can become any type of specialized cell, and do not carry the biological markers of a particular individual. Since stem cells are not attacked by the body’s immune system, they can adapt perfectly to any individual. In addition, while specialized cells can only divide a limited number of times, stem cells can divide indefinitely until they are induced to specialize. Thus stem cells can be grown in vitro (in a test tube), providing an unlimited supply of healthy human cells from a single “cell line.”(1)
 

There are three sources of stem cells: embryos, fetal tissue, and adult tissue. Embryonic stem cells are derived from newly formed embryos. These embryos are obtained from in vitro fertilization clinics, where they would otherwise be destroyed after a patient successfully becomes pregnant. Thus, no embryos are destroyed simply for the sake of research. Embryonic stem cells have gone through little to no differentiation and can produce all or most of the types of cells that compose a complete human body. As such, embryonic stem cells are seen as having the most potential for medical use.

Fetal stem cells are obtained from fetuses that are several weeks old. These cells are sometimes made available from aborted pregnancies and can also be found in the human umbilical cord and placenta. Fetal stem cells have begun to differentiate but can still become many different types of cells.

Adult stem cells, also known as somatic stem cells, are found in any fully formed human body. Although they are difficult to isolate, adult stem cells are easier for scientists to use. Such cells are already employed in some successful therapies, but they hold far less long-term potential than younger stem cells. Adult stem cells have largely differentiated and can form only a few different types of cells. For instance, stem cells in bone morrow can form various types of blood cells and are commonly harvested for medical procedures.(2)

The Importance of Stem Cells
Because stem cells can become any type of specialized cell, can adapt to any person, and can multiply indefinitely, they open up new possibilities for medical cures and treatments.

Stem cells can be injected into damaged tissue or organs to create new healthy cells. Such therapies are being tested to treat illnesses like heart and liver disease and have even been shown to restore vision by forming optical cells.(3) Similarly, stem cells can form insulin-secreting cells that can be used to control blood glucose levels, which could be helpful in treating diabetes.(4) Stem cells could also be used to arrest and reverse the progression of degenerative brain diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s by producing a regenerative supply of brain cells. Scientists believe that Parkinson’s disease could be among the first illnesses to be treated with stem cells.(5)

Disabled people will also benefit from cell and tissue regeneration. Women with severe incontinence have been successfully treated with injections of stem cells. This procedure takes only 15 to 20 minutes and is effective within 24 hours.(6) Paraplegics can theoretically be cured by using stem cells to generate new nerve cells, healing formerly untreatable spinal cord injuries.(7)

Stem cells could potentially be grown into functional human tissue and could theoretically create whole working organs. In this way, stem cells could provide skin grafts for burn victims, cartilage for joint repairs, and perhaps even hearts, livers, and kidneys for human organ transplants.

In gene therapy, stem cells are modified to carry a desired gene and then are allowed to multiply in a patient, spreading the gene. In this way, single-gene-based disorders like sickle cell anemia can be treated. Gene therapy can also be done in utero (during pregnancy) and may be able to prevent fetuses from developing disorders before birth.(8)

Ethical Concerns
Unfortunately, the majority of stem cell research is done on animals. For example, researchers recently burned holes in the hearts of pigs and then injected stem cells to repair the tissue. Because of experiments like this, many people object to stem cell research and oppose increasing its scope and funding.

Stem cell research is, at its heart, an in vitro technology, and animals are used in stem cell research largely because of archaic regulations and research habits, as well as a historical unavailability of human stem cells. We now have ample sources of human stem cells, as well as many established stem cell lines in vitro.

An End to Animal Testing?
Even though stem cell research currently involves animals, it has the potential to end the vast majority of animal testing. Stem cell cultures can generate a perpetual supply of healthy, normal human cells for disease modeling, drug discovery, and toxicology. These cells can be genetically or pharmacologically manipulated to create ideal controlled-testing environments.

In the field of drug toxicology, mouse stem cell lines have been employed to replace live mice in some tests. For example, mouse embryonic stem cells can be used for embryotoxicology tests, and no animals are killed. This technology has been developed and validated in Europe as a partial replacement for birth defect tests, which kill hundreds of rats and rabbits for each chemical tested.(9,10)
 

Currently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires new drugs to undergo short-term toxicity testing on two species, as well as separate testing for long-term toxicology. It is likely that stem cell technologies will be the driving factor in convincing the FDA to accept in vitro preclinical studies as sufficient to approve drugs for human clinical testing. This step alone would save the lives of millions of animals every year.

What You Can Do
The current presidential administration has placed strong limitations on the types of stem cell research that can receive federal funding. Oppose these limitations by writing letters to the administration and to your local representatives. In addition, contact the FDA and the National Institutes of Health and voice your support for non-animal testing methods.

Support state measures that endorse and/or fund stem cell research. In late 2004, Californians overwhelmingly voted to raise and spend $3 billion during a 10-year period on unrestricted stem cell research. That amounts to $300 million a year, as compared to the federal government’s $25 million total for 2003.(11) Supporting such ballot measures or state legislative proposals is another important way to encourage stem cell research.

Write letters to the editor and op/ed pieces to newspapers about the stem cell issue. Be sure to highlight the often-overlooked benefits that animals stand to gain from stem cell research. Finally, remember to educate your friends, family, and acquaintances about the promise that stem cell research holds for both humans and animals.

Resources
1) National Institutes of Health, “Stem Cell Basics,” Sep. 2002.
2) Commission of the European Communities, “Commission Staff Working Paper Report on Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research,” 4 Mar. 2003.
3) Rick Weiss, “Two Studies Bolster Stem Cells’ Use in Fighting Disease,” The Washington Post, 27 Sep. 2004.
4) National Institutes of Health, “Stem Cells: Scientific Progress and Future Resource Directions,” Jun. 2001.
5) National Institutes of Health, “Stem Cell Basics.”
6) “New Treatment for Urinary Incontinence Reported,” Reuters, 29 Nov. 2004.
7) National Institutes of Health, Stem Cells: Scientific Progress and Future Resource Directions.
8) National Institutes of Health, Stem Cells: Scientific Progress and Future Resource Directions.
9) Susanne Bremer et al., “Development of a Testing Strategy for Detecting Embryotoxic Hazards of Chemicals in Vitro by Using Embryonic Stem Cell Models,” Alternatives to Laboratory Animals, 30(2002): 107-109.
10) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Prenatal Developmental Toxicity Study,” Health Effects Test Guidelines, Aug. 1998.
11) “California Gives Go-Ahead to Stem Cell Research. Proposition 71 Provides $3 Billion in State Funding Over Next Decade,” MSNBC.com, 3 Nov. 2004.

2.Animal Research: Overview

Experimentation on animals in laboratories generally falls into one of three categories—toxicity testing, education and training, and basic or applied research. It is a common misconception that most tests on animals are carried out with the aim of finding a cure for cancer, AIDS, or other devastating human diseases. Surveys clearly show that the public accepts animal experimentation only because it is believed to be necessary for medical progress.(1) But according to some national statistics, nearly two-thirds of all animal research has little or nothing to do with curing human diseases or advancing human medicine.(2) The reality is that much of this research is little more than curiosity-driven cruelty.

Wasteful and Unreliable
Each year, around the world, millions of birds, cats, dogs, farmed animals, fish, mice, monkeys, rats, rabbits, and other domestic and wild animals are subjected to a wide variety of experiments in the name of biology, psychology, biochemistry, physiology, genetic manipulation, and bio-warfare.  The growing trend toward curiosity-driven research is largely a product of today’s “publish or perish” research environment, in which scientists are recognized for the number of research papers they publish rather than the contribution that each study makes to the advancement of science or medicine.

Even animal research that is carried out for “medical purposes” tends to be irrelevant to human health. A PETA investigation revealed the grotesque abuse of animals in laboratories at Columbia University, where baboons were subjected to invasive surgeries and left to suffer and die in their cages without any painkillers, and monkeys were forced to endure surgical procedures in which metal pipes were implanted into their skulls for the sole purpose of inducing stress to study the connection between stress and women’s menstrual cycles. In another Columbia experiment, pregnant baboons were given large doses of nicotine and morphine, had backpacks full of instrumentation strapped to their backs, and were tethered inside metal cages for observation. Their babies underwent surgery while still in utero. One baboon lost 40 percent of her bodyweight and developed a severe bone infection that was left untreated. Please visit ColumbiaCruelty.com for more information.

Diseases that are artificially induced in animals in a laboratory are never identical to those that occur naturally in human beings. And because animal species differ from one another in many biologically significant ways, it becomes even more unlikely that animal research will yield results that will be correctly interpreted and applied to the human condition in a meaningful way. The fact that the species most often used in laboratory experiments are chosen largely for nonscientific reasons, such as cost and ease of handling, casts further doubt on the validity of this research. In addition, the results of animal experiments are often so variable and easily manipulated that researchers have used them to “prove”––depending on the source of funding––that cigarettes do cause cancer and that they do not! A careful scientific review of 10 randomly chosen “animal models” of human disease found that they made little, if any, contribution toward the treatment of human patients.(7)

Funding and Accountability
Through their taxes, charitable donations, and purchases of lottery tickets and consumer products, members of the public are ultimately the ones who—knowingly or unknowingly—fund animal research. The largest proportion of funding comes from publicly funded government granting agencies such as the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the U.K. Medical Research Council. In 2004 alone, NIH awarded nearly $27 billion in grants for basic and applied research, a large proportion of which went toward laboratory studies rather than human clinical studies.(8,9) In addition, charities––including the March of Dimes, the American/Canadian Cancer Society, and countless others—use donations to fund experiments on animals. Visit HumaneSeal.org to find out which charities do and which do not fund research on animals.

Despite the vast amount of public funds being used to underwrite animal research, it is nearly impossible for the public to obtain current and complete information regarding the animal experiments that are being carried out in their communities or funded with their tax dollars. The U.S. Freedom of Information Act can be used to obtain documents and information from federally funded government agencies and institutions, but private companies, contract labs, and animal breeders are exempt. Secrecy is even more pervasive in the U.K. and Canada, where everything from the protocols that describe animal experiments to the lab inspection reports and the list of registered research facilities is considered “confidential” and off limits to the public. 

Oversight and Regulation
Despite the countless animals killed each year in laboratories worldwide, most countries have grossly inadequate regulatory measures to protect animals from suffering and distress or to prevent them from being used when a non-animal approach is clearly available. In the U.S., three of the most commonly used species in laboratory experiments (birds, mice, and rats) are specifically exempted from even the minimal protections of the federal Animal Welfare Act.(10) Labs that use only these species are not required by law to provide animals with pain relief or veterinary care, to have an institutional committee to review proposed experiments, or to be inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) or any other entity.

Similar gaps exist in the oversight system in Canada, which has no federal legislation governing the care or use of animals in laboratories. In place of such legislation is a loose patchwork of provincial legislation and national guidelines that makes it possible for certain types of laboratories in some provinces to function without any external oversight.(11)

Troublesome Trends
In the rapidly expanding field of biotechnology, commercial pressures carry the threat of creating even more animal suffering through deliberate genetic manipulation. By inserting or removing genes from an animal’s genetic makeup, experimenters are producing entirely new (“transgenic” or “knockout”) breeds, which they hope to patent, thereby ensuring monopoly rights on the sale of these breeds. Major business applications of this technology include the creation of new animals to be used as “disease models” for research, animals to act as “drug factories” for producing pharmaceuticals and vaccines, and faster-growing animals for factory-farming operations.(12) Another controversial application of genetic-manipulation technology is the creation of “humanized” animals to serve as a source of organs and tissues for transplantation, even though animal-to-human organ transplants have never been successful and have the potential to spread dangerous viruses.

Because of the unpredictable nature of genetic manipulation, any “mistakes” that are made can have disastrous consequences for the animals involved. Transgenic pigs who were bred to grow faster and leaner have suffered from arthritis, lethargy, abnormal skull growth, and impaired immune systems.(13) The widely recognized potential for genetic manipulation to result in adverse effects on animals’ health and well-being prompted the Canadian Council on Animal Care to classify these experiments in the second-most severe “category of invasiveness”––with the potential to cause “moderate to severe distress or discomfort.”(14,15)

The creation of new strains of genetically manipulated animals is also incredibly wasteful and inefficient. Only between 1 and 10 percent of animals successfully incorporate the foreign genetic material injected into their embryos; those who do not are killed.(16) This means that as many as 99 animals may be killed for every “viable” transgenic animal who is born. As a result, the number of animals subjected to genetic-manipulation experiments in the U.K. since 1990 has increased more than tenfold.(17) Today, one out of every four animals in U.K. labs has been genetically manipulated in some way.(18)

The Way Forward
Human clinical, population, and in vitro studies are critical to the advancement of medicine; even animal experimenters need them—if only to confirm or reject the validity of their experiments. However, research with human participants does require a different outlook, one that perfectly illustrates the underlying philosophy of ethical science. Animal researchers artificially induce disease; clinical investigators study people who are already ill or who have died. Animal researchers want a disposable “research subject” who can be manipulated as desired and killed when convenient; clinicians must do no harm to their patients or study participants. Animal experimenters face the ultimate dilemma, knowing that their artificially created “animal model” can never fully reflect the human condition; clinical investigators know that the results of their work are directly relevant to people. Remarkably, however, health charities and government research-funding agencies currently devote more funds to animal studies than to investigations of our own species!

Human health and well-being can best be promoted by adopting nonviolent methods of scientific investigation and concentrating on the prevention of disease before it occurs, through lifestyle modification and the prevention of further environmental pollution and degradation. The public needs to become more aware and more vocal about the cruelty and inadequacy of the current research system and must demand that its tax dollars and charitable donations no longer be used to fund research on animals.

What You Can Do
Tell research-funding agencies to kick their animal experimentation habit.

Virtually all federally funded research is paid for with your tax dollars. Two of the main sources of funding for animal-based research in North America, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, need to hear that you don’t want your tax dollars used to underwrite animal experiments, whatever their purpose. When writing letters, make the following two points:

• Animal experimentation is an inherently violent and unethical practice that I do not want my tax dollars to support.
• Funding for research into health and ecological effects should be redirected into the use of epidemiological, clinical, in vitro, and computer modeling studies instead of laboratory experiments on animals.

Please ensure that all correspondence is polite:

Dr. Elias Zerhouni, Director
National Institutes of Health
Shannon Bldg., Rm. 126
1 Center Dr. (Mail Stop 0148)
Bethesda, MD 20892
301-496-8276 (fax)
Ez26y@nih.gov

Dr. Alan Bernstein, President
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
160 Elgin St., 9th Floor
Address Locator 4809A
Ottawa, ON K1A 0W9
613-954-1800 (fax)
abernstein@cihr.ca

References
1)“Attitudes Towards Experimentation on Live Animals—Toplines,” MORI, 2004.
2)Canadian Council on Animal Care, “Facts & Figures, CCAC Animal Use Survey, 2001,” 2001.
3)Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, “Animals Used in Research. Pain and/or Distress—No Drugs Could Be Used for Relief (Category E), All Research Facilities—Federal and Industry, Fiscal Year 2002,” U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2003.
4)Madhusree Mukerjee, “Speaking for the Animals: A Veterinarian Analyzes the Turf Battles That Have Transformed the Animal Laboratory,” Scientific American, Aug. 2004.
5)Canadian Council on Animal Care, 2001.
6)“Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals, Great Britain, 2002,” Home Office, 6 Jun. 2003.
7)Christopher Anderegg, M.D., et al., “A Critical Look at Animal Experimentation,” Medical Research Modernization Committee, 2002.
8)American Association for the Advancement of Science, “NIH Budget Growth Slows to 2 Percent in FY 2004,” 25 Feb. 2003.
9)T.A. Kotchen et al., “NIH Peer Review of Grant Applications for Clinical Research,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 291(2004): 836-43.
10)Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, “Animal Welfare, Definition of Animal,” Federal Register, 69 (2004): 31513-4.
11)Canadian Council on Animal Care, “Responsibility for the Care and Use of Experimental Animals,” CCAC Guide Volume 1, 1991.
12)Canadian Council on Animal Care, “CCAC Guidelines on Transgenic Animals,” 1993.
13)Michael W. Fox, Superpigs and Wondercorn: The Brave New World of Biotechnology and Where It All May Lead, New York: Lyons & Burford, 1992.
14)Canadian Council on Animal Care, 1993.
15)Canadian Council on Animal Care, “Categories of Invasiveness in Animal Experiments,” 1991.
16)Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, “GM Animals,” postnote, Jun. 2001.
17)Ibid.
18)“Annual Statistics,” Home Office, 6 Jun. 2003.

4. Animal Abuse and Human Abuse

Violent acts toward animals have long been recognized as indicators of a dangerous psychopathy that does not confine itself to animals. "Anyone who has accustomed himself to regard the life of any living creature as worthless is in danger of arriving also at the idea of worthless human lives," wrote humanitarian Dr. Albert Schweitzer. "Murderers ... very often start out by killing and torturing animals as kids," according to Robert K. Ressler, who developed profiles of serial killers for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Studies have now convinced sociologists, lawmakers, and the courts that acts of cruelty toward animals deserve our attention. They can be the first sign of a violent pathology that includes human victims.

A Long Road of Violence

Animal abuse is not just the result of a minor personality flaw in the abuser, but a symptom of a deep mental disturbance. Research in psychology and criminology shows that people who commit acts of cruelty against animals don’t stop there; many of them move on to their fellow humans.

The FBI has found that a history of cruelty to animals is one of the traits that regularly appear in its computer records of serial rapists and murderers, and the standard diagnostic and treatment manual for psychiatric and emotional disorders lists cruelty to animals as a diagnostic criterion for conduct disorders. (1)

Studies have shown that violent and aggressive criminals are more likely to have abused animals as children than criminals considered non-aggressive. (2) A survey of psychiatric patients who had repeatedly tortured dogs and cats found that all of them had high levels of aggression toward people as well, including one patient who had murdered a boy. (3) To researchers, a fascination with cruelty to animals is a red flag in the lives of serial rapists and killers. (4)

Says Robert Ressler, founder of the FBI’s behavioral sciences unit, "These are the kids who never learned it’s wrong to poke out a puppy’s eyes." (5)

Notorious Killers

History is replete with notorious examples: Patrick Sherrill, who killed 14 coworkers at a post office and then shot himself, had a history of stealing local pets and allowing his own dog to attack and mutilate them.(6) Earl Kenneth Shriner, who raped, stabbed, and mutilated a 7-year-old boy, had been widely known in his neighborhood as the man who put firecrackers in dogs’ rectums and strung up cats.(7) Brenda Spencer, who opened fire at a San Diego school, killing two children and injuring nine others, had repeatedly abused cats and dogs, often by setting their tails on fire.(8) Albert DeSalvo, the "Boston Strangler" who killed 13 women, trapped dogs and cats in orange crates and shot arrows through the boxes in his youth.(9) Carroll Edward Cole, executed for five of the 35 murders of which he was accused, said his first act of violence as a child was to strangle a puppy.(10) In 1987, three Missouri high school students were charged with the beating death of a classmate. They had histories of repeated acts of animal mutilation starting several years earlier. One confessed that he had killed so many cats he’d lost count. (11) Two brothers who murdered their parents had previously told classmates that they had decapitated a cat.(12) Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer had impaled dogs’ heads, frogs, and cats on sticks.(13)

More recently, high school killers such as 15-year-old Kip Kinkel in Springfield, Ore., and Luke Woodham, 16, in Pearl, Miss., tortured animals before embarking on shooting sprees.(14) Columbine High School students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who shot and killed 12 classmates before turning their guns on themselves, bragged about mutilating animals to their friends.(15)

"There is a common theme to all of the shootings of recent years," says Dr. Harold S. Koplewicz, director of the Child Study Center at New York University. "You have a child who has symptoms of aggression toward his peers, an interest in fire, cruelty to animals, social isolation, and many warning signs that the school has ignored."(16)

Sadly, many of these criminals’ childhood violence went unexamined—until it was directed toward humans. As anthropologist Margaret Mead noted, "One of the most dangerous things that can happen to a child is to kill or torture an animal and get away with it."(17)

Animal Cruelty and Family Violence

Because domestic abuse is directed toward the
 powerless, animal abuse and child abuse often go hand in hand. Parents who neglect an animal’s need for proper care or abuse animals may also abuse or neglect their own children. Some abusive adults who know better than to abuse a child in public have no such qualms about abusing an animal publicly.

In 88 percent of 57 New Jersey families being treated for child abuse, animals in the home had been abused.(18) Of 23 British families with a history of animal neglect, 83 percent had been identified by experts as having children at risk of abuse or neglect.(19) In one study of battered women, 57 percent of those with pets said their partners had harmed or killed the animals. One in four said that she stayed with the batterer because she feared leaving the pet behind.(20)

While animal abuse is an important sign of child abuse, the parent isn’t always the one harming the animal. Children who abuse animals may be repeating a lesson learned at home; like their parents, they are reacting to anger or frustration with violence. Their violence is directed at the only individual in the family more vulnerable than themselves: an animal. One expert says, "Children in violent homes are characterized by ... frequently participating in pecking-order battering," in which they may maim or kill an animal. Indeed, domestic violence is the most common background for childhood cruelty to animals.(21)

Stopping the Cycle of Abuse

There is "a consensus of belief among psychologists ... that cruelty to animals is one of the best examples of the continuity of psychological disturbances from childhood to adulthood. In short, a case for the prognostic value of childhood animal cruelty has been well documented," according to the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine.(22)

Schools, parents, communities, and courts who shrug off animal abuse as a "minor" crime are ignoring a time bomb. Instead, communities should be aggressively penalizing animal abusers, examining families for other signs of violence, and requiring intensive counseling for perpetrators. Communities must recognize that abuse to ANY living individual is unacceptable and endangers everyone.

In 1993, California became the first state to pass a law requiring animal control officers to report child abuse. Voluntary abuse-reporting measures are also on the books in Ohio, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C. Similar legislation has been introduced in Florida. "Pet abuse is a warning sign of abuse to the two-legged members of the family," says the bill’s sponsor, Representative Steve Effman. "We can’t afford to ignore the connection any longer."(23)

Additionally, children should be taught to care for and respect animals in their own right. After extensive study of the links between animal abuse and human abuse, two experts concluded, "The evolution of a more gentle and benign relationship in human society might, thus, be enhanced by our promotion of a more positive and nurturing ethic between children and animals."(24)

What You Can Do

• Urge your local school and judicial systems to take cruelty to animals seriously. Laws must send a strong message that violence against any feeling creature—human or other-than-human—is unacceptable.

• Be aware of signs of neglect or abuse in children and animals. Take children seriously if they report animals’ being neglected or mistreated. Some children won’t talk about their own suffering but will talk about an animal’s.

• Don’t ignore even minor acts of cruelty to animals by children. Talk to the child and the child’s parents. If necessary, call a social worker.

References

1. Daniel Goleman, "Child’s Love of Cruelty May Hint at the Future Killer," The New York Times, 7 Aug. 1991.
2. "Animal Abuse Forecast of Violence," New Orleans Times-Picayune, 1 Jan. 1987.
3. Alan R. Felthous, "Aggression Against Cats, Dogs, and People," Child Psychiatry and Human Development, 10 (1980), 169-177.
4. Goleman.
5. Robert Ressler, quoted in "Animal Cruelty May Be a Warning," Washington Times, 23 June 1998.
6. International Association of Chiefs of Police, The Training Key, No. 392, 1989.
7. The Animals’ Voice, Fall 1990.
8. The Humane Society News, Summer 1986.
9. International Association of Chiefs of Police.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Lorraine Adams, "Too Close for Comfort," The Washington Post, 4 Apr. 1995.
13. Goleman.
14. Deborah Sharp, "Animal Abuse Will Often Cross Species Lines," USA Today, 28 Apr. 2000.
15. Mitchell Zuckoff, "Loners Drew Little Notice," Boston Globe, 22 Apr. 1999.
16. Ethan Bronner, "Experts Urge Swift Action to Fight Depression and Aggression," The New York Times, p. A21.
17. Margaret Mead, Ph.D, "Cultural Factors in the Cause and Prevention of Pathological Homicide," Bulletin in the Menninger Clinic, No. 28 (1964),
pp. 11-22.
18. Elizabeth DeViney, Jeffrey Dickert, and Randall Lockwood, "The Care of Pets Within Child-Abusing Families," International Journal for the Study of
Animal Problems, 4 (1983) 321-329.
19. "Child Abuse and Cruelty to Animals," Washington Humane Society.
20. Sharp.
21. Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, Animal Health Newsletter, Nov. 1994.
22. Ibid.
23. Sharp.
24. Stephen R. Kellert, Ph.D., and Alan R. Felthous, M.D., "Childhood Cruelty Toward Animals Among Criminals and Noncriminals," Archives of General Psychiatry, Nov. 1983.

6. Keeping a Healthy Heart

Heart disease is the number one health problem in the United States, accounting for more than a million heart attacks and a half million deaths every year.¹ Because we now know what causes heart attacks, we can prevent them. Studies show that people who have heart attacks often have high cholesterol levels; many also smoke or have high blood pressure. When these causes are controlled, heart attacks become rare.

Cholesterol and Your Heart
In many studies, researchers have found that higher levels of cholesterol are linked to a greater risk of having a heart attack. For every 1 percent increase in the amount of cholesterol in your blood, there is a 2 percent increase in your risk of having a heart attack; conversely, every 1 percent reduction in your cholesterol level reduces your risk by 2 percent.²

Elevated cholesterol—anything above 150—promotes atherosclerosis, the buildup of cholesterol, fat, and cells in the arteries that feed the heart muscle.³ When these arteries become clogged, a section of this muscle loses its blood supply. The result is a heart attack.

Fortunately, this process can be reversed without drugs and their side effects. Dr. Dean Ornish demonstrated this fact in his landmark study of patients with advanced heart disease. Dr. Ornish put a group of patients on a completely vegetarian diet, which was less than 10 percent fat. They were also asked to begin a moderate exercise program, walking a half hour every day, and were taught relaxation techniques. Patients in this group found that their chest pain disappeared and their cholesterol levels dropped at a rate comparable to that of cholesterol-lowering drugs, without the side effects. Because the patients felt so much better, they were motivated to stick with this program. The plaques that had been growing in their hearts for decades actually started to dissolve within one year.⁴

According to Ornish and other heart researchers, a vegan (pure vegetarian) diet is the best for lowering cholesterol levels. Plant foods contain no cholesterol, whereas meats, eggs, and dairy products contain large amounts of cholesterol, saturated fats, and concentrated protein, all harmful substances. Also, the high fiber content of a vegetarian diet (meat, dairy products, and eggs have no fiber at all) helps “wash away” excess cholesterol in your digestive tract.

Lowering Your Cholesterol Level
Thanks to the dedicated efforts of the meat, dairy, and egg industries, many Americans still believe that animal products are necessary for good health. One of the largest studies of lifestyle and health found the heart disease mortality rates for lacto-ovo vegetarian males to be only one-third that of meat-eating men.⁵ The British Medical Journal published findings from a study concluding that lifelong vegans have a 57 percent reduced risk of death from heart disease.⁶

Don’t settle for halfway measures; you’ll only be half as healthy as you could be. It’s never too late to change your habits and improve your health. For breakfast, forget bacon and eggs and enjoy oatmeal, cereal, bagels, scrambled tofu, or fresh fruit smoothies. For lunch, try salads, vegetable-based soups, or veggie “burgers” and “dogs.”

For dinner, make spaghetti with marinara sauce instead of meat sauce, fix bean burritos instead of beef tacos, or try vegetable lasagna, using soft tofu or nutritional yeast instead of ricotta cheese. Virtually any meat-based dish can be made with vegetables or with soy substitutes that mimic meat flavor. Try Tofutti or other nondairy ice creams for dessert.

Eating out? Chinese, Mexican, Thai, and Indian restaurants offer an array of tasty vegetable and/or tofu dishes. More and more American restaurants offer veggie or portobello burgers or pizza (hold the cheese); and you can always ask for a vegetable plate with a baked potato or rice or try the salad bar. Be creative! Meatless meals can be as tasty as they are healthful.

Preventing Heart Attacks

• Become a botanical gourmet. Choose beans, grains, vegetables, and fruits. Avoid meats, fish, eggs, and cheese.
• Include high-fiber foods in your diet. Whole-wheat bread, brown rice, oats, and vegetables supply fiber, which helps lower cholesterol.
• Avoid dairy products; they contain cholesterol and saturated fats. Calcium can be obtained from vegetables, nuts, and beans.
• Avoid tobacco. Smoking promotes atherosclerosis and robs your body of oxygen.
• Have your blood pressure and cholesterol level checked regularly.
• Exercise regularly. Walking, running, tennis, and any other activity that increases the heart rate is helpful.
• Write to PETA for delicious, eggless, nondairy vegetarian recipes.

¹American Heart Association, “Heart Attack and Angina Statistics,” 3 Oct. 2003.
²Neal Barnard, Food for Life (New York: Harmony Books, 1993) 34.
³W.C. Roberts, “Preventing and Arresting Coronary Atherosclerosis,” American Heart Journal 130 (1995): 580-600.
⁴Dean Ornish et al., “Can Lifestyle Changes Reverse Coronary Heart Disease?” The Lancet 336 (1990): 624-6.
⁵R.L. Phillips et al., “Coronary Heart Disease Mortality Among Seventh-Day Adventists With Differing Dietary Habits: A Preliminary Report,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 31 (1978): S191-S198.
⁶M. Thorogood et al., “Plasma Lipids and Lipoproteins in Groups With Different Dietary Practices Within Britain,” British Medical Journal 295 (1987): 351-3.

7. Frequently Asked Questions About Animal Rights

The responses presented in this factsheet are by no means the only answers to the following questions, and the questions are only part of a potentially endless list. They are presented as suggestions that can guide your thinking and give you ideas that help you formulate your own responses. We recommend that you consider our answers and incorporate the information into your own thinking.

General Questions

What do you mean by animal “rights”?
Animal rights means that animals deserve consideration of what is in their best interests—regardless of whether they are cute, useful to humans, or endangered and regardless of whether any human cares about them at all (just as a mentally challenged human has rights even if he or she is not cute, productive, or well liked). It means recognizing that animals are not ours to use for food, clothing, entertainment, or experimentation.

What is the difference between “animal welfare” and “animal rights”?
Animal welfare theories accept that animals have interests but allow those interests to be traded away as long as there are human benefits that are thought to justify that sacrifice.

The concept of animal rights means that animals are not ours to use for food, clothing, entertainment, or experimentation. Animal welfare allows these uses as long as “humane” guidelines are followed.

The animal rights movement believes that animals, like humans, have interests that cannot be sacrificed or traded away just because it might benefit others to do so. However, the animal rights position does not hold that the rights it espouses are absolute. An animal’s rights, just like those of humans, can be limited, and the rights of various people as well as animals can certainly conflict.

What rights should animals have?
Animals have the right to consideration of their interests equal to that of any other sentient being. A dog most certainly should not be made to endure pain. We are obligated, as the advocate of that dog, to respect the dog’s right not to suffer.

Animals cannot always have the same rights as humans because their interests are not necessarily the same, and some rights are irrelevant to animals. A dog doesn’t have an interest in politics and, therefore, is not a being whose right to vote must be protected. Having that right would be as meaningless to a dog as it would be to a child.

Where do you draw the line?
As long as an animal is capable of suffering, we should do whatever we can to avoid causing that animal pain. Sometimes it isn’t possible to prevent an animal’s suffering, but just because we can’t stop all suffering, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to mitigate whatever pain we can control. Today’s world presents virtually unlimited choices, and there are kinder, gentler ways for most of us to feed, clothe, entertain, and educate ourselves than by killing animals.

What about plants?
There is no science today that supports the belief that plants experience pain—devoid as they are of central nervous systems, nerve endings, and brains. The main reason why animals have the ability to experience pain is so that they can protect themselves from harm. If you touch something that hurts you, the pain teaches you to leave it alone in the future. Since plants cannot move to escape pain and lack the mobility or processes to learn to avoid certain things, the ability to feel pain would be superfluous and evolutionarily illogical in plants.

Even if plants were able to suffer, it wouldn’t justify causing pain and distress to animals like dogs, cows, rodents, or chickens, who we know are capable of great suffering.

It’s fine for you to believe in animal rights, but how can you tell other people what to do?
We don’t try to dictate, but we understand that freedom of thought does not mean freedom of action. You are free to believe whatever you want as long as you don’t hurt others. You may believe that animals should be killed, that black people should be enslaved, or that women should be beaten, but you don’t have the right to put those beliefs into practice.

Society exists so that there will be rules governing people’s behavior. The very nature of reform movements is to tell others what to do: Don’t use humans as slaves; don’t sexually harass women; don’t abuse children, for example. Historically, all movements have encountered initial opposition from people who want to maintain the status quo.

Animals don’t reason, understand their own rights, or respect our rights, so why should we apply our ideas of morality to them?
An animal’s inability to understand and adhere to our rules is as irrelevant as that of a child or mentally challenged person. These people may not able to comprehend rules, but that does not negate the obligation of a civilized society to protect them. Animals are not always capable of choosing to change their behavior, but human beings have the intelligence to choose between behaviors that hurt others and behaviors that do not.

Where does the animal rights movement stand on abortion?
There are people on both sides of the abortion issue in the animal rights movement, just as there are people on both sides of animal rights issues in the pro-life and pro-choice movements. And just as these movements have no official position on animal rights, the animal rights movement has no official position on abortion.

It’s almost impossible to avoid using all animal products, and if you’re still contributing to animal suffering without realizing it, what’s the point?
It is impossible to live your life without causing some harm—we’ve all accidentally stepped on ants or breathed in gnats—but that doesn’t mean that we should intentionally cause unnecessary harm. You might accidentally hit someone with your car, but that is hardly the same as running over someone on purpose.

What about all the customs, traditions, and jobs that depend on using animals?
The invention of the automobile, the abolition of slavery, and the end of World War II all necessitated job retraining and restructuring. It is simply a part of all social progress—not a reason to deter progress.

Do animal rights activists commit terrorist acts?
The animal rights movement is dedicated to nonviolence. One of the central beliefs shared by most animal rights supporters is the rejection of harm to any animal—human or otherwise—but any large movement is going to have factions that believe in the use of force to attain their goals.

How can you justify spending your time on animals when there are so many people who need help?
There are very serious problems in the world that deserve our attention; cruelty to animals is one of them. We should try to alleviate suffering wherever we can. Helping animals is not any more or less important than helping human beings. Both are important. Animal suffering and human suffering are interconnected, and the morality of a society is measured by the degree to which it strives to alleviate suffering rather than allowing animals or humans to suffer.

Aren’t most animals who are used for food, clothing, entertainment, or experiments bred for that purpose?
Breeding animals for a certain purpose only changes humans’ attitudes toward them; it does not change their biological capacity to feel pain and fear.

Didn’t God put animals here for us to use? And doesn’t the Bible say that we have dominion over animals?
Dominion is not the same thing as tyranny. The Queen of England has “dominion” over her subjects, but that doesn’t mean she can inflict pain on them at will, eat them, wear them, or experiment on them. With dominion comes the responsibility for assuring the safety and well-being of those we are charged with caring for and protecting. If we have dominion over animals, surely it is to protect them, not to use them for our own ends. There is nothing in the Bible that justifies the modern-day policies and practices that are desecrating the environment, destroying entire species of wildlife, and inflicting torment and death on billions of animals every year. The Bible imparts a reverence for life, and a loving God could not help but be appalled at the way animals are being treated and destroyed.

How can animals on factory farms or in laboratory cages suffer if they’ve never known anything else?
To be denied the ability to perform the most basic instinctual behaviors causes tremendous suffering. Even animals who have been caged since birth feel the need to move around, groom themselves, stretch their limbs or wings, and exercise. Herd animals and flock animals become distressed when they are forced to live in isolation or when they are put into groups that are too large for them to be able to recognize other members. In addition, all confined animals suffer from intense boredom—some so severe that it leads to self-mutilation or other self-destructive behaviors.

If animal exploitation were really wrong, wouldn’t it be illegal?
Legality is no guarantee of morality. A law does not cause a person to act in legal or moral fashion. It only establishes punishment for transgressions. Only the opinions of today’s legislators determine who does and who does not have legal rights. The law changes as public opinion and political motivations change, but ethics are not so arbitrary. Look at some of the other things that have at one time been legal in America: child labor, human slavery, and the oppression and subjugation of women.

Have you ever been to a slaughterhouse or vivisection laboratory? If not, how do you know what you’re talking about?
It is not necessary to observe animal abuse firsthand to be able to criticize it anymore than one has to personally experience rape or watch a child being abused to criticize those practices. No one could be witness to all the suffering in the world, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t know what it is and shouldn’t try to stop it.

Are animals as intelligent or advanced as humans?
There are animals who are unquestionably more intelligent, creative, aware, and better able to communicate than some humans. A chimpanzee is superior to a human infant or a person with severe mental handicaps in these ways. Yet it isn’t the animal’s intelligence that matters, it’s his or her capacity for suffering. This capacity for suffering is not related to any being’s intelligence.

Possessing greater intelligence does not entitle one human to abuse another human for any purpose. With superior intelligence comes the obligation not to use it for harm.

Aren’t conditions on factory farms and fur farms better than conditions in the wild, where animals die of starvation, disease, or predation? At least the animals on factory farms are fed and protected. Right?                                   This argument was used to claim that black people were better off as slaves being taken care of on plantations than as free men and women. The same could also be said of people in prison, but it is unlikely that anyone would choose to be enslaved or imprisoned. The desire for freedom and to control one’s own life is as strong in animals as it is in humans.

Animals on factory farms suffer so much that it is inconceivable that they could be worse off in the wild. The wild isn’t “wild” to the animals who live there; it’s their home. There, they have their freedom to roam where they like and can engage in natural activities. The fact that they might suffer in the wild is no reason to cause them to suffer in captivity.

Questions About Vegetarianism

Vegetarianism should be a personal choice, so why do you try to force it on everyone else?
From a moral standpoint, actions that harm others are personal choices that we should not be entitled to. Murder, child abuse, and cruelty to animals are all immoral. Our culture now encourages meat-eating and at least tacitly supports the cruelty of factory farming, but society also once encouraged slavery, child labor, and many other practices that are now recognized as wrong in civilized countries.

Animals kill other animals for food, so why shouldn’t we?
Animals who kill for food are behaving naturally and could not survive if they didn’t, but that is not the case for us. We choose to kill other creatures because we have developed a taste for their flesh and because of the powerful industries that encourage consumers to eat meat so that they can make money from selling meat products. We are better off if we don’t eat meat. Many other animals are vegetarians, including some of our closest primate relatives. Although they are naturally carnivorous, companion animals such as dogs and cats can thrive on plant-based diets when they do not have the opportunity or need to kill or scavenge for their food.

Don’t animals have to die sometime?
Yes, of course, but there is a natural order of things that determines death. Humans have to die as well, but no one has the right to kill them or cause them a lifetime of suffering.

If farmers didn’t treat their animals well, they wouldn’t produce as much milk or lay as many eggs, would they?
Animals on factory farms do not naturally produce milk and lay eggs in the amounts that they do because they are comfortable, content, or well cared for. They do these things because they have been manipulated using genetics, medications, hormones, and other management techniques. Animals raised for food today are slaughtered at an extremely young age—before disease and misery have decimated them—although mortality rates are still high among these young animals.

Such huge numbers of animals are raised for food that it is less expensive for farmers to absorb some losses than it is for them to provide humane conditions. One of the most egregious examples of greed occurred when farmers ground up the carcasses of their cattle who had died from bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or “mad cow” disease, and mixed them with the feed that they gave to healthy cattle. This practice risked the health and well-being of those cattle as well as the lives of anyone who might have eaten a product from such cattle.

If everyone becomes a vegetarian, what will we do with all those chickens, cows, and pigs?
It’s unrealistic to expect that everyone will ever agree on anything, including not eating animals. But as the demand for meat decreases, the number of animals bred to produce it will also decrease, and farmers will turn to other types of agriculture. When there are fewer of these animals, they will be able to live more natural lives.

If everyone turned vegetarian, wouldn’t it be worse for animals because so many of them would never even be born?
Life on factory farms is so miserable that it is hard to imagine that we are doing animals a favor by bringing them into that type of existence, confining them, tormenting them, and then slaughtering them.

If everyone stops eating meat and switches to vegetables and grains, will there be enough to eat?
Again, all people will not likely follow the same path, so it is unlikely that there will no longer be any meat-eaters. But we feed enormous amounts of grain to animals in order to fatten them for consumption. If we all became vegetarians, we could produce enough food to feed the entire world. In the United States alone, 70 percent of all the wheat, corn, and other grain produced is used to feed livestock.(1)

Do vegetarians have difficulty getting enough protein?
Most Americans get more protein than they need. Only 10 percent of the total calories consumed by the average human being needs to be in the form of protein, and you can get that from whole wheat bread, oatmeal, beans, corn, peas, mushrooms, or broccoli—almost every food contains protein.(2) It’s almost impossible to eat as many calories as we need for good health without getting enough protein.

By contrast, too much protein causes osteoporosis and contributes to kidney failure and other diseases.

Don’t humans have to eat meat to stay healthy?
On the contrary, meat and dairy products have been linked to a host of diseases and conditions, including diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis, strokes, obesity, asthma, impotence, and our nation’s biggest killers, heart disease and cancer. Studies have also shown that vegetarians have lower cholesterol levels than meat-eaters. Both the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the American Dietetic Association have endorsed vegetarian diets.

Isn’t eating meat a natural part of human evolution?
Humans have evolved without claws or fangs or another set of grinding molars, while carnivorous animals have long, curved fangs, claws, and a short digestive tract, enabling them to kill and eat animals without the weapons or utensils or need for cooking required by humans. Our so-called “canine” teeth are minuscule compared to those of carnivores and even compared to other primates like orangutans and gorillas, who are vegetarians. We have flat molars and a long digestive tract suited to a plant-based diet of vegetables, fruits, nuts, beans, and grains. The fact that our bodies have not adapted to eating meat is evidenced by the high incidence of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and other diseases suffered by those who eat a meat-centered diet.

What’s wrong with drinking milk? Don’t cows need to be milked?
In order for a cow to produce milk, she must have a calf. “Dairy cows” are impregnated every year so that they will keep up a steady supply of milk. In the natural order of things, the cow’s calf would drink her milk—eliminating her “need” to be milked by humans. But dairy cows’ calves are taken away within a day or two of birth so that humans can have the milk that nature intended for the calves. This separation is extremely traumatic for both the mother and her calf. Female calves are slaughtered immediately or raised for their milk. Male calves are confined for weeks to tiny veal crates that are too small for them even to turn around in so they will not develop the muscle mass of an animal who is free to move about.

The current demand for dairy products requires cows to be pushed beyond their natural limits, genetically engineered, and fed growth hormones in order to produce far more milk than they would naturally.

Is there such a thing as an unhealthy vegetarian?
Even vegetarians can be guilty of eating too much junk food, including trans fats, sugar, salt, and artificial ingredients, but doctors agree that vegetarians who eat a varied, low-fat diet stand a much better chance of living longer, healthier lives than their meat-eating counterparts.

If I didn’t kill the animal, how can you say that I am responsible for his or her death?
Even though you may not have held the knife, you “hired” the killer. Whenever you purchase meat, the killing has been done for you, and you paid for it.

If you were starving at sea in a boat with an animal on board, would you eat the animal?
Humans will go to extremes to save their own lives, even if it means hurting someone innocent. (People have even killed and eaten other humans in such situations.) This example, however, isn’t relevant to our daily choices. For most of us, there is no emergency and no reason to kill animals for food.

Questions About Hunting

Isn’t hunting much less cruel than factory farming?
It is true that quickly killing animals in the wild is much less cruel than confining them for months on a factory farm before sending them to slaughter, but many animals suffer slow, painful deaths when they are injured but not killed by hunters, and hunting, like farming, disrupts families and causes pain, trauma, and grief to both the victims and  the survivors.

Without hunting, wouldn’t deer and other animals overpopulate and die of starvation?
Starvation and disease are unfortunate, but they are nature’s way of ensuring that the strong survive. Natural predators help keep prey species strong by killing only the sick and weak. Hunters, on the other hand, kill any animal they come across or any animal whose head they think would look good mounted above the fireplace. Unfortunately, these animals are usually the large, healthy ones needed to keep the population strong.

Hunting actually creates ideal conditions for overpopulation. After hunting season, the abrupt drop in population leads to less competition among survivors, resulting in a higher birth rate.

If we were really concerned about keeping animals from starving, we would take steps to reduce their fertility rather than hunting. We would also preserve wolves, mountain lions, coyotes, and other natural predators. Ironically, many deer herds and duck populations are purposely manipulated to produce more and more animals for hunters to kill.

Don’t hunting fees provide a major source of revenue for wildlife management and habitat restoration?
The relatively small fee that each hunter pays does not even cover the cost of hunting programs or game wardens’ salaries. Hunting fees pay for programs that benefit only hunters, like manipulating populations to increase the number of animals available to kill. The public lands that many hunters use are supported by taxpayers, and funds benefiting “nongame” species are scarce.

Isn’t hunting OK as long as I eat what I kill?
If it is your only way to get enough food for your own survival or the survival of those who depend on you to provide for them, it might be justified. But most people hunt because they consider it a “sport,” not because they are hungry. As long as there are other ways to nourish ourselves, there is no excuse for hunting and killing animals. 

What about people who have to hunt to survive?
We have no quarrel with subsistence hunters and fishers who truly have no choice but to hunt in order to survive. However, in this day and age, meat, fur, and leather are not a necessary part of survival for the vast majority of us.

Questions About Vivisection

How is it feasible to stop using animals for basic medical research when there is a need to observe the complex interactions of cells, tissues, and organs?
Besides the moral issues involved, clinical and epidemiological studies of humans offer a far more accurate picture without hurting anyone. Observing reactions in animals is no guarantee that the information can be extrapolated to humans. Different species of animals vary enormously in their reactions to toxins and diseases and in their metabolism of drugs. For example, a dose of aspirin that is therapeutic in humans is poisonous to cats and has no effect on fever in horses. Benzene causes leukemia in humans but not in mice; insulin produces birth defects in animals but not in humans, and so on. Animal experiments are a poor substitute for and cannot replace clinical observations of human beings.

Hasn’t every major medical advance been attributable to experiments on animals?
Medical historians have shown that improved nutrition, sanitation, and other behavioral and environmental factors—not anything learned from animal experiments—are responsible for the decline in deaths since 1900 from the most common infectious diseases and that medicine has had little to do with increased life expectancy. Many of the most important advances in health are attributable to human studies, including anesthesia, bacteriology, germ theory, the stethoscope, morphine, radium, penicillin, artificial respiration, antiseptics, the discovery of the relationships between cholesterol and heart disease and between smoking and cancer, the development of X-rays, the isolation of the virus that causes AIDS, and CAT, MRI, and PET scans. Contrary to what people may have been led to believe, animal testing played no role in these or many other developments.

Weren’t many of the treatments that we have today developed on animals?
Some medical developments did result from using cruel animal tests, but just because animals were used, doesn’t mean that they had to be used or that primitive techniques that were used in the 1800s are still valid today. It’s impossible to say where we would be if we had declined to experiment on animals because throughout medical history, very few resources have been devoted to non-animal research methods. In fact, because animal experiments frequently give misleading results with regard to human health, we’d certainly be better off if we hadn’t relied on them.

Don’t scientists have a responsibility to use animals to keep looking for cures for diseases?
More human lives could be saved and more suffering spared by educating people on the importance of avoiding trans fats and cholesterol, quitting smoking, reducing the consumption of alcohol and other drugs, exercising regularly, and cleaning up the environment than by all the animal tests in the world. Animal tests are primitive; we have modern technology that is cheaper, faster, more accurate, and harmless to people and animals.

Even if it could be proved that we have no alternative to using animals—which it can’t—as George Bernard Shaw once wrote, “[I]t is useless to assure us that there is no other key to knowledge except cruelty. When the vivisector offers us that assurance, we reply simply and contemptuously, ‘You mean that you are not clever or humane or energetic enough to find one.’”(3)

If we couldn’t use animals, wouldn’t we have to test new drugs on people?
Actually, new drugs are tested on people after they are tested on animals, and there’s no guarantee that drugs are safe just because they’ve been tested on animals. Because of the physiological differences between humans and other animals, results from animal tests cannot be accurately extrapolated to humans, leaving us vulnerable to exposure to drugs that can cause serious side effects.

Ironically, unfavorable animal test results do not prevent a drug from being marketed for human use. So much evidence has accumulated about differences in the effects that chemicals have on animals and humans that government officials often do not act on findings from animal studies. Many drugs, including Eferol, Oraflex, Suprol, Selacryn, and Vioxx, were taken off the market after causing hundreds of human deaths and injuries. If the pharmaceutical industry switched from animal experiments to quantum pharmacology and in vitro tests, we would have greater protection, not less.

If we didn’t test on animals, how would we conduct medical research?
Human clinical and epidemiological studies, cadavers, and computer simulators are faster, more reliable, less expensive, and more humane than animal tests. Ingenious scientists have developed—from human brain cells—a model “microbrain” with which to study tumors, as well as artificial skin and bone marrow. We can now test irritancy on egg membranes, produce vaccines from cell cultures, and perform pregnancy tests using blood samples instead of rabbits. As Gordon Baxter, cofounder of Pharmagene Laboratories (a company that uses only human tissues and computers to develop and test drugs), says, “If you have information on human genes, what’s the point of going back to animals?”(4)

Doesn’t animal experimentation help animals by advancing veterinary science?
This is like saying that it’s acceptable to experiment on poor children to benefit rich ones. The question is not whether animal experimentation can be useful to animals or humans; it is whether we have the moral right to inflict unnecessary suffering on unwilling “subjects.”

Don’t medical students have to dissect animals?
Dissecting animals teaches students about animal anatomy, not human anatomy. More and more medical students are becoming conscientious objectors to the use of animals in their medical training, and many students learn by assisting experienced surgeons rather than using animals. In Great Britain, it is against the law for medical students to practice surgery on animals, and British physicians are as competent as those educated elsewhere. Many leading U.S. medical schools, including Harvard, Yale, and Stanford now use innovative, clinical teaching methods instead of old-fashioned animal laboratories.

Should we throw out all the drugs that were developed and tested on animals?
Unfortunately, a number of things in our society came about through others’ exploitation. For instance, many of the roads that we drive on were built by slaves. We can’t change the past; those who have already suffered and died are lost. But we can change the future by using non-animal research methods from now on.

Doesn’t the law protect animals from cruelty?
There is no law in the United States that prohibits any experiment, no matter how frivolous or painful. The federal Animal Welfare Act, which is very weak and poorly enforced, does not even protect rats and mice (the animals most commonly used for experiments), cold-blooded animals, birds, or animals traditionally raised for food. It is basically a housekeeping act that doesn’t prohibit any type of experiment on animals in laboratories. Animals can be starved, electrically shocked, driven insane, or burned with a blowtorch—as long as it’s done in a clean laboratory.

Since their research depends on animals’ well-being, don’t most scientists care about animals?
Investigations at the nation’s most prestigious institutions show that this is simply not the case. One PETA investigation revealed that animals were suffering from grotesque abuses in laboratories at Columbia University. In one study, for example, baboons were subjected to invasive surgeries and left to suffer and die in their cages without painkillers. Many experimenters become calloused after years of research. Instead of seeing the animals’ suffering, they treat animals as disposable tools for research. Improvements in care are said to be “too expensive.”

What about peer-review and animal-care committees at institutions?
Many such committees are composed mainly or totally of people with vested interests in the continuation of animal experimentation. It has taken lawsuits to permit public access to committee meetings.

Aren’t cats and dogs killed in pounds anyway? Why not use them for experiments to save lives?
A painless death at an animal shelter is a far cry from the life of pain and deprivation endured by animals in laboratories before they are killed by experimenters.

Would you support an experiment that would sacrifice 10 animals to save 10,000 people?
Suppose you were told that the only way to save those 10,000 people was to experiment on one mentally challenged orphan. If saving many people is the goal, would that be worth it? Most people will agree that it is wrong to sacrifice one human for the “greater good” of others because it would violate that individual’s rights. But when it comes to sacrificing animals, the assumption is that human beings have rights but animals do not. Yet there is no logical reason to deny animals the same rights that protect individual humans from being sacrificed for the common good.

What about experiments that simply observe animals without harming them?
If there really is no harm involved, we don’t object. But “no harm” means that animals are not isolated in barren, cold steel cages devoid of stimulation. The stress and fear of confinement are harmful to them, as shown by the marked differences in blood pressure between caged and free animals. Caged animals also suffer when they are prevented from performing their normal behaviors and social interactions.

If you were in a fire and could save only your child or your dog, which one would you choose?
I would save my child, of course, but that is simply the instinct to protect one’s offspring. However, what I would do in circumstances like that is irrelevant to morality. A dog would save her pup, which is also instinct. Regardless of what one would do in an emergency, there is no connection between that action and the moral legitimacy of experimenting on animals. I might save my own child instead of my neighbor’s child, but that hardly proves that experimentation on my neighbor’s child is acceptable. There is no challenge to one’s choices here because the two situations are not analogous.
 

References
1) Ed Ayres, “Will We Still Eat Meat? Maybe Not if We Wake Up to What the Mass Production of Animal Flesh Is Doing to Our Health—And the Planet’s,” Time, 8 Nov. 1999.
2) Paula Kurtzweil, “‘Daily Values’ Encourage Healthy Diet,” U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2003.
3) George Bernard Shaw, The Doctor’s Dilemma: Preface on Doctors, 1909.
4) Andy Coghlan, “Pioneers Cut Out Animal Experiments,” New Scientist, 31 Aug. 1996.

8. Inside the Fur Industry: Factory Farms

Eighty-five percent of the fur industry’s skins come from animals living captive on fur factory farms.(1) These farms can hold thousands of animals, and the practices used to farm them is remarkably uniform around the globe. As with other intensive-confinement animal farms, the methods used on fur factory farms are designed to maximize profits, always at the expense of the animals.

Painful and Short Lives
The most farmed fur-bearing animal is the mink, followed by the fox. Chinchillas, lynxes, and even hamsters are also farmed for their fur.(2) Sixty-four percent of fur farms are in Northern Europe, 11 percent are in North America, and the rest are dispersed throughout the world, in countries such as Argentina and Russia.(3) Mink farmers usually breed female minks once a year. There are about three or four surviving kits for each litter, and they are killed when they are about half a year old, depending on what country they are in, after the first hard freeze. Minks used for breeding are kept for four to five years.(4) The animals—housed in unbearably small cages—live with fear, stress, disease, parasites, and other physical and psychological hardships, all for the sake of a global industry that makes billions of dollars annually.

Rabbits are slaughtered by the millions for meat, particularly in China, Italy, and Spain. Once considered a mere byproduct of this consumption, the rabbit fur industry demands the thicker pelt of an older animal (meat rabbits are killed at the age of 10 to 12 weeks). The United Nations reports that “few skins are now retrieved from slaughterhouses,” and countries such as France are killing as many as 70 million rabbits a year for fur, used in clothing, as lures in flyfishing, and for trim on craft items.(5)

Life on the “Ranch”
To cut costs, fur farmers pack animals into small cages, preventing them from taking more than a few steps back and forth. This crowding and confinement is especially distressing to minks—solitary animals who may occupy as much as 2,500 acres of wetland habitat in the wild.(6) The anguish of life in a cage leads minks to self-mutilate—biting at their skin, tails, and feet—and frantically pace and circle endlessly. Zoologists at Oxford University who studied captive minks found that despite generations of being bred for fur, minks have not been domesticated and suffer greatly in captivity, especially if they are not given the opportunity to swim.(7) Foxes, raccoons, and other animals suffer equally and have been found to cannibalize each other as a reaction to their crowded confinement.

Animals on fur factory farms are fed meat byproducts considered unfit for human consumption. Water is provided by a nipple system which often freezes in the winter or may fail because of human error.

Pests and Parasites
Animals on fur factory farms are more susceptible to diseases than their free-roaming counterparts. Contagious diseases such as pneumonia are passed from cage to cage rapidly, as are fleas, ticks, lice, and mites. And disease-carrying flies thrive in the piles of rotting wastes that collect under the cages for months. Video footage and photos taken by undercover investigators show animals suffering from severe infections and injuries, untreated and left to die slowly.
 
Unnatural Habitats
Fur factory farm cages are often kept in open sheds that provide little to no protection from wind or harsh weather. Their fur alone is not enough to keep them warm in the winter, and in the summer, minks swelter because they have no water in which to cool themselves. When minks learn to shower themselves by pressing on their drinking water supply nipples, farmers will modify the nipples to cut off even this meager relief.

Poison and Pain
No federal humane slaughter law protects animals on fur factory farms, and killing methods are gruesome. Because fur farmers care only about preserving the quality of the fur, they use slaughter methods that keep the pelts intact but which can result in extreme suffering for the animals. Small animals may be crammed into boxes and poisoned with hot, unfiltered engine exhaust from a truck. Engine exhaust is not always lethal, and some animals wake up while being skinned. Larger animals have clamps or a rod applied to their mouths while rods are inserted into their anuses, and they are painfully electrocuted. Other animals are poisoned with strychnine, which suffocates them by paralyzing their muscles in painful rigid cramps. Gassing, decompression chambers, and neck-snapping are other common fur-farm slaughter methods.

The fur industry refuses to condemn even blatantly cruel killing methods. Genital electrocution, deemed “unacceptable” by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) 1993 Panel on Euthanasia, is a fur factory farm killing method that causes animals the pain of cardiac arrest while they are fully conscious. In 1994, Indiana became the first state to file criminal charges against a fur factory farm after PETA investigators documented genital electrocution at V-R Chinchillas. The chinchilla fur industry considers electrocution and neck-breaking “acceptable.”(8)

In 1995, one district attorney filed charges against pelt supplier Frank Parsons of Salisbury, Md., for injecting a mixture of rubbing alcohol and weed-killer into the chests of minks. PETA undercover investigators videotaped Parsons using an illegal pesticide, Blackleaf 40, to painfully kill the minks.

Would You Wear Your Dog?
An undercover investigation by the Humane Society of the United States, reported in a 1998 Dateline NBC piece, revealed that dog and cat fur is a multimillion-dollar industry in Asia and found that coats and toys made with domestic dog fur are being sold in the U.S. “There are no federal laws preventing anyone from importing dog and cat fur into this country,” reported Dateline. “If the imported item costs less than $150, the importer doesn’t even have to reveal what it’s made of.” Dateline footage shows a German shepherd, tail wagging and head stuck in a restraint, moments before he is skinned alive. A cat, crowded in a cage, watches and waits his turn, as one by one, his cagemates are choked, slung up, and hanged just inches away.(9) New legislation outlawed the import or sale of clothing containing dog or cat fur, but the fur still enters the country illegally since it is intentionally mislabeled and can only be detected by expensive DNA testing. 

Environmental Destruction
Contrary to fur-industry propaganda, fur production destroys the environment. The energy needed to produce a real fur coat from ranch-raised animal skins is approximately 20 times that needed for a fake fur.(10) Nor does fur biodegrade, thanks to the chemical treatment applied to stop the fur from rotting. The process of using these chemicals is also dangerous as it can cause water contamination.

About 44 pounds of feces are excreted per mink skinned by fur farmers. Based on the total number of minks skinned in the U.S. in 1999, which was 2.81 million, mink factory farms generate approximately 62,000 tons of manure per year. One result is nearly 1,000 tons of phosphorus, which wreaks havoc in water ecosystems.(11)

Fur in Sheep’s Clothing
As fur sales decline, sales of shearling—the skin of lambs with the wool attached—have risen. Some fur manufacturers have actually taken to disguising mink as shearling.(12) Many people are unaware of shearling’s origins or that shearling sales are an incentive for sheep ranchers to increase their stock, thereby adding to the plight of sheep (see PETA factsheet “Inside the Wool Industry”).
 
In Afghanistan, karakul sheep are now raised to produce lambs for the high-end market in “Persian lamb” coats and hats. For “top-quality” lamb skin, the mother is killed just before giving birth and her fetus is cut out. The pelts of the unborn lambs are prized in the fashion world for their silk-like sheen. It takes the skin from an entire lamb to make one karakul hat.(13) 

Industry in Decline
Austria and the U.K. have banned fur factory farms, and the Netherlands began phasing out fox and chinchilla farming in April 1998.(14) In 2003 there were 307 mink farms in the U.S., down 5 percent from the previous year.(15) In a sign of the times, supermodel Naomi Campbell was denied entry to a trendy New York club because she was wearing fur. Said the club’s owner, “I really love animals, and I wanted us to be the good guys.”(16)

Humane Choices
Consumers need to know that every fur coat, lining, or item of trim represents the intense suffering of several dozen animals, whether they were trapped, ranched, or even unborn. These cruelties will end only when the public refuses to buy or wear fur. Those who learn the facts about fur must help educate others, for the animals’ sake. For more information, visit FurIsDead.com.

References
1)“Facts on Furs,” International Fur Trade Federation, 2000.
2)“To Make 1 of These … You Need 183 of These,” E.S. Magazine, 27 Oct. 2000.
3)“Fur Farming,” International Fur Trade Federation, 2000.
4)“General Livestock,” The Digital Daily, U.S. Internal Revenue Service, Department of the Treasury.
5)Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, The Rabbit: Husbandry, Health and Production, No. 21 (Rome: 1997).
6)“Minks,” The Nebraska Game & Parks Commission .
7)“What Captive Minks Miss Most—Swimming,” Reuters, 28 Feb. 2001.
8)“Standard Guidelines for the Operation of Chinchilla Ranches,” Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food, Mar. 1998.
9)Dateline NBC, 15 Dec. 1998.
10)Gregory H. Smith, “Energy Study of Real vs. Synthetic Furs,” University of Michigan, Sep. 1979.
11)S.J. Bursian, G.M. Hill, R.R. Mitchell, and A.C. Napolitano, “The Use of Phytase as a Feed Supplement to Enhance Utilization and Reduce Excretion of Phosphorous in Mink,” 2003 Fur Rancher Blue Book of Fur Farming, Department of Animal Science, Michigan State University.
12)Joan Verdon, “The Golden Fleece,” Hackensack Record, 21 Sep. 2002.
13)Paul Haven, “Karzai’s Hat Made From Lamb Fetus,” Associated Press, 23 Apr. 2002.
14)Eurogroup for Animal Welfare, “Commission Report Reveals Serious Welfare Problems in Fur Farming,” 20 Dec. 2001.
15)U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service, “Mink,” 15 Jul. 2004.
16)“Fur Flies Out of Fashion,” MX, 13 Sep. 2002, p. 30.