Kiln, Mississippi – Today the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom called on the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a Washington-based animal rights group, to withdraw a callous school-nutrition “report card” it issued to public schools in Hancock County, Mississippi. PCRM gave Hancock County a grade of “D,” based largely on its complaint that the six-school district serves children meat entrees including “the BBQ pulled-pork burger and the chicken patty sandwich.”
Hancock County Schools, located near the city of Gulfport, cancelled five weeks of classes after it bore the full brunt of Hurricane Katrina. The storm flooded Hancock County Middle School so badly that students had to finish the 2005-2006 school year in temporary trailers. Federal aid totaling over $2.5 million was needed to pay for portable classrooms and replace lost computer equipment, furniture, and other necessities. Deputy Education Secretary Ray Simon and Mississippi Education Superintendent Hank Bounds made a personal visit in May to inspect the ongoing rebuilding process.
“It’s bad enough for a radical animal rights group to hide behind a phony name like ‘Physicians Committee,'” said Center for Consumer Freedom Director of Research David Martosko. “But kicking a hurricane-ravaged school system when it’s down — just to promote a strict vegetarian diet — is beyond insensitive. Hancock County Schools clearly have more important things to worry about than pleasing the extreme wing of the animal rights movement.”
Less than four percent of PCRM’s members are actual physicians. While the group claims to be interested in “improving the healthfulness of school lunches,” it quietly advances a hidden animal rights agenda which seeks to remove all meat and dairy foods from the diet of American children.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has steered more than $1.3 million to PCRM. Animal People News notes that the two groups are so closely connected that they should be considered “a single fundraising unit.”
To read “7 Things You Didn’t Know about PCRM,” visit www.PhysicianScam.com.
To view photos of Hancock County Schools in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, visit www.hancock.k12.ms.us/DISTRICT/School pictures after katrina.htm.
