Animal Rights Extremism (page121)

Nannies in the federal government want to put labels on eggs telling you not to cook them over easy because of potential salmonella contamination. With an average of five deaths a year over the last 13 years from salmonella (none tied to bad eggs), the Plain Dealer correctly asks, "Is this worth a warning label on egg cartons and a government-sponsored scare campaign? That's not the sort of thing a taxpayer ought to get over easy."

According to the Albany Times Union, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) and other like-minded nannies are "waging the equivalent of a culinary Holy War against the use of dairy and meat products" in school lunchrooms. "They [PCRM] have this agenda that no one should eat animal products and they are not even doctors," says a Dairy Council spokesperson, correctly noting that a majority of the animal rights group's members are not doctors. ("Students target of a food fight," Albany Times Union, 2/22/00.)

With help from the anti-industrial agriculture movement, professor Steven Wing has produced a highly questionable study claiming that industrial hog farms reduce the quality of life for people living near them and tend to affect their health. Following standard operating procedure for nannies, Wing offers no medical evidence to back his conclusions.

In their ongoing campaign against modern technologies and agricultural methods, the nannies from the Turning Point Project took out another senseless full-page ad in today's New York Times attacking factory farming and GE foods.

Harvard University's prestigious law school now offers an animal rights law class taught by long-time animal rights activist Steven M. Wise. Wise makes the ridiculous claim that a "person" is merely a technical term and under his view of common law, animals "should be legal persons."

The radical animal rights activists at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have erected four billboards in New Hampshire asking, "If you choose to eat meat, why should I pay your hospital bills?" PETA says it hopes presidential candidates campaigning in the state will see "the need for a tax on meat" that could "pay for dietary education programs that would help reduce health care costs and save consumers' and animals' lives" and "pay for the meat industry's huge detrimental effect on the environment."

PETA protesters in Iowa are trying to catch the attention of the enormous media presence covering the presidential caucuses with their "Cut the Pork -- Tax Meat" campaign. Without evidence, PETA blames meat consumption for $123 billion per year in health care costs. It wants a meat tax to "pay for dietary education programs that would help reduce health care costs and save consumers' and animals' lives."

One of the latest rages among vegetarians is to force their dogs to go vegetarian too. Vegetarians claim an all-plant diet will transform Fido from fat to fit. However, Dr. Andy Turkell of the American Animal Hospital Association says, "The obesity issue has nothing to do with too much meat… A dog's closest relative in the wild is the wolf. Wolves kill plant eaters like rabbits and eat their intestinal contents, which contain carbohydrates. You have to respect your dog's ancestry and anatomy."

The power of the internet to perpetuate urban legends is being felt by KFC. A recent e-mail claims that Kentucky Fried Chicken had started calling itself KFC because it no longer uses real chickens. Instead, the e-mail claims KFC uses genetically altered organisms that are kept alive by tubes that "have no beaks, no feathers, and no feet." The University of New Hampshire, mentioned as having done a study on the KFC "chickens" in the e-mail, set up a web page to handle the hoax which is getting about 15 to 18 hits per minute per day.

In response to calls from the White House, FDA, and Congress for warning labels on raw eggs, the Los Angeles Times speaks to various scientific experts who firmly disagree with critics that malign the safety of eggs. One former FDA chief counsel calls the mathematical model that produces food poisoning statistics "the closest thing I can think of in this modern age to a Ouija board. …The statistics are all over the place because none of them are any good. They are all wild guesses."