November 30, 2009

Podcast: Alternatives to Animals in Research

In September 2009, I spoke at the seventh World Congress on Alternatives to Animal Use in the Life Sciences in Rome, Italy. The congress was given the motto "Calling on Science" in order to emphasize that scientific progress today goes hand in hand with progress toward the reduction, refinement, and replacement of animal use in experiments. You can listen to my speech here. As noted in my address, I hope that we may be able to say that each of us had the nerve, the backbone, the principle, and the vision to say what needs to be said about the use of animals, about the suffering of animals and the appropriateness of the behavior of those around us.

August 26, 2009

The Skinny on our Growing Girth

dailymail.co / CC

As the high cost of health care was debated this week in the nation that was once the most powerful on Earth and is now just the fattest, two announcements were made. Time showed a slab of meat on its cover and declared, "The real cost of cheap food" (meat, in particular) costs Americans big-time when it comes to our health. And KFC--whose suppliers have been caught on camera breaking chickens' legs and wings and scalding the birds to death in order to produce "cheap" chicken--came out with a new "sandwich" that substitutes fried chicken parts for bread and is stuffed with artery-clogging and waistline-expanding bacon and cheese. Why would KFC executives decide to do that? For the same reason that there is a Whopper and a Fifth Third Burger: Because they know that people want unhealthy foods almost as much as they want health care.

Also this week, the fat hit the pan over PETA's pro-vegetarian billboard in Jacksonville, Florida, which read, "Save the Whales. Cut the Blubber. Go Vegetarian," and led to the PETA website where people could download our free "Vegetarian Starter Kit" as well as take the "30-Day Veg Pledge." There wasn't a peep about the advertisements for meals that spell death to one million animals per hour and that contribute to our nation's ever-expanding waistlines. There were no angry phone calls and blog messages about the audacity of the purveyors of the chicken and cheese that is turning humans into blubbery masses, or..."whales."

America's obesity epidemic calls for tough love à la Dr. Phil and America's Biggest Loser, not more coddling and mock shock over a billboard pointing out that the majority of fat people need to have some discipline and remember that being fat means being a bad role model to our children, many of whom are now so fat themselves that "teeter-totter" has come to describe their wobbly gait. Only three percent of the population has a medical condition that genuinely prevents them from losing weight. The rest of the obese people hiding behind them are obese because they shovel in food and haven't a clue (or don't want to have a clue) about a healthy diet. They haven't listened to or perhaps haven't heard the polite admonitions from health experts (real ones) urging them to eat their fresh fruits and veggies, whole grains, nuts and beans. So America is getting fatter, largely because we don't realize that killing animals and squeezing the cheese out of them, perhaps especially the cheese, is slowly killing us too.

A study published last year in the journal Obesity found that if current trends continue, nearly 90 percent of adults will be overweight or obese by the year 2030 and the number of overweight children will double. This is a serious health crisis: Research has shown that higher body mass index is associated with a greater risk of premature death from all causes. For example, according to the American Heart Association, obesity contributes to heart disease, America's number one killer. What's more, one out of every six health-care dollars will be spent on costs related to our growing girth.

Going meat-free can make a huge difference. Studies show that vegetarians are, on average, 10 to 20 pounds lighter than meat-eaters and that a vegetarian diet reduces our risk of heart disease by 40 percent and adds seven or more years to our lifespan. A study published in The American Journal of Medicine found that people who eat a low-fat vegan diet (no meat, no eggs and no dairy foods) lose about a pound per week--even without exercising or counting calories.

PETA's billboard was fueled by a healthy respect for all the animals who are raised cruelly and killed in painful ways as well as for our own species's potential to be kind and healthy. I read the communiqués from fat people who said "thank you" and from those who told us where we can go. To all the people considering gastric bypass or tummy-tuck surgery or who tried a low-carb diet and only got constipation and bad breath in return, I say, just try it: Choose the oatmeal with Silk soy milk instead of bacon and milk; the bean instead of the beef burrito; and the mushrooms, tomatoes and peppers instead of the meat balls. All animals would thank you for it if they could, and I'm betting that you will feel better, both inside and out.

August 19, 2009

Help Animals on Chinese Fur Farms

Every year, millions of individual animals, including more than 2 million cats and hundreds of thousands of dogs, are killed for their fur in China. Some are strays, and countless others are companions who once shared homes with people who loved and cared for them before the animals were rounded up often with metal tongs around their necks and tossed, screaming, into a crate.

A timid young rabbit waits, terrified, in a cramped, filthy wire cage. Suddenly, a hand reaches in and roughly grabs her. Her neck is broken. She is then tossed, still convulsing, into a barrel. When it's filled, the barrel is wheeled into another room, where she is skinned.

This horrific abuse is happening right now to countless rabbits and cats and dogs on Chinese fur farms and in Chinese markets. Won't you please help us stop this massive cruelty?

China is one of the world's largest fur suppliers, and more than 95 percent of the country's finished garments are exported with many ending up in North America. And as we now know, Chinese companies have been known to deliberately mislabel cat and dog fur as "Asian jackal," "rabbit," or "raccoon" to fool consumers. Every fur-trimmed collar or other fur item from China, regardless of the kind of animal slaughtered to manufacture it, is the product of cruelty on a truly massive scale. And we must combat it!

We need your help right now. Please make an urgently needed donation to PETA today and help us stop the horrific slaughter of cats, dogs, and other animals for their skin.

The suffering on Chinese fur farms involves all sorts of animals, all of whom are deeply frightened. Powerful video footage taken during a PETA Asia-Pacific undercover investigation documents the misery of rabbits condemned to a short, miserable life and painful death at the hands of grubby fur-farm operators. The investigator saw rabbits who were crammed into filthy cages covered with urine and feces, where they could only wait, petrified, as workers made their way along the tiers of cages.

The rabbits were yanked out of their cages by their ears or legs. The workers aimed at their heads with handheld electrical devices often multiple times as the animals kicked and screamed. The rabbits were then hung upside down and were crudely decapitated. The farm that the investigator visited has 11,000 cages and will be responsible for the slaughter of more than 600,000 animals this year alone in the quest to satisfy the demand for their skins.

Through difficult investigations similar to this one and through decades of relentless campaigning, PETA has saved many thousands of rabbits, dogs, cats, and other animals by convincing consumers and corporations to reject all fur. We've successfully persuaded some of the world's leading designers and retailers including Ann Taylor, Calvin Klein, Polo Ralph Lauren, and Tommy Hilfiger to adopt permanent no-fur policies, and we've made fur so synonymous with suffering that furs are no longer considered "luxury goods," and fur prices have seen record lows.

While we've accomplished much, the wholesale slaughter of so many animals for their fur in China is an urgent matter. To help these animals, we must educate consumers, corporations, and even governments about the pain that goes into every piece of fur trim and every fur cat toy produced in China. That is only part of our work, but it is a vital part.

Please contribute to our work for dogs, cats, and all animals by making a special gift today.

On behalf of all animals, especially those confined and killed for their skins in all parts of the world, thank you.

With the fall fashion season just around the corner, we need to do everything we can to make sure designers, retailers, and consumers know the horrific extent of the animal suffering that takes place on fur farms in China and around the world. Please rush your online donation to PETA today. Together, let's save more animals from being cruelly mistreated and killed for their skin.

July 31, 2009

Meat-Free Mondays, Mr. President?

President Barack Obama
The White House
Washington, D.C.
July 30, 2009

Dear Mr. President,

Sir Paul McCartney is in town this weekend and has launched an initiative called "Meat-Free Mondays" to help stave off climate change, lessen the suffering of animals, and promote a diet healthier than the artery-clogging, obesity-inducing one that is a major cause of the soaring health-care costs and worker absenteeism in this country.

As you no doubt know, on October 5, 1947, in the first televised White House address, President Truman asked Americans to refrain from eating meat on Tuesdays and poultry on Thursdays to help stockpile grain for starving people in Europe. Today, the number of starving people in the world is on a par with the number of obese people in the U.S., and a restriction on meat and dairy-product intake could help tip those scales for the better.

Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the city of Ghent in Belgium, parts of Israel, and, this fall, many schools in the U.K. are among those embracing the concept of "Meat-Free Monday." It's one-seventh of where we should be, but it's a great start. If you institute this program in the White House, it will be a giant step forward in transforming it to a green house, and it will set a wonderful example for people nationwide?or worldwide? Who look to you for leadership when it comes to a kinder, environmentally friendlier, and more health-conscious approach to life.

Respectfully yours,

Ingrid E. Newkirk
President, PETA