Tag: Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine mobilizes against March of Dimes

Sometime this year,
the March of Dimes’ Walk America event will reach an incredible milestone
— it will have raised over $1 billion since its inception in 1970. Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine could not pass up this opportunity and
is seeking activists to leaflet at upcoming Walk America events to “shine
a spotlight on the dark side of the March of Dimes” (has Neal Barnard
seen Star Wars once too often?)

According to PCRM,
not only has March of Dimes-funded research produced no progress in preventing
birth defects, but in fact the charity has intentionally ignored the
best solutions to solving birth defects (which, of course, do not require
using animals).

This is just the
sort of ridiculous distortion that led the American Medical Association to condemn PCRM in 1991 for “misrepresenting the critical role animals play in research.” Apparently Barnard and company still haven’t figured
it out.

Source:

PCRM needs volunteers. Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Press Release, January 1999.

Vegetarian Times hack piece against animal testing

The October 1998 issue of Vegetarian Times contained a mostly hack piece against animal testing by freelance
writer Kelly James-Enger. James-Enger’s article does quote Adrian Morrison
as saying, “a careful reading of the historical record [of animal
research] reveals that it’s been absolutely indispensable for discovering
and understanding basic biological processes.”

Unfortunately, James-Enger
never bothers to even try to reconcile or explain this in the context
of Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine activist Steven Ragland
who in the very next sentence is quoted as saying, “Humans and animals
differ too much to make animal research useful.”

Using insulin derived from
Pigs to treat Diabetes must then qualify as yet another ineffective and
useless innovation foisted upon the world by the evil drug companies.
But if Ragland and the PCRM say humans and non-humans are too different
to make animal research useful, God forbid if anyone at Vegetarian
Times should critically examine the claim.