Tag: Florida

PETA Uses Bea Arthur to Annoy Palmer Chiropractic University Employees

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals had Bea Arthur record a message complaining about the treatment of animals in federally funded studies being conducted at the Palmer Chiropractic University in Florida.

The taped messages were sent to dozens of employees at the university using an automated telephone messaging system. The messages claimed that Palmer “mutilates” cats. Palmer has grants totaling more than $1 million for spinal research involving felines and rats.

In her taped message, Arthur said, “Palmer should conduct humane studies on volunteer human patients rather than torture animals.”

Palmer Vice President for Research William Meeker countered that PETA is distorting the facts (hard to believe, right?)

What PETA supporters fail to realize is that this research is not only rigorously regulated by external and internal governing bodies who ensure that the highest possible standards in animal care are followed, but that this type of research is vital for understanding how the neural and musculoskeletal systems function.

In a Question and Answer piece on its web site, Palmer Chiropractic says of PETA’s attacks against the university,

Why is PETA attacking Palmer?s research?

It?s simple. PETA is attacking Palmer because we use laboratory animals in some of our research studies. PETA does not really care about how well we treat our laboratory animals because PETA is unalterably opposed to the use of animals in research for any and all reasons whatsoever. PETA is also against the use of animals for food or clothing, or as pets (http://www.peta.org/about/index.html). In fact, PETA is against the use of animals for any human purpose of any kind. PETA does not seem to recognize that any good has arisen, or can arise from research using animals. (Ironically, health care research using animals and humans benefits both animals and humans alike.)

In a letter dated last November 2002, PETA threatened to ?do everything in our power to stop you.? PETA will never stop attacking Palmer as long as laboratory animals are used, regardless of the significance of the research and despite the fact that all such studies adhere to extremely stringent regulations and ethical guidelines for humane care. We also suspect that PETA is attacking Palmer and the chiropractic profession because they perceive us as weak. We note that many, many research institutions with much larger animal research programs are ignored by PETA. Why doesn?t PETA attack the 125 medical schools in the U.S.?

. . .

PETA continues to imply that Palmer cuts the legs and tails off the rats. Is this true?

No. PETA had obtained a grant proposal from Palmer that had originally discussed this methodology at one time. However, during the almost year long period of scientific review at NIH, new studies were published describing a new behavioral model of rat bipedalism. When these became known to NIH program officers and Palmer investigators, the protocols were changed. We have no plans to use the old surgical bipedal model, even though it has been used extensively in the past in spine research (over 30 references available upon request).

Sources:

Animal rights group harasses college. Chiropractic Economics, July 2003.

Questions and Answers about Research Using Laboratory Animals at Palmer Chiropractic University. Press Release, Palmer Chiropractic University, July 27, 2003.

“Golden Girl” to Call Employees for PETA?s Sake. Press Release, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, June 12, 2003.

PETA and Others Sues to Block Importation of Elephants

Several animal rights groups including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, The Born Free Foundation, and the Elephant Sanctuary filed suit against the U.S. Department of the Interior to block the importation of 11 African elephants.

Reuters reports that the elephants would be captured in Swaziland and shipped to the San Diego, California, and Tampa, Florida, zoos which both have elephant breeding programs.

In a March press release on the subject, PETA asserted that zoos played no valuable role in conservation, with PETA’s Debbie Leahy saying,

The San Diego Zoo is putting the ‘con’ into conservation. Taking elephants who are thriving with their herds in nature and placing them on display halfway around the world hurts wild populations.

PETA said it has offered to relocate the elephants to another part of Africa if the elephants are overcrowding their range in Swaziland.

Sources:

PETA “Elephant” Leads Protest at Zoo?s Main Entrance. Press Release, PETA, March 27, 2003.

Animal rights groups sue US over elephant imports. Reuters, April 11, 2003.

Correction: this article orginally repeated Reuters’ error in identifying the animals in question as Indian elephants. They are, in fact, African elephants.

Moves to Limit Florida Initiatives in Wake of Gestation Crate Vote

In the minds of some Florida lawmakers, the November 2002 vote to add a on ban pig gestation crates to that state’s Florida constitution is the latest example of the need for reform on Florida’s initiative process.

Florida has one of the easier provision for amending the state constitution. Getting a constitutional amendment on the ballot is relatively easy and once there a constitutional amendment requires only a simple majority to approve.

As a result, Florida’s constitution is littered with laws that have proven unenforceable and which would have little chance of making it as constitutional amendments in other states. There is, for example, a constitutional amendment that requires Florida to provide high speed rail service between Miami, Orlando and Tampa. During the same election that saw the approval of the pig gestation crate ban, another constitutional amendment set maximum class sizes in Florida schools.

Florida state Senate President Jim King (R) told United Press International that, “The pregnant pig issue was the straw that broke the camel’s back for most of us.”

That feeling was helped along by the fact that rather than try to comply with the bill, the two farmers who actually would have been covered by the new requirement chose instead to slaughter all of their pigs and get out of the business.

The major focus of reform bills would require supermajorities of two-thirds or even three-fifths of voters to approve a constitutional amendment at the ballot box before it would become law.

Source:

Florida citizen initiatives to be limited. United Press International, March 31, 2003.

PETA Targets Hispanic Kids in Florida

In mid-March People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals targeted its anti-dairy campaign at young Hispanic with its Eche la leche, which roughly translates as “Dump Dairy.”

Of course the campaign got off to a bad start when some people pointed out the slogan in Spanish also has a double entendre meaning which we won’t go into here.

PETA also chose to hand out its Milk Trading Cards, but this time the cards had an ethnic theme. Here’s how Cloe Cabrera of the Tampa Tribune described the cards,

The new cards feature “Ear Infection Enrique,” “Diabetic Diane,” “Lactose-Intolerant Latoya” and “Milk-Stealing Ming,” [!!] all suffering ill effects from consuming milk.

. . .

The free cards he [PETA’s Hispanic Outreach coordinator William Rivas-Rivas] handed out to students made those points — in a way some might find offensive. “Milk-Stealing Ming,” depicted as an Asian, grabs a cow’s end as he sucks her teat; “Lactose-Intolernat Latoya,” a black girl, squats over a toilet; and “Ear Infection Enrique,” a Hispanic, pulls a gob of gunk from his ear.

And, of course, lets not forget this is the same PETA that Ingrid Newkirk insisted on national television does not target children. That claim, of course, was about as accurate as PETA’s claims about milk.

Sources:

PETA’s Having a Cow Over Milk Consumption. Cloe Cabrera, Tampa Tribune, March 16, 2003.

Anti-milk campaign’s Spanish translation hits sour note. Noaki Schwartz, Sun-Sentinel (Florida), March 31, 2003.

Sled Dog Action Coalition vs. Grade School Teacher

In February the Sled Dog Action Coalition — a group opposed to sled dog racing — sent a letter to a Portland, Oregon school in February complaining about a third and fourth-grade teacher’s curriculum which includes a section focusing on the Iditarod.

Cassandra Wilson teaches at Jesse Applegate Elementary School in Portland and was named Teacher on the Trail for 2003 by the Iditarod. The Teacher on the Trail is selected as a volunteer to spend 3 and a half weeks with the Jr. Iditarod. According to The Oregonian, Wilson “has used the Iditarod for several years to teach her students skills in math, writing, science and the creative arts.”

This angered the Sled Dog Action Coalition which maintains students are receiving a one-sided view of this “cruel” race. Margery Glickman of the Florida-based group told The Oregonian,

Here we have a teacher who is in the role of promoting the Iditarod. These lesson plans are not going to have what animal protection activists have to say.

Imagine that — a curriculum not driven by animal activists? Oh, the horrors.

Glickman continues,

All of this is not in the realm of what a good teacher should be. The teacher is a role model. A teacher who i a Teacher on the Trail is not fulfilling their obligations.

In fact, however, Wilson told The Oregonian that she did discuss with her students why some people and groups are opposed to the Iditarod, but

. . . Wilson said the enthusiasm she saw in her students outweighed the negative reaction she got from some groups.

“There’s way too much positive, way too much positive,” she said.

Source:

PETA, others say sled dog race is cruel. Abby Haight, The Oregonian, February 16, 2003.

NPPC Says It Needs More Funds to Fight Activists

At its National Pork Forum held in Dallas, Texas, in March, the National Pork Producers Council complained that budget limitations are leaving it unable to meet challenges facing the pork industry, including that from animal rights activists.

For 2003, the NPPC will have an estimated budget of $4.6 million, but NPPC chief executive officer Neil Dierks claims the organization needs at least $11 million. Dierks said of the successful passage in Florida of a ban on gestation crates for pigs — and for which animal rights activists raised an estimated $3 million to push for,

It was my biggest disappointment in my tenure on your behalf at NPPC. It was a situation of either using our funding, which could have very well closed the doors at NPPC on the one issue, or we live to fight again.

[By failing to stop the measure] we’ve given the opposition a tremendous amount of oxygen.

The funding for Dierks’ organization is up in the air after U.S. District Court Judge Richard Enslen ruled that the USDA program under which the NPCC was unconstitutional.

Groups and individuals representing small and family farmers have for years complained that they are forced by the government to give a small portion of their income the NPCC, despite what they see as the NPPC’s bias in favor of large, factory farms.

Enslen agreed with these farmers that being forced to subsidize an organization which they disagreed with was a violation of their First Amendment rights. That ruling is consistent with a Supreme Court decision in which the court invalidated a similar program that applied to the mushroom industry (U.S. v. United Foods).

Dierks’ comments about the Florida initiative is a perfect example of the problem with such mandatory checkoff programs. Some of the small farmers who are assessed this fee by the government likely oppose gestation crates as well. Why should they have to fund any NPPC ad campaign against the Florida initiative?

Source:

Pork producers seek additional funds to combat activist challenges. Teresa Halvorsen, Iowa Farm Bureau, March 17, 2003.