Recently, I found out that you have pledged to give Oregon Health & Sciences University $25 million to study poor nutrition and obesity.  I’ve been waiting to write this letter until I heard what you had to say, and now that I have- well, disappointed is an understatement.

Oregon Health & Sciences University is notoriously heinous for their animal research programs. As such, by offering them a donation- regardless if it is to be used to fund animal research or not, you are directly making it possible for these types of programs to continue.  There are many universities who do not use animals as test subjects who would benefit greatly from such a donation.

If I continued to purchase your products I too would be supporting that university, since it’s me and thousands like me who’ve bought your products thereby giving you the profits to donate.  And Mr. and Mrs. Moore, I can’t do that.  We’ll be parting ways, I’m very sorry to say it.  I’ve been a loyal customer for years, but I don’t support organizations who test on animals.  I do my best to ensure that my vegan dollars are spent with companies that are more aligned with my ethics.  As long as Bob’s Red Mill provides money to organizations that perform animal research, I will not buy your products.

With Sincere Regret,

KD Traegner

Many of you might be wondering why, as other bloggers and companies have reaffirmed their support of Bob’s Red Mill since the press release, that I am still going to boycott them.  Here are some thoughts:

• Bob’s wanted to assure us that no part of their donation will be used to fund animal research, I appreciate that.  But the fact remains that their funds will go to a university that performs animal testing.  Wouldn’t it be better to support a university that does not support or fund animal testing at all?  If Bob’s Red Mill is against animal testing, then why partner with an animal tester- regardless if you are funding it or not?

• Bob’s could only donate the profits they made from people like you and me.  Without our support, there would be no profits to donate.

• Even if Bob’s wasn’t aware that OHSU tests on animals, they are now.  And they are still donating $25 million dollars to them.

• The letter from OHSU?  It’s vague and political.  It never mentions one time that they will not use the funds to test on animals. (Will they be policing the funds to ensure that not one dime goes to fund anything else?)

Some might say that this issue isn’t black or white, we all fund the exploitation of animals in some form or another- that a boycott would not be a good use of our activist time.

I strongly disagree.

Listen, I am a realist enough to know that no one is 100% animal free- I’m talking myself here too.  But there is a difference between: purchasing a vegan product made from a non-vegan company that is cruelty-free, and buying a vegan product from a non-vegan company that funds universities that test on animals.  It’s right there, in the open for us all to see.  It’s rarely that easy to make an ethical decision, right?  It can be a challenge to determine whether a company is cruelty-free- in this instance we can easily see that Bob’s is not.

Every time you stand up for your vegan beliefs, every time you raise questions, have a vegan dialogue with someone, every time you sit down to a vegan meal- you are participating in activism.  You are making a difference to someone every time you interact with them.  Don’t underestimate the power you have to affect change.

Think about this, The Informed Vegan wrote a post about Bob’s Red Mill that went viral.  It was his influence that had thousands of people tweeting, posting on facebook, and commenting on blogs about the issue.  It was his influence that prompted the protestors, that prompted Bob’s Red Mill to issue a response.  One can make a difference.  You are that one.

I realize that I can’t tell you what to do with your money but I can tell me what to do with my money.  I do not support companies that test on animals.  Bob’s Red Mill supports a university that supports/performs animal testing.  If I buy their products, I’m providing them the profits that they’ll use to donate to facilities that are not aligned with my beliefs.

UPDATE 9/30/11: This issue has sparked much debate and none more so that with the readers of YDV.  In lieu of commenting, I’ve expanded some of my original thoughts on this issue.  Please find them after the jump.

Updated Thoughts on Bob’s Red Mill

Recently, I decided to stop buying Bob’s Red Mill products due to the CEO and founder donating $25 million dollars to a university that also experiments on animals.  My decision, and subsequent post regarding it, has angered people- none more so than my vegan peers.  It has been said that:

1.  The donation is from the founder, not the company, so a boycott of the company (and it’s employees) is wrong.

2.  The Moores released a statement (on Bob’s Red Mill website) that the donation won’t be used to fund animal experiments.  The University also released a statement, though it is more vague and doesn’t specifically mention that the donated funds won’t go towards animal experimentation.  To some (vegans), this shows that Bob (and Bob’s Red Mill by extension) is “doing the right thing” so we (vegans) shouldn’t “turn our backs on them.”

3.  Boycotting Bob’s Red Mill is fruitless because we could never boycott every single company/individual who exploits animals.  This is by far the most popular rebuttal.

4.  The company wasn’t a vegan company in the first place so a boycott makes little sense in terms of vegan consistency.

5.  It is unproductive as advocates to work on a project beyond advocating veganism because there are no moral differences between instances of animal exploitation.  There is no moral difference between wearing leather or wearing fur, for example.  To do otherwise is labeled as “single-issue” campaigning.

To which I reply,

1.  Bob Moore acts as the company spokesperson and retains the position of CEO of the company.  As such, Bob Moore and Bob’s Red Mill have a mutually beneficial relationship.  Bob Moore profits when Bob’s Red Mill profits.  I provide those profits when I buy their products.

2.  The Moores donation may not go to pay for animal experimentation (if we trust those with little regard for animals on their word), but it will go to pay for salaries of those who do.  Recruitment of the institute’s leader is specifically listed as an approved expenditure for the donated funds.  One must infer what this means, the letter is (again) specifically vague.

3.  Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good. In other words, just because you can’t do everything doesn’t mean you should do nothing.  I may not be able to boycott every instance of animal exploitation, but I can and should take direct action whenever possible- particularly when it can benefit the lives of animals.

4. & 5.  I used to agree with the sentiment about single-issue campaigning.  In fact, I’ve even wrote about it as recently as June.  I was wrong.  This is a separate issue in which I will address in another post.

The bottom line, for me, is that Bob’s donation (and his subsequent promotion of it using Bob’s Red Mill brand and blog) has raised some serious issues.  Not only with Bob, but with how vegans deal with non-vegan companies.  As a vegan, I question if my actions are going to help the animals or if it’s going to keep their situations status quo.  Not doing anything because of any of the reasons listed above means that those animals’ situations won’t change- maybe those situations won’t even change by my boycott.  But I have to try, based on what I know- I have to try.

It is important to discuss these issues with our fellow vegan peers, even if the views are different.  We can do so much more good with open and honest dialogue than we can without it.  It isn’t hatred that fuels these types of discussions (as I’ve read some say), it’s responding to the very real situations that these animals are placed in.

Limiting the amount of profits to later be used as a private donation to fund these types of experiments, while a single issue, is advocating the vegan message and taking a direct action at the same time.  This is the best direct action I can offer those animals right now.  So that’s what I’ll do.

Zhu Jianqiang | Photo: Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

2008.  Out of the rubble of a 8.0 magnitude earthquake in Sichuan province came a hero.  A badly injured, 110-pound pig named Zhu Jianqiang- which means, Strong-Willed Pig.  [Of course, that's just the name he was given by his rescuers, we've no idea what he was called prior to- probably #185 or some other such thing.]

The pig was apparently trapped in a collapsed farm shed and survived under the rubble for 36 days, eating nothing but charcoal and rainwater.  The Chinese state media even celebrated the pig as the country’s most inspirational animal in 2008.  His picture was everywhere, he was famous.  He was even given his own 10-year life insurance policy.  Then the farmers who owned the pig sold him to a museum, to be placed on exhibit.

From The Lede:

He was voted China’s most inspirational animal in a poll on Red Net, an online forum and news site, according to China Daily.  China Daily said this was the second straight victory for a pig: Last year’s winner was a sow that fought off a butcher trying to slaughter its “husband.”

[But] One of his handlers, quoted by the newspaper, said the pig had become cranky, fat and lazy in his celebrity, unwilling even to walk around his pen or raise its snout for pictures.  The pig, the handler said, “has developed a temper that many of its fans may not want to see.”

Vegan thought:  The pig was lauded a hero because the pig did what he had to do in order to survive. The pig wanted to live. Why are we amazed that these animals want a life beyond servitude to us?

Anyway, so how do the Chinese treat their hero’s?  At the equivalent of sixty human years of age, Zhu was cloned to produce six piglets.

From BBC News:

“The wonderful pig surprised us again,” Du Yutao, the head of the cloning project, told the Sunday Morning Post.

The newspaper says the piglets bear a striking resemblance to their dad – with a birthmark between their eyes.  They are likely to be paired off and sent to a museum and a genetic institute.

Let’s recap.  The Chinese find it inspirational that a pig wanted to live (and not die) so they made him a hero- after: he’s sold, renamed, and put to work in an exhibit where he has displayed stress and anger.  Then, this “wonderful pig” was cloned [how many times before it took?] with no chance of seeing his offspring as they’re being shipped out to a museum or genetic institute.

Makes you wonder how they treat animals they don’t like.

GMO Cat next to non-gmo mother | Photo: BBC News

US and Japanese scientists working at the Mayo Clinic have done some gene splicing in cats. The aim of this work is to make the cats resistant to the feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), which is similar to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS in humans.

So why the glow?  This is from a jellyfish gene spliced into the cat’s gene so that the scientists can basically track the rhesus macaque gene which was also spliced into the cat’s.  The rhesus macaque carries this gene which makes it resistant to the AIDS virus.

What does the future hold for these glowing cats?  In addition to life in a lab?  Infection.

So far, Dr. Poeschla’s team has only tested cells taken from the animals and found they were resistant to FIV. But eventually they plan to expose the cats to the virus and see if they are protected.

It’s not just cats

In 2009, marmosets were genetically modified to glow green and pass the trait onto their children.  This was a first for scientists.  Though primates that make a glowing protein had been created before, these were the first to keep the change in their bloodlines.  Scientists have:

• Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Atlanta, US, created rhesus macaque monkeys with Huntington’s disease. Four of those are still awaiting puberty, and the researchers hope that they will produce a second generation of macaques with the disease.
• Researchers in Taiwan developed green glowing pigs that will mate with ordinary female pigs to create a new generation for much greater numbers of transgenic pigs for use in research.
• Dogs are also used as candidates for research because they have “good communication skills with humans, which enable them to have good response skills to direct orders. They are also easy to handle.”  Genetically Modified Beagle, Teagon, was born.
• Dr Monteiro, a US scientist, wanted to investigate the environmental factors that led to wing patterns.  Thus, we genetically altered the butterfly.

Origins in Exploitation

Martin Chalfie, Roger Tsien and Osamu Shimomura are the three scientists that made it possible to exploit the genetic mechanism responsible for luminosity in the marine creatures by first discovering the glowing protein (green fluorescent protein – GFP) from jellyfish.  Scientists trying to modify an animal will include the gene responsible for GFP to tell them if the modification was successful.  It is the same science that has lead laboratories to develop “glowing” rabbits, butterflies, pigs, mice, monkeys, and others.

The scientists were lauded for their work in exploitation with a Noble Prize, a medal, and a diploma.

Why It Matters

Animal testing is unreliable and cruel.

The testing performed on non-human animals, including primates, does not provide accurate and useful information regarding human medicine.

Ending Non-human primate research would benefit human medicine by halting the flow of unreliable data from it, and by diverting research funds to more appropriate and promising methods. These include batteries of human-based tests that provide reliable and relevant information on which to base further research and translate laboratory findings to the clinic: microarrays and other DNA technologies; proteomics and metabolomics; mathematical and computer modelling; epidemiology; human clinical research; myriad in vitro molecular biological techniques; microfluidics devices; scanning technologies, microdosing etc…. in short, technologies that have demonstrably contributed to human medicine. – Jarrod Bailey, Ph.D

Also, don’t be surprised if glowing pets becomes a new trend.  Chemyong Jay Ko, an associate professor in the College of Health Sciences at the University of Kentucky said, the “technology could be used for producing a variety of unique cats and dogs, possibly creating a new area of commercial interest.”

Perez Hilton posted this about the glowing kittens,  “Curing AIDS and making kittens cuter… we can’t think of a better way for scientists to spend their time.” We obviously have a long way to go in educating people.

How You Can Help

Due to current governmental regulations around the globe, it is nearly impossible to avoid medications that have been tested on animals.  Refusing medications for ethical reasons will do little to deter pharmaceutical companies from using animal experimentation to determine the safety and efficacy of new medications.  More funding must be dedicated to the development of better, more reliable, human-based drug testing.

Help affect change:

• Contact your governmental agency that is responsible for animal testing to voice opposition
• Support charities that fund only non-animal research
• Buy only cruelty-free
• Share and Tweet to help educate and raise awareness about animal testing

Rhesus Monkeys have a long history of involvement in Scientific Research

The recent story in the New York Times regarding monkeys used in laboratory research has got people talking- and cussing, and they’re outright disgusted.

After keeping the monkeys in cages (to severely limit their exercise) for months or years, and feeding them a high fat, high carb, high calorie diet, they’ve come to the conclusion that one can get fat, and then, in turn, develop heart disease and diabetes.  There’s another motive to this so-called research.  The animal testing was done by the Oregon National Primate Research Center, on behalf of Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, who tested an experimental diet drug on the monkeys.

Animal testing is wrong on so many levels.  This particular experiment is wrong in an additional sense of being completely redundant.  Do we all not know and understand how one becomes afflicted with fatness, heart disease, and diabetes?  Do we not know that smoking tobacco causes emphysema?  Do we not know that boozing it up in the Asshole Gran Prix on I-95, could lead to some kind of flaming car wreck?  There are some things we just know for certain.

We do not need to kill others (in the name of science) to prove something we see every single day.

In another study, a group of academic researchers is using the monkeys to compare gastric bypass surgery with weight loss from forced dieting. One goal is to try to figure out the hormonal mechanisms by which the surgery can quickly resolve diabetes, so that drugs might one day be developed to have the same effect. To that end, the study will do what cannot be done with people — kill some of the monkeys to examine their brains and pancreases.

Why can’t this be done with people?  No volunteers?  Are they implying that the monkeys volunteered?  Of course not.  They own the monkeys as property.

“The greatness of a society and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.”
~Mahatma Gandhi.

“Doing primate studies is about as difficult as doing human studies from an ethical standpoint,” said Dr. Lee M. Kaplan, director of the weight center at Massachusetts General Hospital, who is one of the researchers in the bariatric surgery study here.

But, not quite as difficult, since they’re actually being killed- from an ethical standpoint.

The studies also found something else that could be important for people — that eating a healthy diet during pregnancy reduced troubles in the offspring.

A study was not needed to prove something we all instinctively know.  And, on the chance some of us do not know this, some of us may want to reconsider our reproductive plans.

Dr. Kevin L. Grove [Oregon National Primate Research Center] said he understood the protesters’ [animal rights activists] view: “I applaud them for that pressure because it makes us do our job better.”

Why do you need pressured to do a better job?  And, what exactly would constitute doing a better job at slaughtering monkeys?

Humans kill animals (in heinous fashion) for nutrients they could find elsewhere.  Which sickens the animals, the planet, and ultimately themselves in the process.  Then, more animals in laboratories are killed in a futile attempt to save themselves from their own self-induced disease.  This is a cycle of a madmen, not the natural cycle of life.

As pharmaceutical companies move some research to less expensive countries, the obese monkeys are following. “This is a booming industry in China,” said Dr. Grove. “They have colonies of thousands of them.”

Learn more about the Rhesus Macaques, their habitat, and their fate in the field of science.  Then take a trip to Commercial Street’s Sundry Shop to learn more about animal testing and what you can do to affect positive change.

via nytimes.com

I thought everyone should make themselves aware of NASA plans to expose squirrel monkeys to radiation in an attempt to understand the effects of interplanetary travel.  The PCRM, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, has filed a petition with the U.S. government asking for a halt to these cruel experiments.

“The proposed experiments are cruel, unnecessary, and lack scientific merit. There are better, more humane ways of understanding the potential dangers of interplanetary travel to humans…The experiments—proposed by researcher Jack Bergman of McLean Hospital in Boston—would involve irradiating monkeys and testing them to see how they perform on various tasks.  Bergman has used squirrel monkeys for 15 years in addiction experiments, which have involved applying electric shocks, withholding food, and completely immobilizing the animals in restraint chairs for extended periods…Genetic, physiological, and anatomical differences between humans and monkeys dramatically limit the conclusions that can be drawn from the planned experiments.”

NASA should be representing a future that is better for all- human and nonhuman animals alike- through technological progress that only an space agency could provide.  Animal experimentation does not represent progress.  This type of “research” does not belong anywhere in society, let alone in an organization responsible for interplanetary travel.  The dark ages of science should be well past us now, and no organization should be using the antiquated science of animal testing.

The PCRM has a link for you to voice your opinion directly to NASA regarding their barbaric approach to science and “technological progress.”  Click here to send an email and take action.

via pcrm.org

Hey ya’ll.  As a new contributor to YDV, I’d like to tell you a bit about myself.  I’m Angle, Charleen Angle, I’ve been a vegan for about four years, and I will be vegan till they pry my weapon (MacBook) from my cold, dead hands.  Now, I couldn’t tell you if I’m a “regular” vegan, an “abolitionist” vegan, an “anarcho” vegan, a “mama’s” vegan, or a “vegan” vegan.  But I will tell you this, I don’t take kindly to those who exploit sentient beings.  So, if I seem a little “unruly” at times… deal with it.  After all, I’m just exercising my right to free speech- it’s not like I’m contributing to the torture and killing of billions of animals everyday.