Archive for month: December, 2018

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Written by PETA | December 3, 2018

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT) is hosting a launch event for a groundbreaking new book titled Animal Experimentation: Working Towards a Paradigm Change. The book, that will be available through open access early next year, reviews current animal use in science, covers innovative non-animal methods to address urgent scientific questions and offers a roadmap towards the continuing replacement and eventual elimination of animals used in science. It  is a collaborative effort of 51 international experts, one of them being PETA’s vice president of international laboratory methods, Shalin Gala.

The book covers many topics, from the scientific problems with animal experiments to how much money the United States wastes on them and from ethical issues with confining animals in laboratories to modern, non-animal testing and teaching methods. Shalin, along with simulation experts from Harvard Medical School and the University of Florida College of Medicine–Jacksonville, co-authored the chapter titled, “Modernizing Biomedical Training: Replacing Live Animal Laboratories with Human Simulation.” It discusses the new wave of high-tech human medical simulation technology, which improves learning, reduces laboratory costs, and prevents animals from being subjected to painful and deadly classroom experiments around the world.

PETA has donated 119 lifelike TraumaMan human-patient simulator models valued at nearly $3 million to Advanced Trauma Life Support programs in 22 countries. The programs have all replaced the use of animals in surgical training with simulators that are more anatomically realistic for teaching human trauma management and allow trainees to repeat procedures until they feel comfortable performing them.

PETA persuaded the U.S. Army to scale back its use of animals drastically in favor of simulators for trauma training exercises and to stop poisoning animals in cruel chemical-warfare exercises. We also successfully encouraged the Department of Defense to order all military branches to replace the use of animals in six different medical training areas, got the Coast Guard to end all use of animals in trauma training drills, and supported a new bipartisan law that—for the first time—makes human-simulation technology the new gold standard for trauma training.

You can help by urging your congressional representatives to support the Battlefield Excellence through Superior Training (BEST) Practices Act, which would phase out the use of animals in all military trauma training drills.

The human egg is tiny, undetectable to the human eye—and yet it’s a powerful, life-giving force that is still polarizing nations. Such an innocuous little ovum, yet it holds such an immense power to divide—and to divide people.

As the battle for control over women’s fertility and reproductive rights wages on, feminists are rising up against abuse and exploitation.

So what does it mean, then, when women take another female’s eggs from her without a thought and readily pay money for her eggs, knowing that she was imprisoned, her reproductive cycle was controlled and manipulated, and she was forced to bear young on someone else’s timetable?

Can we really call ourselves “feminists” if we eat eggs?

Some are quick to dismiss the suffering of female members of other species as unimportant. But let’s recall that human females, too, have been dismissed as not important, valuable, intelligent, or worthy of consideration. The justifications that people give for being unconcerned about chickens’ suffering and denying their basic rights are strikingly similar to the justifications that have been given for disregarding women’s suffering and denying their basic rights, all of which are false.

Chickens are inquisitive, and they can complete complex mental tasks, demonstrate self-control, worry about the future, and pass down cultural knowledge. In some aspects, their cognitive abilities exceed those of cats, dogs, and even primates. Like all animals (including humans), they love their families and value their own lives. They look out for their relatives and the other chickens in their group. They have complex social structures, well-developed communication skills, and distinct personalities, just as we do. If you’ve ever talked about a “pecking order,” “hen fest,” or “mother hen,” you were describing behavior that we have observed in chickens.

But chickens are arguably the most abused animals on the planet.

In the United States, approximately 305 million hens are exploited for their eggs every year. The vast majority spend their entire lives in intensive confinement—from the moment they hatch until the day they’re killed. They never get to scratch in the grass, feel the sun on the backs, or breathe fresh air. They spend day and night in a feces- and ammonia-filled warehouse with the bodies of many of their dead and dying friends and family members lying on the floor or crammed inside a filthy cage so small that they can’t stretch even one wing.

Farm workers manipulate hens’ reproductive system using light and food to induce extra laying cycles, forcing them to produce as many as 300 eggs per year—far more than their ancestors used to produce in nature. Because of this, the birds often suffer from cysts, infections, ovarian carcinomas, and reproductive tumors, and sometimes multiple eggs become lodged inside them. Their bones often shatter from osteoporosis because their bodies are forced to produce massive quantities of eggshells.

Farms don’t see chickens as individuals—they see them as egg machines to be used, manipulated, and pushed beyond their biological limits in order to make money.

If treated well, a hen’s life expectancy is about 10 years. On an egg farm, her body will typically give out after just two, if that. When her egg production drops, she is considered “spent” and is thrown into a truck full of other “spent” females, shipped to the slaughterhouse, and strung up by her legs so her throat can be slit or else gassed to death. Her body will likely be turned into chicken soup or food for companion animals, because her flesh is too bruised and battered to be used for anything else.

The hen has been turned into an egg machine. In previous eras, she embodied the essence of motherhood.The Roman historian Plutarch admired these animals’ mothering instincts, writing that he observed hens “drooping their wings for some to creep under, and receiving with joyous and affectionate clucks others that mount upon their backs or run up to them from every direction; and though they flee from dogs and snakes if they are frightened only for themselves, if their fright is for their children, they stand their ground and fight it out beyond their strength.”

The Renaissance writer Ulisse Aldrovandi said that mother hens present, in every way, “a noble example of love for their offspring.” These females represent the best qualities that any of us can hope to possess: selflessness, generosity, compassion, courage, and unconditional love. Shouldn’t we, as humans, be capable of the same?

PETA encourages everyone to stand up to the systematic abuse of females of all species. Widening our circle of compassion doesn’t hurt anyone—It only serves to end the cycle of oppression and suffering that results when one group seeks to exploit another that it has deemed inferior.

Companies are ending animal tests; protecting lobsters; banning fur, mohair, angora, and exotic skins; and refusing to sponsor elephant polo games. Take a look at all of the PETA victories in just one month that you helped us win.

Ready to win some more? Make sure that you’re receiving PETA’s action alerts so that you’re among the first to know when animals urgently need your help. We’ll send you a quick e-mail letting you know what’s happening and what we’re doing about it. Just type in your name to have PETA send a message to an animal abuser on your behalf. We’ve won thousands of victories for animals, thanks to our Action Team responders, and you can help by joining this lifesaving group today.

In a remarkable step forward for animals, Johns Hopkins University is hosting a launch event for a groundbreaking new book on ending animal tests, titled Animal Experimentation: Working Towards a Paradigm Change. The book is a collaborative effort of 51 experts, including scientists, physicians, and PETA’s vice president of international laboratory methods, Shalin Gala.

The book covers many topics, from the scientific problems with animal experiments to how much money the United States wastes on them and from ethical issues with imprisoning animals in laboratories to modern, non-animal testing and teaching methods. Shalin, along with simulation experts from Harvard Medical School and the University of Florida College of Medicine–Jacksonville, co-authored the chapter titled, “Modernizing Biomedical Training: Replacing Live Animal Laboratories with Human Simulation.” It discusses the new wave of high-tech human medical simulation technology, which improves learning, reduces laboratory costs, and prevents animals from being subjected to painful and deadly classroom experiments around the world.

PETA has donated 119 lifelike TraumaMan human-patient simulator models valued at nearly $3 million to Advanced Trauma Life Support programs in 22 countries. The programs have all replaced the use of animals in surgical training with simulators that are more anatomically realistic for teaching human trauma management and allow trainees to repeat procedures until they feel comfortable performing them.

PETA persuaded the U.S. Army to scale back its use of animals drastically in favor of simulators for trauma training exercises and to stop poisoning animals in cruel chemical-warfare exercises. We also successfully encouraged the Department of Defense to order all military branches to replace the use of animals in six different medical training areas, got the Coast Guard to end all use of animals in trauma training drills, and supported a new bipartisan law that—for the first time—makes human-simulation technology the new gold standard for trauma training.

As Johns Hopkins explains, Animal Experimentation: Working Towards a Paradigm Change “offer[s] a roadmap towards the continuing replacement and eventual elimination of animals used in science.” And PETA will keep working to bring that day closer and closer.

You can help by urging your congressional representatives to support the Battlefield Excellence through Superior Training (BEST) Practices Act, which would phase out the use of animals in all military trauma training drills.