yes, Michelle, kudos too you for many things -- from the care and love you gave those puppies to the commitment you have made to try and live a more compassionate, aware lifestyle. The animals -- from the "cute little puppies" all the way to the "not so cute turkeys" -- thank-you.
Crispy Q, you too have a very soft heart, very sensitive to the pain of animal suffering. Indeed, it is hard not to be moved by Rodney's story.
PCRM.ORG is one of my favourite medical professional groups, speaking out AGAINST animal testing.
It is hard to believe that there are millions of animals suffering as I type this, in laboratories, for "medical research" -- who will suffer in agony and silence before they are lucky enough to either be rescued, or die.
WE NEED TO FIND ALTERNATIVE RESEARCH METHODS AND PROTOCOLS. Everyday thousands of animals are poisoned in chemical testing like Dow and other chemical manufacturing giants -- tiny mice shoved into a cylinder, with a pipe shoved in there mouths so they are forced to inhale noxious fumes and gases, all so we could determine the "lethal dose" of a chemical.
The price paid in terms of lives is unacceptable, barbaric, intolerable and an affront to human decency. I despise chemical companies -- they dont even give a shit about us (humans), never mind a bunch of lab mice.
Please buy organic. Please dont support chemical industries. Please speak UP for the animals languishing in pain in these hidden laboratories where the opportunities to do so present themselves to you all.
Not many people even realize that every time you see a commercial for a "new scented" Tide, or a New and Improved "Mr. Clean", or a new flavour Colgate toothpaste, while these things may appear benign, the cost has been great for animals. A new and improved or otherwise tweaked product usually entails what the industry giants refer to as animal testing -- but what really is animal maiming, animal paralyzing, animal burning, animal blinding, animal torturing, animal killing.
Think about what seemingly benign products you use that probably killed animals. Buy products with the little bunny on them, where it is says cruelty free.
Dont be fooled by the commercial giants who have labels that read things like "
this product has not been tested on animals" or "our company does not engage in animal testing." As a lawyer, I can highlight the ambiguities behind these words -- they allow companies to mislead consumers yet they are technically correct so appear so far to be legally safe. For example, when a company says "This product is not tested on animals" that usually means that the FINISHED product is not tested on animals. But what about the UNfinished version? Was that tested on animals? What about the
ingredients that go into the product? Was that tested on animals? If it is a huge commercial company, then I can almost guarantee that the answers to these questions are yes, yes and yes.
In short, the statement "This product is not tested on animals" is nowhere near reassurance enough for us.
Similarly, you will also see a lot of this kind of statement: "
Fatboy Company does not engage in animal testing." Again, too ambiguous and therefore unsatisfactory. This statement does not rule out the possibility that Fatboy Company does HIRE
ANOTHER COMPANY to do the animal testing for it. I can almost guarantee that when a company makes this sort of claim, what they really mean is that they themselves dont conduct animal testing but their suppliers do, and they even may hire out another company to do the testing for them. Thus, they can hide behind the misleading statement "Fatboy does not engage in animal testing."
My point -- and sorry to have gone on -- please try to support smaller companies like the ones that were listed in the cleaning products thread. if anybody has any questions or uncertainties, post them here, or call the company and ask them to send you a written statement of their animal testing policy and then scrutinize it. But the big guys are all animal killers for sure so I would just stay away from them entirely.
Okay, sorry for the rant, but Rodney's story really has me bummed out and I felt compelled to type all of this as a reminder in his honour of the need to STAND OPPOSED TO ANIMAL TESTING.
