NYT: Protesters Carry the Fight to Executives' Homes

[diamond14]

Protesters Carry the Fight to Executives' Homes

By ALEX MARKELS
Published: December 7, 2003

LATE one recent evening, an undertaker dispatched a hearse to the home of a biomedical company employee to pick up her body.

No one, however, had died. The woman who answered the door was very much alive, although the coffin was intended for her. Aghast, she suddenly realized that the undertaker had been duped by an animal rights radical into sending the hearse.


If the goal was to scare her out of her wits, the tactic succeeded. Her voice cracked with fear as she insisted to a reporter that she not be identified, lest she and her family be singled out again.


Such "home demo'' protests, most of which are legal, according to the F.B.I., have succeeded in intimidating executives at dozens of companies into ending business relationships with Huntingdon and have helped push executives of fast-food restaurants and grocery chains to adopt more rigorous animal welfare standards. Such success is increasingly touted by activists eager to find ways to stop things like abusive labor and free-trade practices and the cutting of old-growth forests.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/07/business/yourmoney/07enviro.html

[Khephra]

1. That's what you call "thinking outside of the box"

:evilgrin:

[bicentennial_baby]

4. Indeed

;-)

[Tinoire]

2. Huntingdon? I'm all for it. No more playing nice with creeps

Stephens Group used to be a major investor in them until they got tired of paying for major police protection from protestors in front of their HQs- probably still is the major investor behind a false front.




There is NO excuse! NONE!

[Skip Intro]

5. Hard to look at those pics

infuriates me

I'd like some of the PETA, et al bashers to dwell on those pics for a few minutes.

I was party thru that snip and I was saying to myself that these tactics, I mean it could be seen as a threat, were just not justified. Then I saw the pics in your post, which made me remember all the horrible pics I've seen of animals being treated with unbelievable cruelty, and you know - if scaring the hell outta that "woman," and others like her, would prevent even one of our fellow creatures from undergoing this mind-boggling torture, then I'm all for it.

[Occulus]

6. If we could

accurately simulate living systems, this would not be necessary. We can't even simulate multicellular orgamisms completely accurately yet; something like a human is likely still decades away.

Would you want to trust your child to medicine which, although it had never been tested on animals (human child biological systems were simulated on an array of supercomputers), was still deemed 'safe'- knowing that the simulation could not possibly be accurate to the actual living system? It would be so dangerous it would be sold with a disclaimer and/or a waiver.

That's silly. However, it's also a logical conclusion.

Until our computing technology is sufficiently advanced that we can accurately simulate a living human's full biological processes, we must- horribly, tragically, and ultimately emotionlessly- test on living systems. This is the precise reason we have always done so- to not test on animals means we must test on ourselves, or not try to make medicines that could help millions.

That is completely unacceptable.

I'm against animal testing also, but unfortunately I'm able to understand that we currently lack the technology to simulate ourselves to the point that we don't need to test on animals.

Were I in charge of PETA, I would concentrate money and lobbying efforts into devoting research into accurate biological simulation software, as that apprears to be the only way we can end this necessary cruelty.

[Skip Intro]

11. Why do you assume we have the right

to cause such suffering and death?

From where does our right to do this to other living, feeling creatures rise?

There is no excuse for this torture.

And by your logic, we'll only know fully the complete state of being human by slicing and dicing alive a living human being. I think there must be better paths to follow. And we just don't have the right to do what we're doing.

[Tinoire]

7. Thanks :) That's why I put them there

With the best intentions, we too often believe that the cruelty in those labs is justified... until we're face to face with the animals that are tormented.

Huntington is particularly bad. I read some of the undercover accounts of what was going on there and watched one particular clip that threw me into a frenzy. When my dog came to console me (you know how they like to come and see what's up) I was so ashamed to think that human beings could torment helpless animals that way that I just hugged him tightly.

Have you heard about the Fauna Foundation? http://www.faunafoundation.org/index1.html If not, check them out and if you can ever catch the TV segment about them- watch it. It's heart-wrenching and heart-warming at the end! It had my in such tears that I coerced our CEO into making a hefty corporate donation to them last Christmas.

=====
<snip>

Grow's chimps arrived howling and spitting. Many were bald and their normally strong muscles had partially atrophied, the result of being confined to cages at the lab.

Escape From a Rough Life
Their thick files told sad stories. Many were raised as pets or circus animals before being turned over to research labs. Most were in their teens and 20s, not halfway through the normal 60-year life expectancy of a chimp.

<snip>

Billy Jo and Sue Ellen, both HIV-positive, were inseparable as youngsters indentured to a circus act. Donna Rae, also HIV-positive, was a family pet who played guitar and rode a bicycle at parties. At age 12, holding her owner's hand, she was walked into a testing lab.
The chimps bear the scars of the tests. Yoko, who is small, wiry and in constant motion, had 137 liver biopsies. Regis, a playful 9-year-old with the number 645 tatooed on his chest, was "knocked down"—tranquilized—279 times.
Other scars are less visible. Jeanie, who immediately captured Grow's heart during her early visits to NYU, has seizures during which she hits and bites herself. "They weren't going to send her to us because they said she was crazy ... she snapped during the AIDS study," Grow said.

<snip>

http://www.geocities.com/willc7/ChimpsFindHaven.html

[Occulus]

9. Don't get my previous post wrong

those are disturbing and thought-provoking pictures. Good job.

[Tinoire]

10. And those were the "kinder ones"

I understand your point especially coming from a medical family but I can't accept it... Something in me refuses to value human life above animal life... Just like I can't value American life over Iraqi lives (etc)

These are long personal journeys and I don't judge those who see it differently but I do judge those who invest in and coduct unnecessary research. I had to dump my favorite make-up line, Lancome, when I saw pictures of what monkeys and rabbits went through so researchers could test the toxicity of Lancome's mascara. Were my long thicker lashes really worth all that suffering? Color me nuts but I would really prefer women like me, who are vain enough to want those thicker lashes, be the ones to pay the price for our vanity.

It's a difficult question. I am convinced however that almost all of this research would be unnecessary if we lived simpler, healthier lives requiring less medication. The pharmaceutical industry is notorious for having pushed unsafe drugs on women that damaged fetuses and caused such birth defects that now we have to torment animals to fix the mistakes of our pharmaceutical industry... Just one example... I am not well versed enough in this- it's just a personal conviction from having observed how other cultures live...

Peace

[JailBush]

3. My idea of a really cool project:

Gather the home addresses of corporate whores and put them on the Internet. If they contribute money to political candidates, you may be able to get their addresses from your local government (Public Disclosure Commission in Washington State). I've used such records to obtain personal information on literally hundreds of establishment creeps in Seattle.

Unfortunately, putting the information into databases and websites is a lot of work for one person.

[Tinoire]

8. And it works too! That's what made Stephens & others divest

Huntingdon's customer web service has the password cracked and is downloaded in 2003

A Look Inside HLS's Toxprices System

Toxprices is basically an online price list for toxicology experiments. It was developed for HLS by <snip> who work for a company called AIS. They were pretty careless about configuring the server and so we were able to access files that should have been protected.

First of all, they left the Toxprices documentation on the server. Once this was downloaded and studied finding more files was easy.

We found a floor plan ((can't make link work)) of the Princeton Research Center. I'm sure that will come in VERY handy to someone some day!

We obtained HLS's price list and procedure codes for their toxicology experiments. This shows for example that to have a dog experimented on at HLS costs $600 including "disposal costs".

HLS Price List (page 1)

HLS Price List (page 2)

HLS Price List (page 3)

HLS Price List (page 4)

HLS Price List (page 5)

HLS Price List (page 6)

HLS Price List (page 7)

HLS Price List (page 8)

HLS Price List (page 9)

HLS Price List (page 10)

HLS Price List (page 11)

HLS Price List (page 12)

HLS Price List (page 13)

HLS Price List (page 14)

HLS Price List (page 15)

• Keyword List (page 1)
  
• Keyword List (page 2)

We found another list of data including this list of HLS staff. How very careless to leave a list of the names of senior staff lying around!

• List by Field Title

Lastly we found a list of press releases by Don Wagner and Michelle Delaurier (presumably HLS employees).

• Investor Relations Notes

We would like to take this opportunity to thank Joshua, Alex and all at AIS who were so careless and gave us all this valuable information. I wonder if HLS will pay for your services again? Remember HLS, your secrets are our secrets!

http://www.shac.net/toxprices/index.html
=================
CUSTOMERS OF HLS WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE

In our hands we now have hard, irrefutable evidence of the companies dealing with HLS worldwide. No more denials or refusals of dialogue, we know who you are and we know that you are involved with HLS up to your necks.

The really obscene thing about all these companies’ involvement with HLS is that they are fully aware of the truly horrific animal cruelty that has been uncovered at all HLS’s labs and they have all made the decision to carry on dealing with them. They all know about the gross staff incompetence, falsification of data and sloppy operating procedures at HLS uncovered by all the undercover investigations, and yet they carry on contracting their research there.

This raises serious questions about these companies. If they knowingly deal with HLS this shows a complete disregard for how their research is done, and sends out a message to the rest of the contract research industry that is shocking: even if you get exposed for animal cruelty and fraud repeatedly, we will carry on supporting you and giving you work. No wonder there is growing scepticism and mistrust of science in Britain.

The government should have closed HLS down when they had their license revoked in 1997. All SHAC is doing is what the government should have done in 1997 – ensuring the demise of a laboratory whose employees’ behaviour horrified the nation and who have shown that they are not fit to operate.

If you are a customer of HLS exposed in these documents, we urge you to sever your links with them. Their security is appalling, their staff are grossly incompetent, their financial situation is extremely precarious and they are tetering on the verge of liquidation.

VIEW A MAJOR PART OF HLS's CLIENT LIST FROM 2000 - 2002

http://www.shac.net/TARGETS/customers/infiltration/hlsinfiltrated.html

[straitjacket bush]

12. Why not drop off a truckload of prostheses

in front of the WH?