A Lesson in hypocrisy as PETA cries foul over one cat’s death while secretly killing hundreds more

53 thoughts on “A Lesson in hypocrisy as PETA cries foul over one cat’s death while secretly killing hundreds more”

1. PETA is against eating meat. Pet food is full of meat. Do the math.

2. SOR, there is a huge difference in putting homeless, many sick, animals to sleep peacfully and drilling holes in their heads and scooping their eardrums out ,until you’ve satisfied your curiosity, only to then kill them. Hopefully the good Lord will save you from being researched by Satan.

3. I do want to apologize, I’ve become more emotional about animal use since my Beagle got sick, and I happened on a PETA or Animal Aid document that talked about the widespread use of Beagles when dogs are used for research and it makes me ill/scared/repulsed to think of a dog like mine being operated on like that. It is so painful to conceive of that I keep trying not to think about it.

   Feel free to delete my comments as I would but apparently there’s no way to from here. I am sorry for upsetting anyone, but please understand many people have a very emotional attachment to animals and it is difficult to be clinical and divorced from all feeling when thinking/talking about animal research. So feel free to ignore, I won’t bother you. Sorry.

4. Information is also available here: http://host.madison.com/news/local/education/university/uw-madison-suspends-researcher-over-animal-welfare-problems/article_2df54462-32eb-11df-98ea-001cc4c002e0.html if that is more credible.

   1. Actually a subsequent investigation found that the All Campus Animal Care and Use Committee that had suspended Dr. Basso had violated her rights to due process, and she was reinstated http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/education/university/report-uw-panel-violated-primate-researcher-s-rights/article_8a624a50-dba7-11df-a3b3-001cc4c03286.html

      The All Campus Animal Care and Use Committee was subsequently disbanded and replaced by the new Animal Research Panel. Both the USDA and OWLA investigated Dr. Basso’s lab and found no violations of either the Animal Welfare Act or PHS policy.

5. And how about this “Each monkey is first paralyzed, then has coils glued to her eyes during a single session that lasts up to 120 hours, and finally killed” is that something I “imagined through ignorance”?

   The information in the above quote was taken directly from “http://primateresearch.blogspot.com/2009/11/on-responsible-research-with-monkeys.html”

   1. Paralysed is Bogle’s dramatic way of saying anaesthetised – we do it to humans ALL THE TIME.
      The original source is this:
      “For electrophysiological recording of single neurons and monitoring eye movements, cylinders and eye loops were implanted in four rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) using procedures described previously (Basso and Liu 2007). Anesthesia was induced initially with an intramuscular injection of ketamine (5.0–15.0 mg/kg)”.

      Can you explain why there should be massive suffering? I know we all feel a little sick when people mention eyes, but if someone touches my eyes when I’m anaesthetised I’m none the wiser.

6. I know very well what goes on, I have disassociated myself from people who do hideous experiments on animals. You can’t help but prove my point by saying it is a “painful” process, yet you are talking about the pain of the scientists going through routine paperwork, not the real pain of the animals that you are dissecting (alive), injecting with horrible chemicals, feeding poison, sticking steel rods into skulls and torturing monkeys – like some of your friends on this thread. That shows how heartless and contemptible you are. The pain of the scientists…not the animals you brutalize, really?

   1. Wade, animals are not dissected alive and researchers take care to minimize the potential for pain or distress. In fact, in addition to the care and compassion of the researchers, there are stringent regulations that govern this work. You can read about them here: https://speakingofresearch.com/facts/research-regulation/

      With comments like, “rip animals apart while they are still alive” you demonstrate that it is unlikely you have seriously considered what is true and what you envision through ignorance
      . But while you’re condemning animal research, safe to assume that you say the same of anyone using animals for food? Assuming that you are vegan and deny any medical treatments and tools developed via animal research?

      1. Thanks for using that same straw man approach – you are a hypocrite for using medicine! However, many studies conducted by the Germans during the Third Reich on live prisoners are used for search and rescue procedures, and pilot and astronaut safety. Ballistic missile technology was developed by German scientists using slave labor, but we still depend on these today. Why not use the research already existing? I am simply against new animal research, since we can’t undo the past. Are you telling me that animals are not pulled apart while still alive? Are you saying that those “regulations” you vivisectors like to refer people to actually save animals from your barbarism? Because they are usually cited as allowing all of the hideous experiments you commit – deliberately drowning mice, depriving monkeys of their mothers, deliberately giving rodents hearts that explode and lungs that fill with fluid, sticking hoses up the noses of Beagles, deliberately blinding Beagles with shampoo, sewing kittens’ eye lids shut, putting steel rods through the brains of Monkeys and cats, and sticking wires directly into the brains of living animals. How about this lovely example: “One current example is Michelle Basso whose work is something like Logothetis’s. She implants recording chambers and posts on monkeys’ skulls and coils on their eyes. Over the past few years monkeys have died as a result of her fumbling surgical methods. Her work was so inept that the university finally suspended her access to monkeys. She has driven screws completely through their craniums and punctured the dura, the lining of the brain, and caused brain infections that have killed monkeys. She has killed monkeys when trying to repair the post implants. She has a string of many dead moneys behind her. And, to keep this embarrassing situation out of the public eye, the university reinstated her when she threatened to challenge her suspension through a lawsuit.”

      2. Wade, your opening argument is ridiculous.

         When you take medicine you actively encourage the research industries to continue to develop medicine. When you take a medicine which may have been derived from now-illegal human experiments (as opposed to ordinary clinical trials) you do not cause more illegal experiments to happen – just as using roads built by slaves does not actively result in more slavery.

         deliberately “drowning” mouse would be better explained as “deliberately forcing mice to swim”. They are not left to actually drown. On many of the other experiments you name (some of which no longer happen in the developed world), it is worth remembering they are under anaesthetics.

         Your comments are akin to me describing a human heart transplant as “tearing open a living, breathing, human and ripping out their heart before putting in a synthetic heart and seeing if they live”. It’s ridiculous use of language.

7. One sentence nailed it for me: the media must do its job (which they often do not do in full, at present). These days journalists are accepting animal rights extremist media releases as gospel, rather than propaganda whose accuracy must be carefully questioned, along with real motives.

   1. If you saw the “real motives” of animal researchers, you would be horrified. It is they who should be questioned.

      1. And you think you know the “real motives”. Have you ever done research before? It is a pretty long painful process full of abundant research to just design an experiment, finding funding/ writing grants, if you are using animals going through even more paper work and multiple boards to pass the process, trying to get the experiment to work, collecting data, interpreting results which many end up with your data being useless, and if your lucky you get published. Why would anyone go through all of that with the pure intent of hurting animals? It would be easy and much faster to just go buy an animal at a pet store and torture it. Have you ever truly know an animal researcher and talked to them about their reasons for using animals in their research. If you have I bet you weren’t listening since you seem very ignorant to what goes on in research.

   2. These days journalists are accepting animal testers extremist media releases as gospel, rather than propaganda….. Strange how this sentence looks so much similar isn’t it ? Let me put something clear, I’m not a PETA activist, I’m don’t even know them. I’m not an animal activist, I just had some pets when I was a child, nothing more. I’m only trying to be conscious about pain and the way we find remedies to it.

      The justification by animal experimenters is that “it is for the good of many, compared to killing a few”. No mention of the horrible pain that can be inflicted “scientifically” and voluntarily to those few.

      The same kind of justification led some scientists (you might want to check what Hitler’s doctors did) to torture a few (human being) for the good of many. Oh…but wait… that was different ! Really ? What was different ? One decides (but not alone – to avoid being responsible for it) that some experiment is “for the good of many”, and that THIS few (translation : cat, mice, etc…) has to pay the price for it by being tortured and killed.

      Who gives you the right to determine the worth of pain ? And to decide which animal must “pay” for allegedly alleviating the pain of another one ?

      Taking your approach, I would see nothing wrong in testing a cure for lung cancer by example, which would involve killing 10’000 humans in horrific pain, as long as this would save 100’000 other humans for example…

      These kind of question have to do with inner soul and responsibility in front of your creator. I hope you might once just try to think of it.

      1. Except that our argument is not merely utilitarian (the main utilitarianists are also some of the main people opposing animal research – Bentham, Mill, Singer).

         I would see a fundamental difference between humans and other animals based on contracts of understanding – something an animal cannot do.

8. DJ, there is no doubt that these atrocities happen, however, I’m thinking any organization that endorses terrorist activities, and practices such blatant hypocrisy needs to be called out on it’s actions. I mean, really…PETA goes out of it’s way to demonize animal welfare shelters – that in itself is bad enough. How about those people who work every day “making a difference” (as you so succinctly say) who have to suffer the wrath of PETA? Funds can be better spent on organizations that truly honour the word “ethical”. PETA…People endorsing terrorist activities.

   1. very fair points and i do agree. i just wish bad things wouldnt happen in the first place and wish more people were aware and put their effects into stopping these things. doesnt make sense to me that these things happen, such as bull fighting, skinning animals alive for fur. boiling cats/dogs while they’re still alive for their meat, certain animal sacrifices, simply hurting an animal (or human) at all. i just dont understand how it can happen :(

      1. I’m so with you there DJ…”In a perfect world”. Too bad it isn’t. It’s difficult to know we live in a world where these things happen. It’s up to each of us as individuals to step forward whenever/wherever we can.

9. i havent read all the posts above but if PETA doesnt believe animals should be kept for ANY reason such as pets then that it ludicrous!!!! pets can have a better life than if they were living in the wild. IF thats true, thats very silly! BUTTTTT…. everyone should stop moaning about PETA, and stop trying to make a point against PETA as some of their points are true and they need to be heard rather than swept under the carpet. skinning animals alive for fur can truly happen, I have spoken to people that are in the trade. Start making a difference yourself, there are so many ways to help rather than moaning about PETA.

10. there is a HUGE difference between animals being killed humanely and being tortured and killed in horrible pain. what PETA does it not necessarily always right, but they are trying to help and I can’t understand these people that moan and seem so nieve to the fact that barbaric things are happening to animals all over the world and it needs to stop. stop focusing on and moaning about PETA and start making a difference. if everyone put their effects in to helping the bad things in this world as they did moaning about it, the world would be a better place already.

    1. <<>>

       <<>>

       I guess I look at PeTA doing nothing more than exploiting the same animals they accuse US of exploiting. Their end game is the end of human intervention in the affairs of animals, wild or domestic. They exploit the “gruesome” realities around us for their OWN benefit…and their OWN goals. The fact that PeTA opposes the good, hard, earnest work of so many shelters around the country…the fact that they coldly kill so many healthy, adoptable animals, makes their “argument” for the cruel treatment of other animals ring very hollow. Once you become more familiar with PeTA’s everyday philosophies regarding animals and those that attempt to protect them…the more you will find these little grandstanding events to be the “theater” they are meant to be. Again, Ingrid admits to being a press “slut”. (her words…) Their goal is to abolish all animal/human relationships…regardless of the form they take. If you wish to oppose research being done on animals, you can find better companions in that fight than PeTA. The only interest they have in ANY animal(s) is tied to how that interest can further their interest of no animals living under human exploitation…again, whether as a pet, as livestock, as a producer of products, i.e.wool, milk, eggs…or directly as food. They even oppose service animals, or any working animals, be they therapy, search and rescue, bomb or drug detector dogs, etc.

11. Animal “supremacy” aside…the fact is PeTA kills healthy, adoptable animals. Happily. One does not have to “dig” very far to find the stories. It may be how they “rationalize” their killing, but very few, if any, of the animals that come to them are in such condition as to need a “merciful” release. What hogwash… They kill because they believe that no animal should be subjected to exploitation by humans, whether that be as a research subject or as a companion/pet animal. Much better that animal meet the needle, than to be subjected to some human whim. Ingrid firmly believes that animals should NOT be kept as pets. That is why so little effort is put into finding homes for animals that are surrendered to, and/or “rescued” by PeTA. The worst shelters in the country do not have the kill rate that PeTA has, by their own admission, and their own statistics/records. We don’t need to discuss the morality or ethics of research on animals. PeTA believes it is immoral and unethical to utilize or live with animals for ANY reason, i.e. pets, food, research, or to use any animal products, i.e. wool, milk, eggs, etc. Any “exploitation” of animals for ANY reason is immoral and unacceptable. The PeTA motto.

12. dear Wade.. when your cat needs treatment at the vet.. please ask him/\her to kill the cat instead of using any drugs or procedures that might have been developed by testing on other cats.. or you could just let the cat suffer.. your choice..
    by the way.. my favorite part of this vid?? the heavy nasal breathing in the beginning.. sort of like a person watching a porno film in the back of a theater..

13. Torture, is torture, is torture, no amount of arguing about all the great benefits and delights derived from it, makes it otherwise. Don’t try playing on people’s fears about diabetes medication or curing the death to explain away your torturing of innocent animals, and we all know there are two reasons research scientists experiment on animals – 1. they are sadists who have a mental disorder that makes it pleasurable for them to inflict unbelievable pain on helpless creatures 2 – money, they love all the money they get from caring out painful but ultimately useless experiments and tests on animals. If these “people” really thought these experiments were so essential to science, why don’t they volunteer to get experimented on. Instead, they try arguing that animals are worthless because they don’t meet some subjective criteria that scientists (who have a vested interest in continued torture) themselves set. It’s absolutely sickening to hear “people” justify these atrocities. I don’t know how they sleep at night.

    1. Wade, you’ve clearly been drinking too much of the PeTA cool aid. Scientists who undertake animal resarch do so for two reasons (and usually both): (1) they wish to alleviiate human – and animal in the case of veterinary scientists – suffering through the development of new therapies, and (2) they wish to understand more about the biological processes in living organisms. The motivations of animal researchers are really no dfferent from those of their colleagues who don’t themselves undertake animal research, indeed polls such as that undertaken by Pew research a couple of years ago show that the overwhelming majority of scientists support animal research, even though only a minority have done it themselves ( though many scientists combine animal studies with non-animal methods noone can become expert in every method they value).

       1. So boring holes in skulls, sewing monkey eye’s shut, depriving primates of their mothers, and putting metal rods into sentient living beings, is OK because they “wish to understand more about the biological processes in living organisms” ….that sounds like sadism to me, no matter how you slice it. And the fact that they get paid for this barbarism, proves my points they do it because they like terrorizing defenseless creatures and they like money. I would be perfectly fine stopping all animal experimenting and testing immediately, living with the research we have and calling it quits. Don’t try bringing up Alzheimers, blindness and dying children to make me feel bad either, no one is to blame for that, but there are people to blame for torturing animals. I would rather get Alzheimers and suffer through that at some point, than know that my life was extended by horribly mutilating small animals. Do any of you sicko scientists even think about what you are doing?…..didn’t think so, the money is too much of a temptation.

       2. Wade, your problem is that your idea of what animal research involves is a highly misleading caricature of the reality. I know it’s easy for you to believe the Peta allegations thst fit your own fantasies about what medical researchers are like, but your ideas no more reflect the reality of what animal researchers are like than the allegations of AGW denialists reflect the reality of what climate scientists are like. You may wish to deny yourself new medical therapies developed through animal research, but you have no right to impose those view on others.

       3. What is misleading about what I said? do you deny that those things happened in the name of science, and are probably still happening? And who are you to “impose” grotesque and inhuman mutilation on innocent animals? Who died and said you can rip animals apart while they are still alive?

14. I do not agree with PETA’s stand on a few things, such as their treatment of companion animals, but I am in whole-hearted agreement with them on the issue of animal experimentation, which is an abomination of modern civilization. Shame on anyone who takes part in this barbarism. And no amount of equivocating and repetition of sweet-sounding names and aims can make the sadistic maiming of innocent animals justified.

15. Lets ask Ingrid(founder of PETA) how many of her staff members have benefited from medical advances, using the testing of animals. Some wear visual aids, others are diabetic and on insulin…hypocrites, to a one.

16. animal research are we sacrficing the few to save the many…..

17. What’s pathetic about this is that the 1700 cats they euthanized could’ve been used for cochlear research akin to that which they were protesting against, or at least theircochleas couldve been used post-mortem. however, because of laws that PETA helped to put in place we are no longer to take cats on death row for animal research and we breed and raise cats specifically for research. So wasteful and unnecessary. If you take the viewpoint that every life is valuable, then these actions are inconsistent with your stance.

18. Come on LucyP, the Virginia Department of Agriculture and consumer services investigation in 2010 found clear evidence that PeTA had (and presumably still has) no intention of rehoming the vast majority of the animals that it receives http://www.petakillsanimals.com/downloads/peta_inspection.pdf

    PeTA’s allegations against no-kill shelters are just as vicious and dishonest as their attacks on research, it’s obvious from the numbers involved and reports by many individuals who gave pets to PeTA in goof faith and former PeTA staff that PeTA have a policy of killing the vast majority of animals that come into their “care” (usaully within 24 hours). It’s no wonder that PeTA supporters struggle so hard to both defend PeTA’s kill policy while at the same time trying to deny it.

    1. wow a whole website dedicated to peta kills animals. im not going to even bother looking. why can’t people put this time and effort into doing something good, like actually making a difference. a whole stupid website dedicated to moaning. i dont agree if PETA do put animals needlessly to sleep, but i am soooo bored of people moaning about PETA when they do sometimes have realistic and barbaric issues which we should be helping. bull fighting. the fur trade. ETC. everyone focuses on the bad points of PETA and expells to much energy moaning, but then the genuine issues get ignored! come on guys and girls!

19. First off Lucy, maggots only eat dead, rotting flesh. They will not “eat animals alive.” In fact, maggots eating flesh promote wound healing.

    1. They “prefer” to eat dead and rotting flesh. They CAN however eat healthy flesh.

       AND it depends on the maggots in question (screwfly can eat life flesh). ANd indeed maggoty animals however are usually saved (I have treated maggot ridden humans before…)

       A

       1. Cochliomyia hominivorax or the New World screw-worm fly was eradicated from the US in the 1980s. Yes, it still exists in 3rd world countries; however, it is not a problem in the US. Therefore, the only maggots in the US eat dead tissue.

    2. not true actually carl. maggots ate my rabbit alive from fly strike until our vet put it to sleep to stop its suffering. was such a young child and it traumatised me seeing that :(

20. There is a world of difference between giving suffering and homeless animals a quick, painless and merciful release, as PETA does, and subjecting animals (more than one – http://www.peta.org/features/uw-madison-cruelty/history-of-abuse.aspx) to days of starvation, metal posts screwed into their skulls, metal coils implanted in their eyes, untreated infections and abscesses, and more—as UW-Madison does to cats in their cruel experiments.

    But whether or not you support experimenting on animals, the facts remain that the vast majority of animals PETA takes in are the ones “no-kill” shelters turn away: those who are ravaged by disease, crippled, vicious because of a lifetime of abuse, being eaten alive by maggots, and more (http://www.peta.org/b/thepetafiles/archive/2009/03/30/Why-We-Euthanize.aspx). No amount of money can buy the good homes that these animals so desperately need. That’s why PETA puts its money toward stopping the problem at its source, by spaying and neutering. In the past 10 years alone, they’ve sterilized nearly 88,000 animals at little to no cost to their guardians, preventing countless cats and dogs from being born only to end up homeless.

    1. Not real clear on how biology works are you? Also, linking to PETA is pointless since they routinely lie and exaggerate their claims.

    2. Can we walk into PeTA’s shelter and see for ourselves the condition of the animals they euthanize?

       1. Not a bad idea Gary… Perhaps PeTA would like to open the door to their “compassion clinic” and let the public see what they are up to?

21. Cat Power, you do know that most of the cats and dogs that PeTA kills are healthy don’t you, and even attack those shelters that don’t operate a “kill” policy http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/peter-worthington/peta-kills-animals_b_1296370.html http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/03/petas-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-history-of-killing-animals/254130/

    Also, the cats in this experiment were not tortured, that’s just a nasty slur that PeTA like to spread, based on their own distortion of the information given to them.

22. Where do you think veterinary medicine to treat your cat comes from?

    Also, scientists are not torturing animals – any pain should be alleviated by the use of anaesthetics. Or would you describe your doctor as torturing you?

23. ‘Uniformed’ now changed to ‘uninformed’

    1. And yes, you are.

24. Uninformed… unless he was actually wearing a surprising uniform – like a Burger King one.

    Darioringach – PETA is against SUFFERING, they euthanize pets to prevent suffering. Scientists torture healthy animals.

    Saying that, I do place animal’s lives ahead of human’s and am an ‘animal supremacist’ for the fact that humans are generally nasty scum and all animals are innocent by nature.

    1. If PeTA would be against suffering then they would support research that helps prevent and eliminate it. That is not the case. If PeTA can kill to prevent suffering, why others cannot? Animals are neither innocent nor guilty — they cannot play by the rules of social contract that give rise to moral behavior.

    2. Your knowledge of biology is lacking.

       Catpower, you said, and I quote:

       – “Saying that, I do place animal’s lives ahead of human’s and am an ‘animal supremacist’ for the fact that humans are generally nasty scum and all animals are innocent by nature.”

       Well.

       Humans ARE animals.

       Your view is ignorant of neuroscience, evolutionary biology and other science which defines the very existence of life on Earth. Your view, though self-defined as ‘animal supremacist’ is based on an anthropocentric falsehood, and merely shows just how much you misunderstand the animal kingdom.

       Many animals have what we humans perceive to be free-will (though modern neuroscience is calling into question the very nature of free-will itself) and do shit things to other animals for fun.
       I refer to other intelligent organisms such as Chimpanzees, Dolphins and Elephants, whose behaviour is similar to our own. Our cognitive sentience is not exclusive to humans – Executive function is not an exclusively human function.

       “Scientists torture healthy animals.”

       Is that it? Is that the only thing you think of with animal testing? That animal testing is nothing more than a sadistic drive to inflict suffering on healthy animals? You are deluded, probably constructing a scenario in your head to fit around some pre-existing belief.

       I love animals, and always have. But I understand animal testing to be a necessary evil, for the good of all of us. Maybe one day we’ll develop good enough technologies to replace model animals in the lab, but until then this is the best we have. Tens of millions of lives of humans and other animals have been saved due to the knowledge gained from animal testing.

       Because of animal testing we have:

       – a rabies vaccine
       – typhoid and cholera vaccines
       – a treatment for rickets
       – medical insulin
       – blood transfusions
       – modern anaesthetics
       – polio vaccine
       – heart transplants
       – kidney transplants
       – asthma inhalers
       – chemotherapy for leukaemia
       – meningitis vaccine
       – canine distemper vaccine
       – modern antipsychotic medications

       the list goes on and on

       Many of these medical breakthroughs are used in veterinary medicine also, and have saved countless animal lives.

       Animal testing is not ideal, but it’s the best tool we have to gain knowledge of the basic science required to reduce suffering in other organisms of the animal kingdom (humans, cats, dogs, kangaroos, tapirs, ocelots, cassowary, orang-u-tan etc etc etc etc whatever). There are stringent measures in place to ensure the suffering is minimal. Suffering itself is a physiological change in the body which needs to be controlled and reduced in animal tests, as it may interfere with the data on what the scientists are ACTUALLY testing for, so it is actually in the best interests of the scientists’ aims to reduce suffering and promote a healthy, natural life for the animal.

       I could go on.

       1. Because of animal testing you have so many wonderful medicines…and because of so said scientists like you, we have up to 280% more cancers today than 20 years ago, with all brand new wonderful chemicals and so useful stuff developed by those brilliant scientists…. You might do much more good for the world by trying to avoid harming humans and other animals rather than trying to cure them only !

25. PeTA’s justifies its killing of companion animals based on “compassion”. Yet, when a scientist uses an animal in order to seek cures to terrible diseases they call it “evil.” Anyone that reserves his/her compassion for animals while excluding humans might rightly be called an “animal supremacist.” PeTA is an animal supremacist organization.

    1. People Eating Tasty Animals: Uncompassionate losers for animals since 1980

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