From the Heartland Institute comes this outrageous story:

PETA Pans Breakthrough in Breast Cancer Treatment

Studies published in the October 20, 2005 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine indicate Herceptin, a drug already shown to prolong survival in patients with advanced breast cancer, can also cut in half the recurrence of a common form of breast cancer when detected in its early stage.

The development in treating breast cancer is being hailed by experts as “stunning” and “very exciting,” but a major animal rights group is criticizing the breakthrough because animals were used in the testing process.

In the studies, Herceptin, developed and manufactured by the biotech research company Genentech, was used with other chemotherapy after cancer surgery for women with breast cancer linked to a protein called HER2, detected in abnormal amounts in about 25 percent of breast cancer cases in the United States.

“The results are simply stunning,’ Gabriel Hortobagyi, a breast cancer specialist at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas, wrote in an editorial in that issue of the Journal. The tests “show highly significant reductions in the risk of recurrence, of a magnitude seldom observed,” Hortobagyi noted.
…
One group not enthusiastic about the news is People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), because Genentech uses animals in its drug testing, a requirement for FDA approval. (No human tests of a drug are allowed until it passes animal tests ruling out toxicity.)

On its “caring consumer” Web site, PETA notes, “October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and breast cancer advocacy groups will be stepping up their efforts to gain supporters.

“Caring people wouldn’t think of offering up their beloved companion animals for hideous experiments,” the PETA site continues, recommending people make donations to organizations that “support cutting-edge non-animal studies” and not those “which fall back on cruel, archaic and unreliable animal tests.”

“The U.S. drug testing system is antiquated,” PETA Media Liaison Jen McClure said. “The FDA statistics on drug approval in this country tell the story. Of all drugs tested safe and effective on animals, 92 percent fail in human trials.”
…
David Martosko, director of research at the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom, replied, “Human life is more precious than animal life. PETA needs to get a grip.

“PETA’s leaders won’t come right out and say it, but they care more about lab rats than sick people,” Martosko said. “If PETA activists are really convinced of their position, the next one who falls gravely ill should decline life-saving treatments that were tested on animals. But that’s not going to happen.

“Without animal testing, we wouldn’t have AIDS therapies, antibiotics, organ transplants, cancer drugs, flu vaccines, X-rays, or hundreds of other medical advances that we all take for granted,” Martosko said. [Emphasis mine.]

PETA’s hypocrisy on this is unbelievable! They complain loudly because experimental treatments for human ailments have to be tested on lab animals, then it turns out that PETA kills animals by the thousand, out of convenience!

From July 1998 through the end of 2004, PETA killed over 12,400 dogs, cats, and other “companion animals” – at its Norfolk, Virginia headquarters. That’s more than five defenseless animals every day. Not counting the dogs and cats PETA spayed and neutered, the group put to death over 85 percent of the animals it took in during 2003 alone.
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PETA raked in nearly $29 million last year in income, much of it raised from pet owners who think their donations actually help animals. Instead, the group spends huge sums on programs equating people who eat chicken with Nazis, scaring young children away from drinking milk, recruiting children into the radical animal-rights lifestyle, and intimidating businessmen and their families in their own neighborhoods. PETA has also spent tens of thousands of dollars defending arsonists and other violent extremists.

PETA claims it engages in outrageous media-seeking stunts “for the animals.” But which animals? Carping about the value of future two-piece dinners while administering lethal injections to puppies and kittens isn’t ethical. It’s hypocritical – with a death toll that PETA would protest if it weren’t their own doing.

(Source: PetaKillsAnimals.com).

I created this poster as a parody of the one PETA did for their Fur-is-Dead campaign to show what I think of the cruel and inhumane treatment they’ve inflicted on the animals in their care. Click here or click the image to see the full-size version.

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[More:]

PETA’s been getting a lot of negative press recently, even the New York Times had an article about the FBI scrutinizing their suspected funding for domestic terrorist organizations:

…David Martosko, director of research for the Center for Consumer Freedom, a group supported by food and restaurant companies that is one of a number of persistent PETA critics.

Mr. Martosko pointed to contributions by PETA to people linked to groups that the F.B.I. describes as domestic terrorist organizations. He said they include $1,500 to a press officer for the Earth Liberation Front, which has been linked to fires at construction sites, and $2,000 to a spokesman for the Animal Liberation Front, which authorities say has been behind attacks against animal research labs, as well as $70,000 to an A.L.F. member who was later convicted of arson.

Then there was that national gathering of activists in 2001, when Bruce Friedrich, a PETA official, said “blowing stuff up and smashing windows” was an effective way to liberate laboratory animals.

Mr. Kerr acknowledged that the donations were made, but argued that they were meant to support free speech and help people defend themselves for exercising what he called “constitutionally protected activities,” not for any illegal acts.

As for Mr. Friedrich’s comments, Mr. Kerr said, “He was reprimanded by PETA, and he apologized.”

But Mr. Martosko insisted the surveillance of PETA is justified.

“These are certainly dangerous people,” he said. “I’m not saying PETA people are bomb throwers, but they certainly encourage people who do.”

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