Jerry Vlasak is a high profile animal rights activist, and one of the three spokesmen for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office (ALPO), an organization which reports acts of violence and vandalism carried out by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and Animal Rights Militia (ARM). He was formerly a spokesman for Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM). He is married to Pamelyn Ferdin, former-president of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC).
Vlasak has also made news repeatedly for claiming it would be morally acceptable to kill researchers:
I think there is a use for violence in our movement. And I think it can be an effective strategy. Not only is it morally acceptable, I think that there are places where it could be used quite effectively from a pragmatic standpoint.
For instance, if vivisectors were routinely being killed, I think it would give other vivisectors pause in what they were doing in their work [...] And I don’t think you’d have to kill — assassinate — too many vivisectors before you would see a marked decrease in the amount of vivisection going on.
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On the other side of the coin, Vlasak claims to be a practicing trauma surgeon, lending credibility to the animal rights movement of which he is a part of. He alleges not to be misanthropist, hiding behind his position as a practicing trauma surgeon – “I save lives everyday at the hospital. Everyday, I go to the hospital, I save lives,” (KUTV). So where exactly does he go everyday to practice medicine?
Senate Committee Hearing 2005:
Dr. Vlasak. I attended medical school at the University of Texas, in Houston.
Senator Lautenberg. And where do you practice now?
Dr. Vlasak. I practice in the Los Angeles area.
Senator Lautenberg. At a hospital?
Dr. Vlasak. I do. A number of hospitals.
Senator Lautenberg. What is your favorite, what is your dominant hospital activity?
Dr. Vlasak. I practice at several hospitals in the Riverside and San Bernadino area.
Senator Lautenberg. Name one.
Dr. Vlasak. Loma Linda University.
Some claim considering that LA Weekly discovered he had in fact resigned from general surgery at Linda Loma University in 1998. I decided to do a little digging myself, scouring the internet for references to hospitals in which Vlasak stated to practice surgery (and some others which fit descriptions for hospitals he claims to have worked in e.g. Loma Linda University Medical Center).
Loma Linda University
Loma Linda University Medical Center
Riverside Community Hospital
Parkview Community Hospital
San Bernardino Community Hospital
San Antonio Community Hospital
Arrowhead Regional Medical Center
Of those seven medical establishments, two stated Vlasak had formerly worked there, the rest simply did not know who he was and could not find him on their medical registers.
One must wonder what Vlasak does when “Everyday, [he] go[es] to the hospital”?
Cheers
Tom
