Author Archive for Emily

A suppliment to Jennie’s rescue story

Published
by
Emily
on July 1, 2009
in Personal
. 0 Comments

See Jen’s post here.

It never ceases to amaze me the disregard that people show towards animals when push comes to shove. What is said and what is done is commonly totally incongruous; in short, the talk is talked, but there’s no walk. Well, talk is really cheap.

For the last six years, I’ve been working at summer camp for people with mental and physical disabilities. There, I’ve been taking care of the horses, training them, feeding them, and teaching the campers to ride and connect with the horses. Jennie, and another friend of ours, Anna, worked there as well, but both recently quit, and I sure don’t blame them. In the eyes of the camp director, the horses are nothing but a means to profit and are worth little to no care and only occasionally merit any form of attention. While I’ve phased out my role at the camp to only working there on the weekends, I’ve remained to keep an eye on the horses, because I simply don’t trust any one else with them.

Today, I got a phone call from one of the new employees informing me of several matters concerning the horses, and oh, just FYI, that they were planning on euthanizing one of the horses on Friday; for no other reason then he’s old and arthritic. Yes, he’s old, he’s 32. Yes, he’s arthritic. But he’s also been that way since I began working there and his condition is no different other then the fact that he’s six years older. So after I cried for a good 30 minutes after receiving this phone call, I called Jennie to see what her take on the situation was. She felt the same way I do about Charlie’s condition, and between her and Anna, there’s no one’s opinion on horses that I trust more.

Since all three of us had recently seen Charlie and knew he was in fine condition for a horse his age and absolutely did not require an untimely murder (I refuse to use the word euthanasia here because there’s nothing compassionate about the decision to have him put down unnecessarily), we decided I’d call the new employee back and find out more information. And fight this thing as hard as we could.

Upon talking to the employee again, this time while not sobbing hysterically, I learned that the vet she said had recommended euthanasia, acutally suggested it as something we may need to consider in the future for Charlie, and he did not, as I had been led to believe, required euthanasia immediately. He had simply said that because of Charlie’s age, his death would be something that we need to remind ourselves could happen at any time. He never provided information saying Charlie’s immediate euthanasia was imperative. I then also learned that the other people the new employees had examine Charlie was someone who is not qualified to make decisions for them, especially decisions of such magnitude.

It is amazing to me the callousness with which people treat animal life. The new employee said she left the final decision regarding Charlie’s fate with the camp director, who of course, decided to make an appointment for euthanasia. His regard for the horses is meager at best, and since Charlie is too old to be ridden, all the director sees in him is the financial drain and responsibility of keeping Charlie alive. Admittedly, the employee I talked to did not want Charlie to be euthanized, however, she saw no reason to fight this decision.

I then collected my thoughts and spent the next hour on the phone with either Jennie or Anna to decide what to do about Charlie. We all decided to do whatever we could to keep him alive. The choice was obvious: we’d split board for him three ways and move him out to pasture at the stables where both Anna and Jennie have their horses. I then called the camp director and explained to him I didn’t agree with his decision regarding Charlie and that I would like to take Charlie off his hands and try other forms of treatment for his arthritis to improve his quality of life. He agreed to let me take Charlie off the property. Thankfully, Anna found someone to pick Charlie up, but of course the camp director won’t cancel the euthanasia appointment until Charlie is actually off the property.

I want to make something very clear here. If Charlie genuinely needed to be humanely put out of his misery, I would accept that as what is best for him and recognize that it was time for him to go. Compassion is important in life and death, and Jennie, Anna, and I all realize this. None of us would want to keep Charlie around if it was painful and trying for him. Our desire to have him in our life is strong, but not selfish in the fact that we’d want him alive just to keep him alive and enjoy his company when he was in too much pain. We just want what’s best for him. And we all believe he’s still got a lot more life to enjoy with plenty of horse buddies out in pasture.

I’m still incredulous to the blatant disregard which was shown towards Charlie regarding his life! It sadly illustrates just how people regard animals in this world, as things that can come and go at our convenience, mere objects that we can cease to be considerate of once they become hard to take care of. I know I can’t save all the animals in the world, but I feel like Jennie, Anna, and I have made a difference in one very special horse’s life. A life that will continue to be in this world and I’m so grateful to Jennie and Anna for caring infinitely more than many others would in such a situation.

How free is free-range and why it’s still unacceptable

Published
by
Emily
on May 5, 2009
in Thinking
. 11 Comments

Before I became aware of how factory farms are really handled and just how worthlessly animals there are treated, if you told me that my ham and eggs came from free-range pigs and chickens, I would have imagined animals roaming around in green pastures, playing with each other, and just generally enjoying life. Well that just ain’t so.

In fact, I would venture to make the assertion that the majority of these animals raised for slaughter are kept in just as despicable conditions as animals raised on traditional factory farms. If for some reason you’re under the impression that you’re being a “compassionate” and “ethical” omnivore by eating free-range meat and other animal products, you are sadly deluded.

Animals raised on free-range farms just aren’t kept in cages the size of an 8 ½ x 11 piece of paper. Instead, they’re crammed into massive pens with hundreds, even thousands of other animals barely able to move. But hey! at least they aren’t technically in a cage. Animals living on free-range farms are still de-beaked and often declawed and they are still forced to live on concrete floors covered in their own feces.

The meat and dairy industries are by nature facetious and secretive, deceiving consumers into believing all manner of things. But playing into this deception is the United States Department of Agriculture, which has so conveniently approved the loosest of definitions for free-range certification.

Animals can be classified as having been raised “free-range” or “free-roaming” if they’ve at least had the opportunity to go outside. Well, I feel so much better now. Assuming that the chicken I eat managed to push his way through thousands of other chickens to the single exit and step outside into a feces filled field of mud, then by gosh, he’s a free-range bird and I’m a compassionate omnivore.

Furthermore, free-range regulations mention nothing about the density allotments in which animals are allowed to exist nor are restrictions placed on abusive treatment. These so-called free-range animals are still pumped with the same growth hormones, still transported the same ways, and still slaughtered in the most appalling of ways.

Such trickery and deceit on the part of the USDA should come as no shock to anyone, these lies lending to the logic that people must be tricked into continuing to eat meat. Someone discovers the deplorable conditions in which animals are kept so they can have a hamburger, but so as not to lose profit, the term free-range has been conveniently coined.

But let’s assume for a moment that free-range really did mean free-range. Animals were raised on lush grass and the best feed, with plenty of room to run around and socialize, constant access to sunlight and fresh water. Picture the best conditions you can imagine and we’ll pretend for a moment that’s how it really is. Even if that is the case, such practices, even under the best conditions and with the best of intentions, violate the principles of animal rights as I see it.

Sure, I think it would be great if all animals that people consume were raised that way, but the bottom line is animals are not here for our consumption and gastronomic enjoyment. By eating free-range (still in the perfect world sense of that word) you’re sending the message that consuming animals is acceptable as long as we can (morally or delusionally?) justify it to ourselves by saying, “Oh, they had a good life.” Sure, maybe so. But it is exactly these weak justifications that continue the cycle of violence and torture, because when it comes right down to it, I’ve yet to hear a good reason for why people still eat meat.

And no, reasons like: “I like the taste” and “We evolved to do it” just don’t cut it with me.

Note: For a detailed exposé on the “free-range” or “humane” myth see HumaneMyth.org.

The Not-So-Publicized Side of Swine Flu

Published
by
Emily
on May 1, 2009
in Beyond Belief
. 3 Comments

On Wednesday, the Egyptian government ordered the slaughter of the country’s entire pig population, roughly 300,000 animals. The government is justifying this action as a “precautionary measure” even though no cases of swine flu have been reported in the country and the World Health Organization has said no pigs in Egypt or anywhere outside of Mexico are actually infected with the disease. A Health Ministry spokesman said that the country’s slaughterhouses will be working round the clock to slaughter the pigs, of which he said, there could be as many as 350,000.

My stance on this, I’m sure, is already apparent. After all, this is an animal rights blog. But if this does not perfectly demonstrate a callous disregard for sentient life, I don’t know what does. The WHO has said time and again that the only source for this disease is people exposed to the disease in Mexico, NOT pigs in other countries. Despite this, the Egyptian government has chosen to needlessly murder close to 350,000 innocent pigs who pose no threat to anyone. By setting this precedent, it is all but assured that other countries around the world will follow suit.

Balls to the world and balls to alarmist government reactions.

Listen up you tobacco loving Vegans!

Published
by
Emily
on April 25, 2009
in Thinking
. 22 Comments

For all you vegans out there who are smokers, guess what? You’re not vegan. (Unless you smoke American Spirit Cigarettes/Santa Fe Natural Cigarette Products which do not test on animals – but they are still a subsidiary of Reynolds American, which does engage in animal testing - still guilty by association in my book.)

Cigarettes and other tobacco products seem to be a vastly overlooked item to many vegans, certainly the majority that I know and associate with. And it always surprises me to see them smoking and they are yet further surprised when I tell them smoking’s not helping your health, my health, or animal welfare.

The three major tobacco companies in the United States, Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, and British American Tobacco, all have contracts with Covance and several lawsuits and released documents have revealed the close relationship these companies have. Covance is a company that provides laboratory testing services and over the past 30 years has become just down right chummy with Big Tobacco.

“Oh well!” you say. “One company can’t be that powerful and influential.” Uhhh, well actually…. Covance nets over $1 billion a year in the United States alone, which isn’t much considering they have testing facilities in 18 countries manned by over 7,000 employees. Besides testing, or more appropriately, torturing animals, Covance also imports animals for their testing and is the largest breeder of laboratory dogs in the world. So with all these defenseless and sentient creatures so near at hand, what better to do then some animal testing! Or so says Covance and Bog Tobacco. What tests, excuse me –tortures, does Covance conduct on their lab animals?

-stomas (surgically created holes in throats) are cut into lab dogs and they are forced to breath smoke in through these stomas for up to a year at a time

-electrodes are inserted into dogs’ penises and the dogs are then exposed to cigarette smoke to note the effects of tobacco on sexual performance

-rats and monkeys have masks strapped to their faces, they are permanently restrained, and the masks fill with unfiltered cigarette smoke

-dogs are attached to ventilators and forced to constantly breathe in cigarette smoke

- Rhesus monkeys are kept in head and full body restraints and given large doses of nicotine to observe its effects on breathing

-pregnant animals are forced to smoke to observe the health effects of tobacco on the unborn

Besides the mystery of why all this was done in the first place, the even greater mystery is why it continues to happen. We know cigarettes cause cancer, we know it decreases lung function, we know cigarette smoke is bad for unborn children. We know all of this, but I suppose those findings haven’t made it back to Philip Morris yet. To pile fuel to the hypocrisy fire here, Philip Morris still tells consumers that tobacco is safe because it rarely causes cancer in lab animals. This is because cancer develops differently in animals than it does in humans, making animal testing even more irrelevant, rather like every other instance of irrelevant animal testing.

Animal rights and welfare organizations, including PETA, have repeatedly appealed for this testing to stop or at the very least, allow the lab animals socialization time with other animals, better care from the lab technicians, and require that fewer animals be tested on. This appeal was submitted in 2006 to Altria, the company that owns all of Philip Morris and Altria quickly sent out news letters urging their stock holders to vote against this measure. And NO ONE should be surprised by this. These companies are making obscene amounts of money and towns that are struggling economically are practically begging tobacco companies to set up industries there. In 2005, the mayor of Richmond gave Philip Morris land to build a factory and promised tax exemptions for the next ten years.

Change is not going to come from the corporate level. It never has. The change has to come from within not only the AR community, but every smoker as well. It is possible to vote with your wallet. You stop buying, Big Tobacco starts noticing. You’re not vegan if you smoke, nor can you claim to care about the rights and well being of animals. The United Kingdom has banned tobacco product testing on animals for the past fourteen years, it’s time for us to get with the program.

Yet another hypocrisy in an outdated system

Published
by
Emily
on March 31, 2009
in Thinking
. 2 Comments

It is certainly the case in western civilization that we are taught to believe doctors and medical researchers have our best interests at heart and that they toil tirelessly to save lives. But there is a major flaw in this seemingly compassionate status quo and a darker side that the general public either knows little about, conveniently chooses to ignore, or even worse, chooses to justify and rationalize. I am of course talking about animal testing and research.

We as humans have become so driven to control every aspect of our lives, to control every disease, to manipulate every bacterium, and seem to have this insatiable need to obliterate every illness from the face of the planet. Through this endless quest for health, we too often forget and ignore the suffering, torture, and abuse that non-human, yet fully sentient brings must undergo.

It is without doubt that we owe our quality of life today to the sacrifices of millions of animal test subjects who were forced to partake in hideous medical experiments and were left malformed, disabled, or dead. Pharmaceutical companies are required to test their products on animals before their products can be licensed and marketed and as a result, dogs and numerous other animals are forced fed medication. One of the most common tests performed on these lab animals is a sub-acute toxicity test where the drug is administered in ever increasing doses over a period of weeks just below the level where rapid poisoning could occur. However, tests for chronic toxicity in these medications are required to last over two years.

Another form of medical research performed once again on fully sentient beings is classified under the seemingly benign umbrella term of “applied research.” In applied research animal test subjects are injected with diseases so as to have the effects noted as the virus spreads throughout the body. Animals are also subjected to conditions to cause them to develop a problem and then scientists will note how the disease affects the body. For example, air supply may be cut off causing the animal to suffer a stroke or neurotoxins will be injected to simulate degenerative diseases.

To suggest that all medical research and progress be thrown out simply because it was associated with or achieved through animal testing is ludicrous. But with advances in medicine, animal testing has been rendered totally irrelevant and is an outdated form of cruelty. There are numerous alternatives to such needless torture, such as….

  • Test tube studies on human cultures and tissue samples. Stem cells and donated organs can also be used to conduct any number of experiments currently conducted on animals. Besides simply being totally cruelty-free, results obtained from human-based experiments are far more accurate since when studying the human body, it’s a safer bet to actually use human organs, cells, and tissues.

The stress that animals undergo in laboratory settings often renders any results of said testing useless as stress can raise blood pressure, alter hormone levels, and change blood chemistry. Some of which are the very things being tested.

Animals react in different ways to tests than humans; obviously, as we are different species, meaning the results of testing will not always be accurate or lend anymore information about a drug or procedure to the researchers.

In addition to the numerous moral reasons against animal testing and disregarding its total lack of necessity, medical testing and research is rife with hypocrisy. Researchers make the argument for the continuation of animal testing by arguing:

animals used for such testing are similar enough to humans to make said research valuable, yet separate enough from humans as to make their pain and agony irrelevant.

Well, which is it?