Proposed Law Likely to Mean Tests on Animals for Cosmetics Ingredients in U.S.!
Thanks to everyone who has signed and shared this petition, the UT IACUC is now working with SACA to find forever homes for the macaque monkeys! While nothing is definite until the end of their study, this is a huge step! Finding homes for these animals is just a piece of the puzzle, but keep an eye for updates in the near future on how you can help put the rest of the pieces together
If you are interested in work that has been done in the last few months on this project, read this article that the Daily Texan, the campus newspaper, wrote:
http://dailytexanonline.com/2016/04/11/student-creates-petition-to-relocate-monkeys-used-for-research
Thank you again to everyone! We've accomplished so much together!
Relocate your monkeys to a sanctuary rather than euthanizing them by Students Against Cruelty to Animals at the University of Texas at Austin
Several macaque monkeys are currently being tested on for medical research at the University of Austin. These primates face possible euthanasia once the university has finished using them for its studies. This is common practice, as euthanasia is often the only option for surviving research animals. But it doesn’t have to be this way. These monkeys may have years of high-quality life ahead of them after the testing is completed. Why kill them needlessly? The Austin chapter of Students Against Cruelty to Animals (SACA) is asking researchers to relocate these monkeys to a sanctuary rather than euthanize them after the research is over.
Please sign this petition to show support for our cause and help save the lives of some of nature’s cutest and most intelligent beings. Join us in asking the University of Austin not to euthanize these animals when there is another viable choice.
In my view a research animal euthanasia at the end of their research study if they do not pose a biological threat to other animals due to their research study. These macaques are being used for vision testing. They have no infectious diseases, and would not pose a threat to other animals or humans if relocated.
SACA wishes to relocate them to sanctuaries, where they can get a chance to live out the rest of their lives naturally. SACA would provide all of the funds related to relocating the primates, to make this process as easy as possible for the researchers, the Institutional Animal Care Use Committee (IACUC) and the University.
When we reached out to the IACUC to express our wishes, they told us that any relocation process would be costly and it simply couldn’t afford it. When we suggested that SACA would be happy to lead the fundraising charge, the IACUC responded by saying it was not interested in fundraising and it would not like to pursue any sort of relationship with us that might result in rescuing these animals.
All we ask is that the University and IACUC commit to relocating these primates. SACA is happy to raise the money to cover the costs. It would require almost nothing of them, and they should jump at the chance to show the world their commitment to both research and humane animal care.
We seek your for support to help us encourage IACUC to do the right thing and relocate, rather than euthanize, the macaques. Will you help us save lives? Please sign our petition.
This petition will be delivered to: The University of Texas at Austin, Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee at the UT Austin
I'm so glad you're part of PCRM's online community because I think you and I share the same values. Your actions clearly show you believe no animal should be harmed for corporate gain or in the name of "science."
And that's why I hope you'll become a full PCRM member today. There's never been a better time to join because an anonymous group of donors has put up a New Member Match! So join PCRM with a gift today—we'll match it PLUS you'll receive a Certificate of Appreciation as a token of our gratitude.
Your contribution will infuse our campaigns with more resources so we can:
End the use of animals in medical school training once and for all. Earlier this year there was a hearing in the Maryland state legislature that would prohibit the use of animals in medical school training. If this passes it will end this practice at Johns Hopkins University. We have a media campaign planned for this spring to raise awareness and support to end animal use at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Chattanooga. We're so close to finally shutting down the animal labs at the last two schools in the United States still using animals to train medical school students!
Stop the use of animals in paramedic training. We are working with students at the University of Washington, pressuring university leaders to stop the use of animals—it's ineffective, cruel, and has got to stop!
Reduce and replace animals in chemical testing: At the end of 2015 two separate bills passed in Congress to revise the decades-old Toxic Substances Control Act. The Senate version, which PCRM supports, contains many provisions that will reduce and replace animals in chemical tests. We are urging key members of the House to ensure that the strong language—which modernizes toxicity testing—is kept in the final bill.
We have so much work to do—your membership donation will be an enormous help. Give today and your gift will have DOUBLE the impact!
There is power in numbers—and I am grateful that you've been so active in our work. But I am eager for you to become our newest card-carrying member because it will help us save even more lives!
Can I count on you to take your commitment to the next level by making a gift of $20 or more to PCRM today?
Don’t Breed and Kill Dogs for Medical Experiments.
VICTORY UPDATE: After intensive campaigning by PETA and tens of thousands of activists who sent e-mails, Air Transport Services Group (ATSG) has told PETA that it is ending the transport of monkeys to laboratories! This announcement comes one week after PETA urged Amazon—which recently partnered with ATSG—to ask the air carrier to end this cruel practice.
For too long, international air carriers have provided U.S. laboratories with a means of importing monkeys from countries like China, where animals have no protection and are either torn away from their homes and families in the wild or bred on squalid factory farms. ATSG and its subsidiaries—Air Transport International (ATI) and ABX Air—have shipped thousands of monkeys to laboratories in the U.S., where they are frequently imprisoned, cut into, poisoned, crippled, deprived of food and water, addicted to drugs, infected with deadly diseases, and killed. During these transports, ATI was cited for repeatedly failing to meet even minimal animal care standards after monkeys were transported on long flights without food and water and in their own waste. The airline is currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
PETA and our supporters have persuaded nearly every major airline in the world—including Air China, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Philippine Airlines, and United Airlines—to stop transporting monkeys to laboratories. Air France is now the last airline that continues to participate in this bloody business.
In March 2016, Amazon announced that it is partnering with and bought a major share of Air Transport Services Group (ATSG), a cargo airline group whose subsidiaries ship thousands of monkeys each year to laboratories in the U.S., where animals are imprisoned, cut open, poisoned, crippled, deprived of food and water, addicted to drugs, infected with deadly diseases, and killed.
In 2014 alone, one of ATSG’s subsidiaries, Air Transport International (ATI), was cited for numerous repeated violations of the Animal Welfare Act, including not providing monkeys with food or water for more than 32 hours during a long flight from China to Texas. Inspectors also cited the company because they discovered that waste had pooled in the bottom of the monkeys’ wooden crates and was leaking out and that a monkey had sustained lacerations to his face during transport because of sharp metal protruding into his crate. ATI was also cited for transporting thousands of monkeys without a federal license.
PETA has appealed to Amazon to urge ATSG’s subsidiaries to get out of this violent business. Please join us in asking Amazon to encourage ATSG to join nearly every airline in the world—including other cargo airlines such as UPS, DHL, and FedEx—in refusing to transport monkeys to laboratories!
Tell MetLife: Stand up for chimps! For years, the New York Blood Center used chimpanzees for experimental research. NYBC agreed to provide lifelong care once the chimps were released from experimentation but have now abandoned them. We're urging MetLife - one of NYBC's largest donors - to take a stand for the chimps. Add your name!
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When these chimps were
no longer needed for NYBC's research, they were relocated onto islands in
Liberia where they rely on caretakers for food and water. They cannot survive
without these caretakers. Removing funding for care is a death
sentence.
Thankfully, animal advocates have stepped up to provide emergency funding. One of NYBC's former donors, CitiGroup, made the honorable choice to give a $50,000 donation to help provide for the chimps' care. But the only sustainable option is for NYBC to resume its financial obligation.
Providing lifelong care is the right thing to do. Not only did NYBC use the chimps for research, they made millions of dollars off of it. It is long past time for NYBC to resume financial care for the chimpanzees they used and then abandoned. As one of their largest donors, MetLife can compel NYBC to action.
Ask MetLife to make their continued funding of NYBC contingent on NYBC resuming financial stewardship of the chimpanzees.
See you in court!
Everyone wants safe ingredients in their lotions and shampoos, right? Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) recently introduced the Personal Care Products Safety Act, which would require the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to review the safety of at least five ingredients used in personal-care products annually in order to determine whether those ingredients should continue to be used. Sounds like something we can all support, right?
WRONG. The proposed regulations will likely mean misery and death for animals. Right now, tests on animals for cosmetics are not required in the U.S. This bill could drastically change that by requiring such tests. The bill's language explicitly allows for tests on animals to be performed as part of the FDA's "review" process, even though these archaic tests are illegal in much of the world, including the European Union, Israel, and India.
Don't be fooled by language in the bill calling upon the FDA to "encourage" the use of non-animal testing methods, because language like this means that tests on animals will still be allowed and will continue to be an anticipated step in the FDA's "review" process. Encouraging non-animal testing is not the same as banning the use of animals. Some of the bill's sponsors have even misled the public into believing that this bill will not increase the number of tests on animals, but a close reading shows otherwise. We've asked that an explicit ban on animal tests be added to the bill. Only this will prevent more animals from dying for cosmetics products.
Science has shown us time and time again that tests on animals are not only cruel and excruciatingly painful but also unreliable predictors of what will happen when a substance or product comes into contact with humans. Many advanced, scientifically superior, more affordable, and humane non-animal testing methods are already in wide use around the globe to evaluate the safety of product ingredients.
We need your help to ensure that this bill does not become a law mandating tests on animals! Any new regulations governing cosmetics and personal-care products in the U.S. must contain an explicit ban on tests on animals or the U.S. risks backsliding into requiring these deadly poisoning tests.
Movement Towards Relocation!If you are interested in work that has been done in the last few months on this project, read this article that the Daily Texan, the campus newspaper, wrote:
http://dailytexanonline.com/2016/04/11/student-creates-petition-to-relocate-monkeys-used-for-research
Thank you again to everyone! We've accomplished so much together!
Relocate your monkeys to a sanctuary rather than euthanizing them by Students Against Cruelty to Animals at the University of Texas at Austin
Several macaque monkeys are currently being tested on for medical research at the University of Austin. These primates face possible euthanasia once the university has finished using them for its studies. This is common practice, as euthanasia is often the only option for surviving research animals. But it doesn’t have to be this way. These monkeys may have years of high-quality life ahead of them after the testing is completed. Why kill them needlessly? The Austin chapter of Students Against Cruelty to Animals (SACA) is asking researchers to relocate these monkeys to a sanctuary rather than euthanize them after the research is over.
Please sign this petition to show support for our cause and help save the lives of some of nature’s cutest and most intelligent beings. Join us in asking the University of Austin not to euthanize these animals when there is another viable choice.
In my view a research animal euthanasia at the end of their research study if they do not pose a biological threat to other animals due to their research study. These macaques are being used for vision testing. They have no infectious diseases, and would not pose a threat to other animals or humans if relocated.
SACA wishes to relocate them to sanctuaries, where they can get a chance to live out the rest of their lives naturally. SACA would provide all of the funds related to relocating the primates, to make this process as easy as possible for the researchers, the Institutional Animal Care Use Committee (IACUC) and the University.
When we reached out to the IACUC to express our wishes, they told us that any relocation process would be costly and it simply couldn’t afford it. When we suggested that SACA would be happy to lead the fundraising charge, the IACUC responded by saying it was not interested in fundraising and it would not like to pursue any sort of relationship with us that might result in rescuing these animals.
All we ask is that the University and IACUC commit to relocating these primates. SACA is happy to raise the money to cover the costs. It would require almost nothing of them, and they should jump at the chance to show the world their commitment to both research and humane animal care.
We seek your for support to help us encourage IACUC to do the right thing and relocate, rather than euthanize, the macaques. Will you help us save lives? Please sign our petition.
This petition will be delivered to: The University of Texas at Austin, Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee at the UT Austin
I'm so glad you're part of PCRM's online community because I think you and I share the same values. Your actions clearly show you believe no animal should be harmed for corporate gain or in the name of "science."
And that's why I hope you'll become a full PCRM member today. There's never been a better time to join because an anonymous group of donors has put up a New Member Match! So join PCRM with a gift today—we'll match it PLUS you'll receive a Certificate of Appreciation as a token of our gratitude.
Your contribution will infuse our campaigns with more resources so we can:
End the use of animals in medical school training once and for all. Earlier this year there was a hearing in the Maryland state legislature that would prohibit the use of animals in medical school training. If this passes it will end this practice at Johns Hopkins University. We have a media campaign planned for this spring to raise awareness and support to end animal use at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Chattanooga. We're so close to finally shutting down the animal labs at the last two schools in the United States still using animals to train medical school students!
Stop the use of animals in paramedic training. We are working with students at the University of Washington, pressuring university leaders to stop the use of animals—it's ineffective, cruel, and has got to stop!
Reduce and replace animals in chemical testing: At the end of 2015 two separate bills passed in Congress to revise the decades-old Toxic Substances Control Act. The Senate version, which PCRM supports, contains many provisions that will reduce and replace animals in chemical tests. We are urging key members of the House to ensure that the strong language—which modernizes toxicity testing—is kept in the final bill.
We have so much work to do—your membership donation will be an enormous help. Give today and your gift will have DOUBLE the impact!
There is power in numbers—and I am grateful that you've been so active in our work. But I am eager for you to become our newest card-carrying member because it will help us save even more lives!
Can I count on you to take your commitment to the next level by making a gift of $20 or more to PCRM today?
Don’t Breed and Kill Dogs for Medical Experiments.
Target: Royal Veterinary College Professor Stuart Reid
Goal: Stop breeding, torturing, and killing innocent animals for medical experiments.
At the Royal Veterinary College, animal welfare is a value that quite obviously doesn’t exist. The college has bred their own colony of beagle-mixes, all with a genetic flaw which causes them to suffer Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. These animals are killed by the time they are 18 months old. Before that time they are put under ‘procedures’ and experiments aimed at alleviating human suffering. For a veterinary college, they have little to no concern about actual animal welfare.
There facility doesn’t stop at dogs. Mice are injected with substances, then their necks broken and the results studied. Pregnant sheep are surgically mutilated to study blood flow. They even extend their insane cruelty to reptiles and amphibians.
It doesn’t end there, either. In 2014 they established RVC Business, which offers contractual animal testing to clients such as pharmaceutical companies. In 2012 the college used more than 9,000 animals for their human-based research. While it is unknown what proportion of experiments exactly were veterinary related, it is suspected many of them are commercially related. It is also unknown how many experiments resulted in pain and suffering.
For a country which claims the “highest standards” of animal welfare in the world, the United Kingdom has done a remarkable job of turning a blind eye to the scientific torture occurring at RVC. No animal deserves to undergo what these animals are being put through in the name of “human welfare betterment.” They need to be stopped. Their barbarism is outdated and, frankly, disgusting.
Animal welfare organizations, including Animal Aid, are appalled by this behavior, but the college does not seem interested in stopping. Torturing animals is no way to improve science or medicine. Sign, bombard them, do not allow these monsters a moment’s peace until they halt this insanity.
Dear Professor Reid,
I am writing to implore the Royal Veterinary College to end the inhumane animal experiments. The disregard for life, especially life that should be held in deepest regard by so-called veterinarians, is deplorable. To allow the intentional breeding of sick animals who are then left to suffer under experimental procedures all aimed at improving human welfare is beyond disgusting. Surgical mutilation, drug experimentation, offering contracting services to pharmacy companies? Your college cannot claim to be ‘wholly committed to animal health and welfare’ while enabling such barbarism.
Stop these experiments. Stop promoting, supporting, and profiting from the intentional and slow torture of the animals in your care.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo Credit: Tim Crocker
VICTORY: Airline Stops Flying Monkeys to LaboratoriesVICTORY UPDATE: After intensive campaigning by PETA and tens of thousands of activists who sent e-mails, Air Transport Services Group (ATSG) has told PETA that it is ending the transport of monkeys to laboratories! This announcement comes one week after PETA urged Amazon—which recently partnered with ATSG—to ask the air carrier to end this cruel practice.
For too long, international air carriers have provided U.S. laboratories with a means of importing monkeys from countries like China, where animals have no protection and are either torn away from their homes and families in the wild or bred on squalid factory farms. ATSG and its subsidiaries—Air Transport International (ATI) and ABX Air—have shipped thousands of monkeys to laboratories in the U.S., where they are frequently imprisoned, cut into, poisoned, crippled, deprived of food and water, addicted to drugs, infected with deadly diseases, and killed. During these transports, ATI was cited for repeatedly failing to meet even minimal animal care standards after monkeys were transported on long flights without food and water and in their own waste. The airline is currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
PETA and our supporters have persuaded nearly every major airline in the world—including Air China, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Philippine Airlines, and United Airlines—to stop transporting monkeys to laboratories. Air France is now the last airline that continues to participate in this bloody business.
Macaque© iStock.com/Patrick Gijsbers
In March 2016, Amazon announced that it is partnering with and bought a major share of Air Transport Services Group (ATSG), a cargo airline group whose subsidiaries ship thousands of monkeys each year to laboratories in the U.S., where animals are imprisoned, cut open, poisoned, crippled, deprived of food and water, addicted to drugs, infected with deadly diseases, and killed.
PETA has appealed to Amazon to urge ATSG’s subsidiaries to get out of this violent business. Please join us in asking Amazon to encourage ATSG to join nearly every airline in the world—including other cargo airlines such as UPS, DHL, and FedEx—in refusing to transport monkeys to laboratories!
Tell MetLife: Stand up for chimps! For years, the New York Blood Center used chimpanzees for experimental research. NYBC agreed to provide lifelong care once the chimps were released from experimentation but have now abandoned them. We're urging MetLife - one of NYBC's largest donors - to take a stand for the chimps. Add your name!
Thankfully, animal advocates have stepped up to provide emergency funding. One of NYBC's former donors, CitiGroup, made the honorable choice to give a $50,000 donation to help provide for the chimps' care. But the only sustainable option is for NYBC to resume its financial obligation.
Providing lifelong care is the right thing to do. Not only did NYBC use the chimps for research, they made millions of dollars off of it. It is long past time for NYBC to resume financial care for the chimpanzees they used and then abandoned. As one of their largest donors, MetLife can compel NYBC to action.
Ask MetLife to make their continued funding of NYBC contingent on NYBC resuming financial stewardship of the chimpanzees.
“When you imprison a chimpanzee, the chimpanzee
understands that tomorrow he's going to be in prison, and as far as he knows,
it's not gonna end.” – NhRP President Steven M. Wise in the latest
trailer for the documentary Unlocking the Cage
Hello from the NhRP! First, thank
you to everyone who contacted the Governor of Louisiana and the Interim
President of the University of Louisiana system to urge them to use their power
to send captive chimpanzees Hercules and Leo to Save the Chimps sanctuary, which
has offered to cover the cost of their care for the rest of their lives. We
continue to work to persuade these officials that releasing Hercules and Leo to
STC will be a good thing for Louisiana both ethically and economically. Please
call or write today if you haven’t already done so!
In
case you missed it, our board member, Dr. Jane
Goodall, recorded a video message urging the New Iberia Research Center
to release Hercules and Leo to sanctuary. As Dr. Goodall says, “surely, there
can be no good reason to prolong their lives of servitude.” Learn more in this
featured article on The Dodo, and find out how you can help us
#SaveHerculesAndLeo on our blog.
As
you know, our chimpanzee clients Tommy and
Kiko remain imprisoned at a roadside zoo and private home,
respectively. While Tommy has been spirited out of New York, we are continuing
to pursue all possible options to get him to sanctuary. You can learn more about
Tommy’s plight and the fight to save him in this recent article
in the Albany Times-Union. Meanwhile, our appeal on behalf of Kiko is going
forward in New York and will be filed very soon. And we are continuing to work
on the first-ever case to demand personhood for elephants, to be filed later
this year.
I’m
also glad to report that Unlocking the Cage—HBO/Pennebaker Hegedus
Films’ new documentary about our work to break down the legal wall that
separates all humans from all nonhuman animals—has begun to reach audiences
across the US!
Here's what we can tell you right
now:
-
On May
25 Unlocking the Cage will begin a two-week run at the Film Forum in
New York City followed by a national rollout. Steve, along with directors Chris
Hegedus and DA Pennebaker, will participate in post screening FAQs at the
premiere and select screenings in Los Angeles on June 24, Boston on June 26, and
Portland, Oregon on July 7, as well as other venues around the country that have
not yet been announced.
-
If you want
to inquire about hosting a screening in your community, please email
info@phfilms.com in early summer and
monitor this page on the official Unlocking the Cage
website.
-
Watch the
new iTunes trailer here, and please share!
-
If you’re in
the New Jersey area, NhRP Attorney Elizabeth Stein and I will attend the May
7 screening at the Montclair Film Festival. For tickets, click
here.
-
Thank you to everyone who attended screenings at the Sarasota Film Festival in Sarasota, FL and the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, NC. Steve told me “the enthusiasm was over the top and the questions were terrific!"
In other NhRP
news:
-
Steve will
discuss nonhuman rights at Yale Law School on April 21 at 12pm. For details, click
here.
-
Later that day Steve will
discuss nonhuman rights at Vermont Law School on April 21. For details,
click
here.
- Steve will be a featured speaker at an April 22 panel at NYU titled “Animal Rights and the Human Slavery Analogy.” According to the event organizer, it will be live-streamed, recorded, and shared online. For details, click here.
-
The NhRP is
now on Instagram!
- On the weekend of Feb. 20, over a million NASCAR fans watched a 30-second public-service announcement about the NhRP thanks to a generous donation by Grazie Media. Visit our YouTube page to see how some audience members responded to questions about recognizing the legal rights of nonhuman animals.
Thank you as always for choosing to be part of the
NhRP community as we work together to make sure nonhuman animals’ legal
thinghood and lack of rights are an integral part of the global conversation
about how we view and treat members of other species.
