IDA, FoA fight U.S. Surgical Corp.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:
SAN FRANCISCO– – Twenty
activists including In Defense of Animals
president Eliot Katz were arrested at an
October 8 protest in San Francisco against
U.S. Surgical Corporation involvement in the
annual meeting of the American College of
Surgeons. Apparently the only significant
funder of the pro-animal research group
Americans for Medical Progress, U.S.
Surgical is prominent in transgenic research
using animals, and continues to do sales
demonstrations of surgical staples on live
dogs, the practice that incited Friends of
Animals to lead 27 protests at the U.S.
Surgical headquarters in Norwalk,
Connecticut, between 1983 and 1992.
FoA suspended the demonstrations
and other public comment about U.S.
Surgical for four years, 1992-1996, during
legal action resulting from the November
1988 attempted bombing of the U.S. Surgical
parking lot by New York City dog lover Fran
Trutt. U.S. Surgical president Leon Hirsch
blamed the deed on FoA, but Marc Mead,
an agent of the now defunct private security
firm Perceptions International, hired by U.S.
Surgical, revealed within days that he loaned
Trutt the money to buy the bomb and drove
her to the scene, on orders from fellow
Perceptions agent Mary Lou Sappone.