Vivisection
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1992:
The winter 1992/1993 edition of
National Boycott News, a well-reputed
annual directory of boycotts, includes
detailed coverage of the ongoing boycott of
Carme Inc., a cruelty-free cosmetics manu-
facturer acquired by International Research
and Development Corp. in 1989. The boy-
cott, called but not recently promoted by
PETA, might be forgotten by now except
that attorneys for IRDC, a major animal-
testing laboratory, have threatened numer-
ous protesters and media who have covered
the situation with lawsuits––including
National Boycott News, when the editors
offered them the opportunity to respond to
various allegations made by boycott litera-
ture. IRDC did sue two cruelty-free dis-
tributors who dropped the Carme product
line. The case was settled out of court by
the firms’ insurance companies.
National Institutes of Health
director Dr. Bernadine Healy asked
98,500 biomedical scientists in June and
July to tell her how they thought the NIH
should set research priorities. She got just
36 replies, most of which merely pleaded
for more funding for their own disciplines
and projects.
In Defense of Animals on Nov-
ember 5 won a Superior Court ruling that
the University of California may not censor
necropsy reports to which the group has
access via the California Public Records
Act. Judge James Lambden ordered the
university to cover IDA’s costs in the case.
An IDA press release said the ruling “sets
the stage for an additional lawsuit, in
which the group will seek at least $250,000
in punitive damages.”
The Howard Hughes Medical
Institute spent $250 million on biomedical
research last year––27% of the total U.S.
private nonprofit biomedical research bud-
get. Only the NIH spends more. The
Hughes staff includes four Nobel laureates,
223 investigators, and 2,130 employees,
working at 53 institutions.
The Environmental Protection
Agency on October 29 ceased requiring
routine field tests of new pesticides on fish
and birds. The move was blasted by envi-
ronmental groups, including the National
Audubon Society. However, some wildlife
and pesticide experts have attacked the field
tests as redundant and obsolete for more
than a decade. Dropping the tests means
new pesticides––most of them less toxic
than those they replace––can be marketed
after three years of trial, instead of six.
PETA undercover investigators on
October 29 charged Wright State University
in Ohio with abusing dogs and rabbits in
scabies research. The accusations came a
month after Save Pets from Abuse, Research
and Euthanasia won a judgement compelling
Wright State to release documents pertain-
ing to animal research.
