VEGANISM

 http://www.care2.com/causes/environment/blog/new-un-report-says-vegan-diet-vital-to-saving-fossil-fuels-the-environment/

Vegan: - not containing any animal derived product. A person who lives without exploiting animals- for the benefit of the people, for the benefit of the planet, for the benefit of all species-not just some. Vegans do not consume meat, milk, eggs or honey-or any product that has these or there derivatives in their ingredients. Vegans also do not use products containing any leather, wool or silk. Vegans can have a varied diet. Vegans do have a wide choice of foods and products to choose from. A balanced vegan diet (also referred to as a ‘plant-based’ diet) means eating a healthier diet-meeting current healthy recommendations of consuming more fruit, vegetables and wholegrains and consuming less cholesterol and saturated fats. Balanced vegan diets are rich in vitamins, anti-oxidants and fibre and can decrease your chances of suffering from diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke and many cancers. Well-planned plant-based diets are suitable for all age groups and all stages of life.

“What do you eat, then?”
The Western society in which we live has for some time now conditioned people to think of things (in particular food/drink) in terms of the ‘convenience’. I.E.. fast food. It also conditions people from an early age to view food as a means to meet a requirement and does little to educate in terms of what it is that is being eaten. And in particular to how that food is ‘harvested’.- Put simply, many people do NOT make the link between a piece of meat on their plate and the animal that it has come from that has paid with its life. The ‘politics’ of food often see the multi million pound meat and dairy industries dictating policy for the government- Were you aware that Animal Rights groups have been prevented from showing what takes place in slaughterhouses as part of TV advertising campaigns?- “So, what do you eat then?” –The most commonly asked question when people learn of you being a vegan. Vegan diets can vary tremendously. There are some vegans who may consume chips every day!- Just as there are other unhealthy non vegans who may eat this as well! But a balanced, varied diet is the key. For some time now it has been established that it is healthier to eat smaller ‘meals’ on a more regular basis. I.E. four to five ‘meals’ at 2.5 hour to 3 hour gaps rather than the ‘traditional’ three meals a day. For breakfast- take your pick from a whole host of cereals- but I myself prefer the healthiest choice of a shredded wheat type cereal or jumbo oats porridge – either with soya milk or water. –sometimes adding chopped strawberries to add to the taste.

In terms of what else I may eat in a typical day- Fruit- Bananas, Apples, Oranges, Strawberries, Grapes; - obviously the options available are as big as your imagination or the stock of your fruit supplier! As someone who trains on a daily basis – a form of post workout protein intake is vital. Whereas many people that have exercised or done some kind of workout will often opt for fish, egg whites or a protein drink often containing whey or some milk substance in its format. I would recommend the Realeat ‘Chicken style’ pieces-obviously being vegan- they are made from a soya based protein source. In terms of the nutritional breakdown of these ‘chicken style’ pieces they are second to none. A 100 gram serving gives you 29 grams of protein, 1.5 grams of Carbs, 1.6 grams of Fat .Which is far better than both eggs and fish in terms of its nutritional values- less fat, less carbs and almost the ‘perfect’ amount of protein- (the body is only able to take in 30 grams of protein per serving, the rest turning into fat.) At 2.40 for a 350 gram bag from Holland and Barrett- it’s also more financially economical! Other good sources of protein are also available at good health food shops in way of protein powder based shakes you mix with either soya milk or water and coming in Hemp or Pea options depending on your own personal taste preference. My other ‘meals’ will usually be either around 80 grams of brown rice with vegetables- carrots, peas, and broccoli- or pasta with a tomato and mushroom sauce.(although it is important to check the ingredients of pasta as some are made using eggs.) Other options include rye or pumpernickel bread-an excellent source for fibre and complex carbohydrates. And also jacket potatoes, rich in complex carbs and good for protein as well. There are also many ‘convenience’ type foods now being made by companies such as Fry’s and Redwoods- to name but two.- which as well as being available direct through their websites are stocked in many good health food shops. These foods are often soya based alternatives so as well as doing things such as falafel(chick peas)-They also do sausages, chicken, turkey, ham, beef, pepperoni, mince, fish style fingers and cakes, bacon, black-pudding, cheeses, ice creams, cheesecakes and chocolate. Sauces, such as egg free mayonnaise and dairy free salad cream -

The bottom line is that literally anything you like the taste of is now
available in a vegan version!!!

When it comes to non food items like clothing, shoes, belts and stuff commonly referred to as ‘accessories’ – Long gone are the days when it was an uphill task with limited often poor quality imitations being the only choice. Whilst finding footwear on the high street that isn’t leather is still only a small percentage of the stock in most mainstream shoe shops.The internet has now opened up the way to a large, stylish range.- Vegetarian Shoes, Freerangers, Ethical Wares, Beyond Skin and Mooshoes being the main players-(see links of this website) All offering a truly great range of shoes, boots, trainers, belts, jackets, gloves and bags. All these items are made from various forms of breathable micro fibres-They are hard-wearing and act and look exactly the same as leather. Often people may refer to me wearing ‘leather’ shoes and a ‘leather’ belt and using a ‘leather’ wallet.-Thinking they are made from leather, as they clearly can’t see any difference.- I then show them the logo or label and refer them to the relevant website! Leather is simply no longer necessary and is another example of how society has conditioned us to thinking it’s perfectly acceptable to use animals as commodities. ‘Old habits’ die hard. And thus sentient creatures die young.

Wool is also another fabric that is widely used. There are a large range of alternatives available- Again all equally as effective. Clothing which has the appearance of wool and is just as effective can be achieved by using combinations of nylon, polyester or cotton mixes. Too many people are not aware or willing to turn a blind eye to the farming methods involved in the use of sheep. As well as the psychological damage to this gentle and passive animal-being found to be feeling desolate when those close to them are taken away-they being a social herd animal. They are subjected to a series of stresses and abuses throughout their lives. Lambs are castrated with a rubber ring round their testes or by having them cut off with a knife-usually without anaesthetic the same applies to when the tail is docked. Mulesing.- This practice is carried out across Australia, where much of the wool available in the UK comes from and was introduced to reduce the risk of fly-strike. Fully conscious lambs have chunks of flesh sliced from their back end. Lambs are left in excruciating pain and left with a wound that takes weeks to heal. The shearing process itself is also an extremely stressful experience with workers forcibly restraining sheep and as they rush often causing bloody injuries. Some one million sheep are reported to die in Australia alone from exposure after shearing. Other fabrics that are now becoming more widely used and have emerged as the best in ‘alternative’ fabrics- not only because of them being kinder to the environment through their manufacturing process – but because of their appearance and durability are bamboo and hemp.(Check out the advantages in the Threads part of this website in the MERCHANDISE section) The abuse and cruelty also applies to the practices of making honey .Honey is yet another Product that has been marketed as being ‘sweet, tasty, healthy,’ it is no better than sugar in any of these and is quite simply bee vomit. Because of its size the needs of the bee are quite simply overlooked. Bees are social insects that live in a well-organised colony. They work together to keep the colony running smoothly, protecting and feeding one another and undertaking many other tasks together. In commercial honey production bees undergo treatments similar to those used in factory farming. Whole colonies of bees may be killed to save feeding them during the winter and the queen bee has her wings clipped and is artificially inseminated with sperm from decapitated male bees. Beekeepers take the bees honey and to replace it often feed them artificial pollen substitutes and white sugar syrup. The honeybee flies about 500 miles in her working life and produces half a teaspoon of honey. Much of it is taken away. Leading scientists have expressed great concern at the numbers of bees that have died in recent times and the catastrophic effect this could have on the eco system. Colony Collapse Disorder has been widely reported with millions of bees being killed and hundreds of different ‘breeds’ of bee becoming extinct.. Yet still many people continue to pay little regard to whether a product contains honey or to the purchasing of honey and this ridiculous man made practice. Silk – This product is produced by silkworms. A silk cocoon is spun by the silkworm caterpillar by manipulating a thin silk thread in a figure of eight movement some 300,000 times. Once the caterpillar is ready to turn into a moth, she must break down the cocoon in order to emerge. This process would destroy much of the silk; therefore the majority of the moths are killed by being immersed in boiling water or dried in an oven. It takes literally hundreds of silkworms to make just one small silk scarf or tie. All this for another well marketed ‘luxury’ product. Cotton ties are more practical- not needing to be dry cleaned and far more hard wearing. Yet another ridiculous unnecessary man made concept.

Having looked at how these Man made practices effects sheep, bees and silk worms. We should not forget what happens to cows, fish, hens and pigs.
Cattle are gregarious animals that, in a more natural environment, would live in complex social groups. They would choose a leader and form close friendships, grooming and licking one another to show their affection. Cattle–farming upsets this hierarchy in many ways, because new members and divisions of the herd can be very disruptive.Cattle bred for beef may be kept in a variety of systems. Frequently they are kept in windowless fattening sheds until ready for slaughter. They have little or no room to move and no access to the outside, to feel fresh air and sunlight.
Before being killed, cattle are stunned by a shot into their brain from a captive bolt pistol. Frequently they struggle or move around because they are terrified by the situation, so sometimes the bolt misses the mark and the cattle are not stunned. Thus they are conscious while being killed by having their throat slit and bleeding to death.Most cows are now artificially inseminated. The cow is tied up and one hand of the inseminator manipulates the cervix through the rectum wall whilst the other discharges semen into the vagina and cervix using an inseminator gun. This is uncomfortable and stressful for the cow and needless to say the least natural thing nature intended. Dairy- Both the mother and calf suffer greatly at the hands of the milk industry. Dairy cows have been selectively bred to produce ten times more the milk than they would naturally need to feed their calves. This can result in mastitis, a painful udder infection, and lameness when they are forced to stand all day in a cow shed.In order to produce the milk the mother must be kept continually pregnant. So three months after she has given birth and while she is still producing milk, she will be made pregnant again. This puts a huge strain on her. Moreover, the calf is taken away soon after birth so that any milk produced by the cow can be sold for humans to drink. The mother and calf form a strong bond very quickly and the cow continually calls after her calf has been taken away from her. The separation causes a lot of confusion, stress and mental anguish to the calf- as would be the case for any young separated from its mother.The cow is put through this heart breaking and exhausting procedure not once but an average of five times, until she is deemed to be no use to the farmer and killed. Cows have been known to simply keel over and die at around five years of age because of this process. Leading natural lives they usually live to between 25 and 30 years of age. The same processes apply to Organic and free range farming- The only differences being the cow is allowed to roam as opposed to being kept in sheds. The calf is usually disbudded, whereby a heated iron is applied to the horn buds to stop the horns growing. This is painful and stressful. Male cattle are also castrated by methods that cause the animal acute pain.Female calves are often kept to produce milk and join the continuous process as outlined. Male calves are deemed useless and killed or sent abroad and subjected to being kept in veal crates before being killed. Man is the only species that drinks the milk of another species. It is no more natural to drink the milk of a cow than it is to drink the milk of a cat, badger or any other animal. It is not necessary. Women produce milk to suckle their offspring for a reason. It is what nature intended. The practice of children needing to be supplied milk as part of their growth is nothing more than a myth carefully created by the Milk Marketing Board. Calcium is available through a variety of vegetables and also through soya milk. The reason the cow is subjected to this is because Man has bred them to produce more milk than any other creature- He treats them like ‘mass milk producing machinery’ and disregards them when he has finished with them. Fish Supper? Fish suffer . Not only do fish feel pain, they are very sensitive to stimuli. Some of their senses are far more developed than ours. Fish are highly responsive to touch and have an incredible sense of smell. They have sensory hairs along their sides that allow them to detect gentle currents and vibrations and sense the motion of other animals.Like other animals, fish use the sensation of pain to help them survive. It tells them when they should withdraw immediately. It is pain that motivates a fish to fight vigorously when hooked, in a desperate attempt to get away.Various types of nets are used in sea-fishing including drift nets and bottom trawls. Drift nets may be over two miles long. Fish that swim into the net become trapped by their gills when they try to back out. Marine mammals, such as seals and porpoises, also become trapped and drown when they are unable to reach the surface to breathe.Bottom trawls are dragged over the seabed and as well as fish catch every other species living on the seabed. As the fish are dragged from the ocean they experience decompression which often causes the eyes to pop and the swim bladder to rupture.Many are crushed to death under the weight of other dying fish and those that survive are left to suffocate when removed from the water or may be gutted alive. The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that all seventeen of the world’s major fishing areas have either reached or exceeded their natural limits. Put quite simply-Man is overfishing and threatening the existence of not only most of the species of fish but also an whole ecosystem that birds, mammals and smaller organisms depend on to survive.
The rearing of farmed fish can be compared to other types of factory farming. With very limited space the fish can barely exercise and injuries to the snout and fins are common. These are generally caused by rubbing against the net or by collision or aggression between fish as they fight for space. Wild salmon migrate over hundreds of miles and this is completely frustrated by keeping them in the small static cages that fish-farming involves. The stocking density of salmon is equivalent to keeping a two-foot salmon in a bath, whilst trout have even less space to move in. Few consumers realize that the true cost of cheap salmon includes the death of millions of other animals who are seen as predators. Birds, seals, mink, otters and many other animals are killed by fish-farmers.
Before slaughter fish are starved for up to three weeks. They may then be killed by electrocution, by a blow to the head with a club or by being frozen to death in ice. Alternatively the fish’s gill arches are cut or torn and life is literally drained as they are left to bleed to death in the tank. Fish farms may be rife with disease so large quantities of chemicals are used in an attempt to control it. Defra has noted that, “To date there are no easy treatments for any of these diseases.”
Fish-farming also affects wild fish, which are fed to farmed fish such as salmon, trout and cod. It takes up to three tons of wild fish to produce one ton of farmed salmon and up to five tons to produce a ton of farmed cod or haddock. On the subject of fish- many do not realize the physical and psychological harm caused by the ‘sport’ of Fishing by anglers. Hooks can damage mouths. The membrane of the body of the fish being can be damaged and infected from being handled. This is a far from ethical pastime.
Hens, ducks, geese and turkeys- Eggs and Poultry. Hens can be very sociable. They enjoy sunbathing and like turkeys love to dust-bathe in order to keep clean. As with other birds mother hens’ desire to build a nest for their young is very strong. They have a strong bond with their chicks which begins even before they are hatched with the chick and hen calling to each other. In the wild, ducks and geese spend much of their time swimming and flying and may travel for hundreds of miles during migration. Geese choose one partner who they stay with for life through thick and thin whilst ducks live and sleep in groups.
On factory farms these birds are taken from their mothers before birth, thus being denied most of their natural types of behaviour. No water is provided for ducks and geese to swim in and there is no chance for hens and turkeys to dust- bathe. They are crammed into sheds where the stench of ammonia from their droppings is intense and often leads to respiratory problems. Selective breeding means that these young birds grow very fast. Their bones have no time to become strong enough to hold their weight and many birds have broken bones and lose the ability to fly. An investigation by Compassion in World Farming found crippled birds in chicken farms unable to reach food and drink, carcasses trampled by live birds and piles of decomposing bodies left to rot.

The Killing. Birds are commonly hung upside down in shackles by their feet and passed through a bath of electrified water which should stun them before their throats are slit. The birds are killed at the rate of 8-10,000 per hour and left to bleed to death.

Egg Production. Most laying hens are kept in battery cages with several birds to one cage. The amount of room in which each bird spends her life is roughly the same size as an A4 sheet of paper or a microwave oven. In these conditions hens often fight. To prevent this they are de-beaked by having the tips of their beak sliced off in a de-beaking machine. This is an agonizing procedure which leaves the hen in pain for days. It has been found that hens who have been de-beaked avoid using their beaks except for feeding. Privacy is very important to an egg-laying hen but it is utterly denied to her. Her desire to make a nest is also very strong, but again this is simply not possible.
Other systems such as free-range and barn also bring their own set of problems. There is more aggression leading to greater feather pecking and cannibalism. So as in battery cage systems farmers often again deploy the de-beaking procedure. As in the battery system, half of all chicks are gassed at day one because they are males and hence no good for egg laying. Whether a bird is in battery, free range or barn- in the egg farming system she will be killed after just 18 months. At this point the laying cycle of the hen decreases from one egg per day to 85%- five in a week as opposed to seven. - This is deemed ‘economically unviable’ and so the ‘product’ is ‘terminated. Depending on the breed the hen would have lived to the age of around five to seven years. So, when you buy any egg-be it free range, organic or battery- it all ends the same way-Birds being murdered less than a third into their natural lifespan.
Pigs. Pigs are sociable, tactile and inquisitive animals. They like to roll in mud to keep cool and protect their sensitive skin from the sun. They are very clean and given the chance they will always keep their ‘latrine’(communal lavatory) separate from their living quarters. In a more natural envirionment the sow would build a nest upto three feet high for her babies. In the factory farm the sow is given a concrete floor with no straw and the nesting instinct is totally frustrated. The sow can barely move and often ends up crushing some of her piglets. In the wild the sow constructs the nest so that crushing cannot happen but in the factory farm the death of piglets in this way is inevitable. So to ‘combat’ this the sows piglets are taken away after three weeks, causing great distress to mother and babies. The piglets are still reliant upon their mother at this time and in a natural environment would still be suckling. Most piglets have their teeth clipped and tails cut off to stop them fighting and tail chewing. They are put into small pens or metal cages and after about six weeks go to fattening pens where they have little room to move and never see fresh air. Their intelligent, enquiring minds are dulled down by boredom and total lack of stimulation. Pigs to be killed are stunned with electric tongs or gas, hoisted up by one leg and have their throats slit. They are then put into a tank of boiling water to remove their bristles. It is estimated that in the UK approximately a million pigs a year regain consciousness before they die from loss of blood. There are reports of pigs being boiled alive because they had not been stunned properly. This is what peoples money supports and finances when they buy their bacon butties and pork sausages.

Are your meals costing the earth?

World meat production has quadrupled in the past 50 years and farmed animals now outnumber people by more than three to one. In other words, the livestock population is expanding faster than the human population and is projected to continue to expand as the Chinese middle classes increasingly adopt meat centered diets and as the Western taste for meat, eggs and dairy products continue to grow(Along with our waistlines). This trend will contribute to continuing malnourishment in the developing world, global warming, widespread pollution, deforestation, land degradation, water scarcity and species extinction because more animals mean more crops are needed to feed them: the planet cannot feed both increasing human and farmed animal populations. So if we are trying to reduce our car use, limit the amount of water we waste, become more ‘energy-efficient’ and generally lessen our envirionmental impact, we must also examine the most important factor of our personal ecological footprint: what we eat. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)2005 report states that hunger causes the death of more than five million children a year. With the world’s population expected to increase from 6 billion to 10 billion by 2050, one of the most urgent questions we now face is how we, as a species, will feed ourselves in the 21st century.
Land availability is one of the main constraints on food production. The Earth has only a limited area of viable agricultural land, so how this land is used is central to our ability to feed the world. Western diets play a large part in depriving the world’s poor of much needed food. This is because livestock consume more protein, water and calories than they produce. Most of the protein from vegetable feeds is used for the animal’s bodily functions and not converted to meat, eggs or milk. Europe imports 70 per cent of its animal feeds- often from countries with high levels of malnutrition. A varied vegan diet uses just one fifth of the land needed for a typical European omnivorous diet: Quite simply, we do not have enough land to feed everyone on an animal-based diet. So while 840 million people do not have enough food, we continue to waste valuable agricultural land by obtaining only a small fraction of its potential calorific value. The world’s population is increasing and viable agricultural lands are diminishing. If we are to avoid future global food scarcity we must find sustainable ways of utilizing our natural resource base. The amount of pounds of protein produced per acre of land is as follows: Beef-100
Pork-200, Milk-220, Eggs-300, Rice-300, Wheat-700, Potatoes-800, Soya-1050.
Industrial livestock production is unsustainable and unjustifiable.
The World Resources Institute (WRI) states that nearly 40 per cent of the world’s agricultural land is seriously degraded. The international Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) predicts that if land loss continues at current rates, an additional 150-360 million hectares could go out of production by 2020. Increasing population is therefore not the only factor we have to consider when looking at future food production. Viable agricultural lands are diminishing, so there is less and less productive soil per person. Continuing to intensify production on already degraded lands is not a sustainable solution. Overgrazing is blamed for 35 per cent of soil degradation, deforestation for 30 per cent and agriculture for 27 per cent. These main causes are directly or indirectly related to the consumption of animal products. It is a vicious cycle in which declining soil fertility pushes people to find new land to expand the agricultural base. This often leads to deforestation, which in turn causes soil degradation. This process is the epitome of unsustainable agricultural practice.
Award Winning Science Writer Colin Tudge said “ If present trends of meat eating continue, then by 2050 the worlds livestock will be consuming as much as 4 billion people do …” so switching to a vegan diet can help to prevent further deterioration of precious fertile lands.
We need forests. They store large amounts of carbon dioxide, release oxygen, regulate climate, prevent floods, protect soils and harbour millions of varieties of plant and animal species. They are also home to thousands of indigenous people whose livelihoods and ways of life are rapidly being destroyed.
Forests are being destroyed not only to provide wood, paper and fuel but also to provide land for grazing cattle and for growing crops to feed to farmed animals. WRI assessment suggests that 20-30 per cent of the world’s forest areas have already been converted to agriculture. As agricultural lands become more and more degraded, most of the land for replacement and expansion comes from the world’s forests. The expansion of agricultural land accounts for more than 60 per cent of worldwide deforestation. Most of this land is used to graze beef cattle. Two World Bank specialists in agriculture concluded: “Livestock- induced ranching in rainforests has led to significant loss in plant and animal bio-diversity, especially in Central America 320,000-430,000 hamburgers per year and South America about 1.1 million hamburgers per year.” This process has become known as the ‘hamburgerisation’ of the forests.
No one knows just how many species there are on Earth. Estimates range from 2 million to 100 million but most experts opt for a best estimate of about 10 million. Of these only 1.4 million have been named and only a small percentage of these have been studied in any detail.
The World Conservation Union(IUCN) Red List of threatened species shows that 18 per cent of all the vertebrates they assessed in 2002 were threatened with extinction. This included 24 per cent of mammals and 30 per cent of fish. 49 per cent of plants assessed in 2002 were threatened with extinction. It has been estimated that at the current rate of species loss is between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than it would be naturally. Statistics such as these have led many envirionmental scientists to believe that we are in the process of a mass extinction. The loss of genetic diversity will have serious consequences for food production and envirionmental sustainability. Habitat destruction is the single greatest factor in species being lost forever. Deforestation, land degradation and intensive arable farming all represent the destruction of ecosystems, resulting in massive loss of biodiversity.
A report commissioned by the FAO, USAID, and the World Bank concluded that industrial livestock production contributes to species loss through ‘its demand for concentrated feed, which change land use and intensifies cropping. The production of feed grains, in particular, adds additional stress on biodiversity through habitat loss and it damages in ecosystem functioning.’ Tropical rainforests, although covering only 10 per cent of the world’s surface, are thought to contain 90 per cent of all species-many of which have never been studied.
The wholesale destruction of forest environments to provide grazing land for cattle and to grow feed for livestock directly contributes to loss of biodiversity. Other factors affecting species depletion include pollution, climate change and invasion by introduced species. All these factors relate directly to livestock production. The United Nations Water Assessment Programme states: “At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Earth, with its diverse and abundant life forms, including over six billion humans, is facing a serious water crisis.” This situation is predicted to worsen as our population expands and consumption per capita increase with more and more people adopting resource-intensive Western meat-eating habits. Although statistics vary, all agree that it takes over five times the amount of water to feed a meat eater compared with that used to feed a vegan. This is largely because cropland has to be irrigated to make it agriculturally viable and to increase and improve crop yields. As has been shown, much of this land is entirely wasted by growing feed crops for livestock rather than food for direct consumption by people. The water used on this land- as well as that consumed directly by livestock- represents yet another wasted resource. Since a large percentage of the crops fed to European farmed animals are grown in developing countries, this wasted water comes not only from European reserves but also from the very countries where drinking water is most scarce. Agriculture is also the number one water polluter. Slurry from cattle and other livestock pollutes groundwater, streams and rivers. The global figure for waste from industrial livestock systems is in the region of 8 billion tones per year. Manure and slurry contains high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus. These elements can leach into groundwater and run off to pollute lakes, killing the fish and endangering the health of other animals. Ammonia is also given off and can cause acid rain. Additionally, demand for animal feed is one of the major reasons behind the intensification of crop production. It is estimated that over 4.5 billion litres of pesticide are now used in the UK. The harmful envirionmental effect of pesticides is now well documented. They can affect wildlife populations- from beetles to songbirds- and many are also deemed detrimental to human health. By switching to a vegan diet you will help improve water quality and you will also significantly reduce the world’s water requirements.

The single greatest threat to marine ecology is over fishing. Catch sizes now regularly exceed sustainable levels, a trend that could have devastating consequences for the health of our oceans. Yet worldwide demand is increasing.
The problems caused by fishing fleets are not limited to the fish species they target. The marine envirionment is little understood and the effect on the ecosystem of the removal of thousands of fish every day is difficult to estimate. However, some consequences of large-scale commercial fishing (particularly those using driftnets, purse seine nets and trawl nets) are obvious.

With wild fish populations crashing because of over fishing, attention has turned to fish farming to try and pick up the shortfall. Aquaculture is now the world’s most rapidly expanding area of animal production. This has led to enormous problems. Farmed fish are fed on meal made from wild fish. More than three tones of wild caught fish are needed to produce one tonne of farmed salmon. For newly farmed marine species such as halibut and cod, the ratio of wild fish used is feed to farmed fish produce is about 5:1. Far from helping to prevent wild fish stocks from plummeting further fish farming actually increases over fishing.
Fish are given chemical treatments in their feed or bathed in organophosphates or synthetic pyrethroids to try to limit infestations by parasitic sea lice. Many of the chemicals used are listed as dangerous under the EC Dangerous Substances Directive, yet they are being released into our oceans and used to treat fish that will be eaten by humans.

Additionally, fish waste and the chemicals used to treat disease and infestations are all envirionmental pollutants. By stopping eating fish-be it farmed or wild-caught- we can reverse the destruction of ocean envirionments.
When carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are released into the air they blanket the Earth, trapping heat inside the atmosphere.. This is known as the greenhouse effect and it keeps our planet at a temperature at which life can thrive. The problem is the massive increase in the output of these and other greenhouse gases since industrialization has caused the effect to intensify.
Meat eating is responsible for at least a third of all biological methane emissions.
Methane is produced by bacteria in the stomachs of sheep, cattle and goats and is released through the animal’s bodily functions. Molecule for molecule, methane is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. The WorldWatch Institute recently reported “American feed for livestock takes so much energy to grow that it might as well be a petroleum byproduct.”
Factory Farming uses massive inputs of fossil fuels. The vast majority of this energy is used in producing, transporting and processing feed. A vegan diet uses substantially less energy than a diet based on animal products and therefore contributes much less to air pollution, acidification, oil spills, habitat destruction and global warming. A University of Chicago study comparing a typical US meat based diet with a vegan diet found that the typical US diet generates the equivalent of nearly 1.5 tonnes more carbon dioxide per person per year than a vegan diet. The authors of the study concluded that it would be more envirionmentally effective to go vegan than to switch to a petrol electric hybrid car.

It is widely agreed that agriculture is one of the most envirionmentally damaging activities that man undertakes. As consumers, we can make a difference by choosing food that is produced in an envirionmentally sustainable way. As has been shown, livestock consume more protein and calories than they produce. Also, farmed fish require 2 kilos of feed to produce 1 kilo of food. ‘Poultry meat’ requires 3 kilos of feed to produce the same amount of food. ‘Pork’ requires 5 kilos and ‘Beef’ requires 10 kilos- The source of this being the non partisan Council for Agricultural Science and Technology. The land used would be better deployed to grow 1 kilo of food for consumption. The amount of water required to ‘yield such crops’ is also clearly better for the planet when it is non animal.. Whereas Potatoes require 500 litres,Wheat 900 litres, Maize 1400 litres, Rice 1900 litres and Soya beans 2000 litres. Chicken requires 3500, Beef needs 100,000!

We should all be aware that of the impact that our lifestyles have on the world around us: Switching to a vegan diet will significantly limit your individual impact on our increasingly threatened envirionment. Discover for yourself what difference a vegan diet can make by visiting http://www.earthday.net/footprint
This site will help you to calculate your ecological footprint. First put in omnivore, then change it to vegan and see the difference this makes!
Environmentally conscious consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the benefits of buying locally produced food to cut down on ‘food miles’-the distance travelled by lorry, ship, or aero plane by our food before it reaches our plates.
When considering food miles, many people think only of the miles travelled by the ‘end product’. They think that British chicken, pork or beef is an envirionmentally friendly option because the animals have not arrived from overseas. However, British animals increasingly eat feeds such as soya, manioc and tapioca that have been imported from abroad; consequently the envirionmental footprint left by eating British meat can be just as high as eating imported animal products. Vegan foods are better for the envirionment because eating vegetable protein and carbohydrates directly rather than through the intermediary of an animal, uses less land. Eating locally grown vegetables is better still.
Saving the planet is one reason to go vegan. Saving the lives of thousands of animals you would have eaten is another. Improving your health and increasing your lifespan is a third. You will also help to stop the spread of animal diseases such as BSE and Bird Flu to human beings. Your diet will not contribute to an increase in anti-biotic resistant superbugs such as MRSA.
Joining the Vegan society helps to continue to promote ways of living that are free from animal products- for the benefit of people, animals and the envirionment. As a member you receive an excellent highly informable quarterly magazine the more members the society has the more projects can be financed to continue to take the message into schools, hospital caterers, product manufacturers, healthcare professionals, the media and the public at large.
You don’t have to be a vegan to join the society- you just have to be willing to make a difference. http://www.vegansociety.com
Some commonly held misbeliefs or theories that just don’t add up.
Ever heard of natural selection?
Yes. It is where the living organism that is best fitted to its environment will survive in the struggle for life and pass down its genes to its offspring (whilst others perish); thus continuing those successful characteristics. It is not a moral guideline or a framework. If it were, we would not give glasses to the short sighted, medicine to the ill, or protection to the weak.
People are starving in the world; isn’t it more important to help humans rather than animals?
Firstly, humans are animals and it is possible to help both human and non-human animals. Furthermore, a vegan diet requires a lot less land and water to support it than a non vegan one and therefore veganism is one of the main solutions to the problem of feeding a growing world population with the limited resources the Earth has to offer.
What would happen to all of the farmed animals if everyone became Vegan?
We only have a high number of farmed animals because we artificially breed them. The world wouldn’t become vegan overnight- the meat, dairy, and egg industries would gradually decline. This would enable farmers to reduce the number of animals they breed as demand falls. All animals should be left to live lives in a natural envirionment where they can live out their natural life.
I like to see farmed animals in the countryside
In a vegan world there would be more habitats for wildlife. Wouldn’t you prefer to look at healthy wildlife that includes what you class as ‘farmed’ animals that have been naturally raised as opposed to selectively bred farmed animals? In a vegan world, birds and other wildlife would increase in numbers as their woodland and parkland habitat returned.
What would happen to livestock farmers and the fishing industry if everyone became vegan?
The economy is constantly changing and we are always finding new ways to adapt.
Typewriter manufacturers lost their jobs when the personal computer became popular- but look at how many jobs the computer industry has now created. As more people become vegan, there will be an abundance of jobs for farmers: growing fruit, vegetables, and grains or as when any industry reaches an end the people in it can be re-trained for another profession
The animal was dead before I started eating it.
By eating it you created the demand for its death. If no-one ate meat, no animals would be killed and sold for their meat. We have a moral choice and to try to negate responsibility is no defense.
Eating meat is natural.
Human beings are omnivores and don’t need to kill other beings in order to live naturally. Vegans and vegetarians do live longer than those who eat meat. Eating meat is no more natural than not eating meat. Would you eat your dog or your cat or a fellow human being if you had the choice of other natural food choices?
Why do you think animals have rights?
If a being can feel pain and experience suffering, they should not be deliberately made to suffer. A bird has a higher level of consciousness than a new born human baby. If we want to give rights to human babies and want to be consistent, we must extend rights to all sentient beings. To not do so is speciesm. In the past there were those who said the Negro was less worthy of rights than the white man and those that said women were less worthy of rights than men. Society rightly frowns upon and legislates against those who are either racist or sexist. To progress as a society we must also act against all speciest actions and practices.

Click here for some tasty, healthy vegan food recommendations.

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David Ryde was Britain's lowest prescribing doctor who cured his patients in a novel way. His name should been a household word but officialdom ignored him.

If it's a prescription you want then Dr.David Ryde is probably not your man. This vegan GP built a career out of saying no bottles of ‘jollop'.

There were some 35,000 general practitioners in Britain when Dr.David Ryde MB, BS, FRCGP, was practicing and none wrote out fewer prescriptions than him. The UK's lowest prescribing doctor had discovered that diet was the answer to many health problems, not pills and potions. There was clearly something in it because he had some of the best health outcomes in the UK.

He first became a vegetarian as a 12 year old - a rarity then - and confounded all the cautions by becoming captain of athletics, swimming and rugby at school. When he became a doctor he went back to meat eating as other doctors insisted that meat provides first class protein and plants provide second class and you need the best! Eventually, David's concern for animals won through and in the 1970's he gave up meat- quietly, without fuss and without telling his patients. Soon after he went vegan.

His belief that animal products were linked to ill health was instinctive but when a growing amount of scientific literature began to appear, he was convinced. A simple observation gave him the courage to begin prescribing changes in diet instead of potions and it wasn't too long before he started to speak out and give lectures on diet and health.

David Ryde was successfully treating angina and other heart conditions, high cholesterol levels, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, strokes and even rheumatoid arthritis by getting people to switch to a vegan diet. His practice was in one of the poorest parts of London's East End and he saw more than his share of all these conditions.

He retired from full time work in 1993 but continued as a locum. One patient he saw had had three heart attacks and a quadruple by-pass, leading to his retirement at the age of 48. He was almost entirely wheelchair bound.

David's suggestion of a change in diet was received with skepticism but the man did it and limited salt to two grams per day. Six months later David heard that he had given up all medication and no longer used his wheelchair. The man's regular doctor was disinterested in the reasons. “ When I explained that it was a vegan diet which was responsible I could almost hear him thinking- ‘another lunatic…'.” Says David.

He treated an overweight Rabbi who had a serious heart condition but then lost touch with him. A year or more later, he read a report in The Vegan headlined ‘How David Ryde Changed My Life.' The Rabbi had subsequently walked from John O'Groats, run a marathon, cycled around Britain and had taken up backpacking as a hobby!

Doctors can be extraordinarily resistant to new ideas, even when they're backed with science. When David's own receptionist had severe headaches, he felt it was better she consulted another doctor. The diagnosis was high blood pressure and medication for life so David encouraged her to adopt a vegan regime. She did and her blood pressure almost halved. When she returned to the doctor who had prescribed medication, he was naturally delighted with her improvement- until he was told the reason. He accused her of following a stupid diet and insisted she take the pills or get out. She didn't and did.

“Compared to meat eaters, long term vegans live on average six years longer and spend about one fifth of the time in hospital over the age of 60”, insists David Ryde. “The truth is that most people eat two to three times more fat and protein than they need and we're just beginning to discover that animal protein may be as damaging to health as fat and cholesterol. The medical establishment just doesn't want to know. They automatically resist any new advances.”

“ I believe that in 1991, the American Diet Association produced a report virtually urging people to go vegetarian and sent the US Government into shock. So much of agriculture is dependent upon livestock that such a change would wreck the US economy, they said. The report never appeared.”

David Ryde himself has experienced the lethargy of officialdom. The DHSS – as it was then - invited him to London to discuss his low prescribing and excellent outcomes. He hoped this would be the start of a revolution in primary health care and explained his simplicity of approach, asking what they intended to do. “Absolutely nothing”, was the answer. Such an approach would simply be unacceptable to GPs they said.

You couldn't get a better example of veganism than Dr.David Ryde. A keen sportsman, he was doctor to all the World Jewish Games, an honary member of the British Association of Sport Medicine, a county athlete and rugby player and served on the medical sub committee of the British Olympic Association for 15 years. He is now 77, extremely active and still looks as though he could take his place in scrum.

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by Matt Prescott When I was growing up, my mother often told me about her relatives in Poland who were murdered by Nazis. The Holocaust was not a distant historical event to me. The pain of the Jews and others who were locked in concentration camps, tortured and killed was visible on my mother's face, and as a Jew, I felt a special obligation to try and understand what kind of mindset enabled some people to treat others as though they had no worth. Like so many relatives of Holocaust victims and survivors, I want to make sure it never happens again.

I knew I had to refuse to see others as different or inferior, because that is how the Nazis saw the people they rounded up and imprisoned. I would not distance myself from anybody who was capable of feeling pain, I decided. But soon I realised that ‘anybody' was really ‘any being'. Animals, like people, are made of flesh and blood. They feel pain when someone harms them and try to escape when they are caged. They have families, complex social orders and distinct personalities. Once I realised this, I knew that I could not play a role in their oppression by eating their flesh.

I was not alone in coming to this conclusion; in fact, many who survived the Holocaust or had family members who were killed had also made this very comparison that I was just beginning to see. They, too, realized that the same mindset that made the Holocaust possible- that we can disrespect and abuse those we decide are ‘different' or ‘inferior'- is what allows us to commit atrocities against animals every day. The Nobel prize-winning Yiddish author Isaac Bashevis Singer, who fled from Europe in 1935 during the rise of anti-Semitism, once wrote, “ In relation to animals, all people are Nazis.” He was a vegetarian and understood that victimisation always had common roots and that the murder of Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals during the Holocaust directly parallels the way we confine, abuse and slaughter animals today. Singer's writings, along with the words of other Holocaust survivors and Jews, which you can see at MassKilling.co.uk, inspired PETA's(People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) ‘Holocaust on Your Plate' traveling exhibit, with its eight 60 square –foot panels of factory farm and slaughterhouse scenes side by side with photos from Nazi death camps. The display was funded by a Jewish philanthropist who has spent the past 25 years affiliated with a leading Holocaust organisation.

The display is controversial, and as I have taken it from city to city, people have responded with gasps, tears and sometimes indignation. But I hope that they will be reminded that the Holocaust was allowed to happen because millions of people turned their backs on cruelty by closing their eyes to the horrors happening behind the tightly shut doors of concentration camps.When they see the exhibit, they get a glimpse of what goes on every day behind the closed doors of factory farms and slaughterhouses. How can you look inside a broiler chicken shed with its 30,000 prisoners forced to sit in their own waste or watch a lorryload of cattle prodded into the slaughterhouse with electric shocks, the terror showing in their eyes, and not see the similarity to the Holocaust?

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum reminds us, ‘ The Holocaust provides a context for exploring the dangers of remaining silent, apathetic and indifferent in the face of others' oppression.' Please, help us end animals' holocaust.

“Use of the term ‘holocaust' to describe today's mistreatment of countless billions of animals should not trouble anyone – the torture and killing and breeding to kill should.'

David Cantor, (half of whose family perished in the Holocaust

MAKE HISTORY'S LESSONS COUNT!- Embrace a vegan diet that respects other forms of life.

Visit http://www.Goveg.go.uk or for a free vegetarian starter kit, call 0800 328 9621.

Read more about ‘Holocaust on Your Plate' at http://www.MassKilling.co.uk

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Pharmaceutical companies hype themselves up as saviours of humankind – their latest prescription is GM foods.

You just knew it didn't you? The committee charged with deciding whether genetically modified plants should be grown in Britain has given the go ahead to GM maize. Monsanto's placemen have delivered the goods!

Cheering the fact that two other crops were rejected is merely clutching at straws- the committee did what it intended to do and established a principle. The Government has speedily accepted the recommendation so all future debates on GM will exclude any moral dimension, forcing us to concentrate on technical arguments- how many lacewings can you stand on the head of a pin type of thing.

Checking how far pollen travels or how many insects survive the short trial period is like checking the safety of arsenic by reading the bottle label for typographical errors. It is impossible to test any GM plant for the multitude of accidental happenings and the mixing of genes that can take place in the environment or the long-term effects they might have on human health.

The food allergies that afflict so many people are all confined to about ten foodstuffs- dairy, oranges, coffee, chocolate and so on. The reason, according to author Dr.Neal Barnard, is that none of these foods formed part of our evolutionary diet in Africa. Tens of thousands of years and some of us still can't cope with a bar of choccy crisp! Imagine how we might react to genes or viruses- used as markers in the GM production process- that are entirely new to us.

But see, they've got me at it, trying to argue on issues I can't prove. There are much more fundamental questions to be asked such as why are GM crops required in the first place and what is the track record of those who control them?

Pharmaceutical companies, the most powerful multinational corporations on Earth, are the pioneers of GM technology. Most are US based, with some in Western Europe and Japan. They have an unhealthy closeness to politicians and spawned the organs of world control, such as the World Trade Organisation, World bank and International Monetary Fund, which they manipulate like puppets. The 10 biggest pharmaceutical corporations turn over $380 billion dollars annually so we are talking mind-boggling power.

The image they promote is that of humankind's saviours, developing new drugs and treatments to cure all known ills. In fact they cure almost nothing, merely alleviate the symptoms and frequently produce damaging side effects into the bargain. In fact, prescription drugs are now the fourth biggest cause of death in the US.

For non-lethal ailments such as indigestion, piles and headaches there is ca bewildering choice of potions but one company's products usually contain much the same ingredients as another's.Then there are the big killers-affluent, degenerative diseases such as heart disease, strokes, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes and some cancers.This is where the big profits are made. The day a pharmaceutical company admits that these ailments are mostly a product of lifestyle and can only be prevented through environmental clean up and diet, is the day the world will end.

Witness the Bush regime's recent pronouncement on obesity. It has challenged the World Health Organisation's report which says the answer is to eat more fruit and vegetables and less animal fat and for all governments to promote healthy foods. This is faulty science, according to Bush, as he tries to protect food industry profits at the expense of our health.

It is all part of the greed, which has driven health care in entirely the wrong direction. Only two percent of health expenditure goes on prevention and the UK health service has been lumbered with a massive 8 billion pounds tab for pills and potions as a result. Every pharmaceutical company has teams of salespeople on the road like double-glazing sellers, they have one aim only – to increase sales figures irrespective of the actual human need.

So their mission statement that they want to prevent human suffering is hogwash. They have a vested interest in maintaining high levels of disease and global inequality.

Medical intervention is most urgently needed in the developing world yet there is little or no research into treatments for these diseases of poverty because pharmaceutical companies know that those affected can't afford to buy the drugs they develop. Even when treatments are available, as in the case of AIDS and HIV, the industry fights tooth and nail to keep the prices high and has no interest in helping those in greatest need.

Currently, 42 million people are infected with HIV- 100 million by the end of the decade and only five percent are receiving treatment. It is the biggest health problem in the world and a moral outrage. South Africa has seen life expectancy slump from around 65 to 42 and doesn't even know how to begin coping with the resulting millions of AIDS orphans.

The cost of HIV treatment in the West is about $10-15,000 per patient per year. Supplying generic drugs can reduce that cost to just $150, saving millions more from misery and dramatically reducing the number of infected babies (genetic drugs contain the same active ingredients as the branded varieties). Despite a glaring human need, the pharmaceutical industry issued a lawsuit against the South African government to stop it buying generics but such was the world's revulsion that it was forced to drop the case. The way was clear; it seemed, for affordable treatments at last.

What a joke!

Enter President Bush again and his January 2003 State of the Union address. The US will provide $15 billion to fight AIDS and HIV, he said. Now, a year later, barely a single dollar has been provided and only $1 billion has been earmarked for the internationally- backed Global Aids Fund. This is the only money that can be used for buying the much-needed generic drugs. So what will happen to the rest?

A new drugs tsar is to be appointed from-you've guessed it, the pharmaceutical industry- who will ensure that most of the remaining $14 billion is used only to buy expensive, branded drugs from US companies, leaving millions of people without hope who could have been treated with generics.

Many impoverished countries were banking on manufacturing their own generic drugs now that the 20-year patents on HIV treatments are beginning to expire. This lifeline was also snatched away. As part of trade negotiations, new barriers have been erected which effectively extend patents by a further five years. It is tantamount to genocide but there is still more to this shameful story.

High import tariffs discriminate against the poorest countries- the ones that big business tell us they care so much about- preventing them from developing their own industries and forcing them them to remain as suppliers of incredibly cheap cash crops such as animal fodder. Thirty six of the poorest African countries- at the bottom of the economic heap with more than half the population living in absolute poverty- have been forced to privatize their state services, slash health and education spending and shift scarce resources into growing yet more cash crops. Even this doesn't excuse Africa from its $15 billion annual foreign debt interest payments- a figure which dwarfs any supposedly benevolent gestures from Bush, Blair or their multinational backers.

Privatisation includes Western multinationals taking control of water provision and hiking up the price to a point where, in Mali for example, the cost can account for as much as 70 per cent of a farmers income. The result has been entirely predictable- once marginal but productive land turning to desert because no one can afford to irrigate it and the subsequent increase in poverty and desperation.

Pharmaceutical companies, of course, also provide drugs for farmed animals and the vast array of pesticides and fertilizers used for fodder crops and this accounts for perhaps 40 per cent of their turnover. And this is where GM comes in.

In all these ways, the big boys mould the world into a form which suits their need for continued growth and profitability. And it is a rampant, heartless, grasping, unconscionable self- interest which is, quite literally, destroying the world, its people, its animals and environment.

If a country tries to pass legislation to outlaw aspects of trade it believes are damaging, the WTO will intervene and instigate devastating trade sanctions against it. No trade can be banned because it is bad for animal welfare- moral concepts simply don't exist in this brave new world. Every single environmental policy introduced by concerned governments has been rejected by the WTO if it in any way limits trade. It is a similar story of obstruction with health and food safety laws.

So, when the Monsanto's of this world claim the right to introduce GM crops because it will enable them to feed the starving, it should produce utter derision.

Even when food shipments are supplied in response to famine, you can see a sub-agenda at work. Some African countries have rejected US shipments of GM crops but now, if they want to get even a smell of Bush's $15 billion AIDS package, it seems they will have to agree to embrace GM foods. Why, you might ask, are the multinationals so determined to steamroller opposition to GM technology and why do they have such powerful backers? A clue to the answer lies in the January edition of Poultry World.

Some of the best minds in the business have been taken unawares,' it claims (they should read Viva! LIFE). ‘The cost of wheat has effectively doubled and Soya has rocketed by 40 pounds a tonne. The lack of EU wheat supplies is exacerbating an already tight world wheat supply and the arrival of China as a potential large buyer of grain has done the rest.'

What they are talking about is animal feed. The future profitability of the pharmaceutical corporations is dependent upon how far and how fast they can encourage the spread of factory farming across the globe. These stinking centers of animal abuse are fundamental to their future growth. The major hindrance to their plans is the lack of feed, its rocketing price and the uncertainty of water supplies. To consolidate their plans, the GM barons need to control all these elements.

Seeds from GM plants are largely sterile and ‘brown bagging'- saving seeds from one year for the next- is therefore eliminated and arable farmers become utterly dependent once they fall for the promise of increased crop yields. They are also obliged to use the company's pesticides. Factory farming is impossible without a battery of drugs and so livestock farmers also become dependent once they take the intensive route. And with livestock's extraordinary consumption of water for drinking, processing and growing fodder, the control of water supplies is central to this plan.

What we are witnessing is the spread of global fascism but in a form that is entirely new. It has the support of national governments, who would sooner be part of it than offer opposition and be crushed. As a consequence, it has rendered domestic politics almost entirely redundant and has homogenized political philosophy until there is only one version available- the one that is approved by the multinationals.

All the the problems of greed, cruelty, environmental degradation and human suffering which presently beset us will get worse as the GM giants continue to plunder the globe. It might sound immodest, but Viva! Is doing more than most governments to sound the alarm and our supporters are fighting back through their diet.

Interestingly, a group headed by a scientist and physician, Dr. Matthias Rath
(www4.dr-rathfoundation.org) has filed a lawsuit against Bush and Blair and the pharmaceutical industry at the International Criminal Court. I have never heard of them but they are alleging genocide by perpetuating ill health for profit and for launching wars which enable them to pass draconian legislation in order to control their own populations. Who am I to argue?

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The simple truth is that the results of animal experiments can-at best- only be applied to animals of the same species. The differences in biology, anatomy, physiology, body chemistry and so on makes comparing one species with another impossible.

One of the biggest pre-conceptions concerning animal research is that human illnesses can be studied in another species. In reality, diseases vary from species to species. For example, yellow fever and smallpox viruses affect only one species – humans. When experimenters claim they are studying cancer in rodents, it's worth knowing that while humans get carcinomas (tumors in lining membranes, like the lungs), rats and mice get sarcomas, which grow in the bone and connective tissue. Different diseases. Other illnesses like muscular dystrophy and multiple sclerosis are specific human conditions and don't exist anywhere amongst animals.

Sometimes experimenters try to recreate some of the symptoms, and they may be able to get cases where it looks similar, but that's hardly science. For example, when attempts are made to give rats heart disease, their bodies prevent it happening in the same way as it would appear in humans. The liver enzyme which changes the chemical structure of fats is more active in rats. The rat eliminates cholesterol very efficiently, and plaque in the arteries is not a problem. It's the same problem, different details with other illnesses in other species. Always there's differences between species.

Out of all illnesses known to humanity, less than 2% of them are ever seen in any non-human animal. It's a problem they still haven't overcome.

The next stumbling block for the animal experimenter is that all animals react in different ways to drugs. So even if you could give a mouse cystic fibrosis (which you can't), what value is there in testing a drug on the mouse?

The degree to which different species vary in their response to drugs and other chemicals is enormous and constantly understated by vivisectionists. Comparing rats and mice showed that the results from one species were correct for the other in 46% of cases, so even if these two relatively similar species, the results were similar to (or slightly worse than) what you'd expect from flipping a coin, it makes a mockery of comparing either to humans. Rats are 37% effective in identifying known human carcinogens- so wrong more often that they're right.

The reactions differ so much from species to species that deadly poisons like botulin, strychnine, arsenic, the deathcap toadstool, hemlock and antimony are all ‘provable' as safe when testing on animals. While these may sound like extreme examples, other less obviously dangerous products and drugs have passed animal tests and gone into use, with human carnage the result. Products like asbestos, glass fibers, industrial arsenic, benzene and even tobacco smoke were believed harmless despite human evidence, because they all were safe in animals. Similarly disaster drugs like Thalidomide, Eraldin, Manoplax, Zyban, Baycol and hundreds of others which have killed, blinded , maimed and injured humans have been passed as ‘safe' on animals.

The scientific director of HLS(Huntingdon Life Sciences), one of the biggest drug and product testing labs in the world has estimated that the accuracy of using animals to predict the human effect is ‘'between 5% and 25%''. So to be generous to him, in three times out of four we get a false result which is then used to decide whether the product is used in humans.

As a result of this reliance on vivisection the human cost is massive.

BIRTH DEFECTS: They occurred in about 3 in 100,000 live births in the late 1940's, by the end of the century there were over 800 per 100,000. The most in-depth study to date, by German doctors concluded 61% of birth defects and 88% of stillbirths were definitely, directly caused by drugs approved by animal experimentation. Animal testing is incapable of predicting this catastrophe. Our closest relatives, the monkeys were given drugs known to harm unborn human babies, when pregnant. 70% of the drugs were indicated safe. Thalidomide's effects were never convincingly reproduced in lab animals and would still be passed safe today.

DEATHS & SERIOUS INJURIES: In 1998 a American medical journal concluded that 106,000 deaths PER YEAR in the United States alone were caused by medical drugs passed safe on animals. A UK medical journal estimated 70,000 people in England each year are killed or seriously disabled by medical drugs, yet all of these pass animal tests. The scale is undeniably massive.

DELAYS: Blood transfusions, corneal transplants, gynecological surgical techniques, the polo vaccine, arterial suturing, cancer drugs, understanding of the circulatory system- the list of medical discoveries delayed by the misleading data from animals goes on and on. This alone has cost and continues to cost countless human lives and cause untold human suffering.

Vivisection continues for two main reasons.

One is the drug industry. It allows drugs to be approved quickly, and because animals give a variety of results, it virtually guarantees entry on to the market where it is earning money. It also provides an obstacle to legal action when drugs go wrong, because with animal tests performed, negligence becomes hard to prove in the biased court system.

The other is that it's easy to publish. “A rat is an animal which when injected produces a paper” as the saying goes. Which means easy work in this ‘publish or perish ‘ scientific world. Clinical research (including Stem cell technology) is infinitely more valuable, but requires ingenuity, planning, people skills and time

The bottom line is that profits come before people and money is the motivating force behind those involved in the barbaric practice of vivisection.

Opposition to vivisection on medical grounds is growing and is in direct proportion to awareness of the facts. The more people know about vivisection, the less they like it.

It's a massive subject, but believe me you don't need to be a professor to understand it.

Visit the following sites:- very interesting and informative.

http://www.vivisection-absurd.org.uk

http://www.curedisease.net

http://www,curedisease.com

http://www.dlrm.org

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“Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of 'crackpot' than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost.” Thomas J Watson (1874-1956)

The quote above illustrates what the leaders of our countries are failing to do. The quote aids one to pose the question as to why our leaders are not doing more to ensure that there are legal consequences resulting from the actions of evil governments? Our leaders feed the forces which traumatise the days of innocent civilians, causing serious casualties as a result of their evil influences. One follows the others actions, comforting those who cause terror to humanity. They do not represent us and we cannot represent them. We are presented with lies, a distortion of reality, smoke and mirrors. We are made to learn the truth, seek the truth, hunt for the truth by ourselves or forever be in the dark.

Our first perpetrator is awfully young, yet disturbingly influential. To some she is its most passionate defender, to the majority, its most notorious traitor. Her stance on authority and power is like that of a stroppy teenager, playing the same old games, throwing the same old toys out of the pram and claiming the same old thing. Her beauty captured, yet admired across the world. To the untrained eye her rare exuberant beauty shines and epitomises culture, religion and peace. When she acts, a minority of the world’s leaders’ question, rather she is praised by others and when asked to take centre stage she praises herself for her morality, democratic behaviour and sanctity. Her figure bodes well in her coat lined heavily with riches, red, white and blue.

She, of course is the state of Israel, controlled, dictated, embodied by the Zionist movement who was given the state of Palestine by the British government in 1918. And formally established the state of Israel in 1948. It really is the coldest story ever told, commencing with the manner in which a country was chosen to secure a home land for the Jewish people. Options ranged from Uganda to Argentina and in 1897 settled on Palestine, then part of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire. The most deceptive and enduring slogan of Zionism was coined by Israel Zangwill who claimed that Palestine was a “land without people for a people without land.” Thus stating that Palestine was a land which was practically empty, an image far from its true reality.

The Balfour declaration in 1917 eagerly claimed that, “…nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and righteous rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine…” However, 61 years since the UN divided the state of Palestine, Israel, has forgotten the words spoken by its garrison to the land which she so proudly calls home; words willingly discarded, words which had the sole purpose of being discarded, in order for her to live happily ever after. One must elucidate the fact that Zionism is a colonization adventure and can only be carried out against the wishes of the native population. Therefore, this colonization can then only continue and progress under the protection of a power which is independent of the native population. In order for Zionism to achieve its aim it must stand by the use of armed force; and unsurprisingly the Balfour declaration will not and cannot be upheld. From the outset, Israel has been on its blood thirsty quest for a sole Jewish state, at the expense of the indigenous Palestinian people.

In 1917, 95% of the state was Palestinian (Muslim, Christian and Jewish.) In 1948, the UN assigned 55% of Palestine to the proposed state of Israel. At this time Jews constituted only 1/3 of the population and owned a small but significant 6% of the land, by 2006 the geographical area owned by Israel increased to 87% and the remainder 13%, although it is claimed to be Palestinian land, it is controlled by Israel. This was and is still being achieved by the use of barbaric activities by Israeli authorities.

The Nakba (“Catastrophe”) of 1948-49 constituted Israel murdering 13,000 Palestinians and driving 750,000 from their towns and villages to take refuge in refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, West Bank and Gaza. The right of the Palestinians to commemorate the Nakba is denied by the Israelis. But how can they deny such a catastrophe? The Nakba was founded on massacres, exodus and is still based on occupation. The land now called Israel has been obtained from more than 531 (now destroyed) Palestinian villages:

“Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the name of these Arab villages and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman.”

Israel is in violation of over 60 UN resolutions, which call for the return of refugees, withdrawal of the settlers, dismantling of the wall and a lifting of the siege on Gaza. Israel renamed almost every village and town to cover up all traces of the Palestinian heritage. More recently, the centres of population in the West Bank and Gaza have been isolated into ghetto-like enclaves, surrounded by the Israeli army and illegal settlements. Many methods are being used to drive Palestinians out of their homes in East Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed, in clear contravention of International law.

There is a denial of massacres ranging from Sabra and Shatilla, Jenin, and most recently Gaza. The harrowing accounts of attacks, oppression, permanent occupation, discrimination, torture, death, control, crippling sieges and wrongful imprisonment gives one a brief image of the manner by which innocent Palestinians (including Arabs with Israeli nationality), are being chased out of their land. This is the disastrous impact of Zionist ideologies. And it surely does not end here; Ben Guiron stated that the Jewish youth and adults should strive to fulfill a map of Israel reaching the Nile to the Euphrates. A scary thought but one which could easily become a reality for Israel. This is the thinking behind the Zionist movement and is elucidated perfectly by the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the June 1967 war. This, alongside more recent illegal settlements, has very little to do with security and everything to do with territorial expansionism.

She, however, quickly points out to the world that anti-Semitism has returned and that she is being delegitimised. In considering the legitimacy of this claim, one must point out that, she, Israel, claims that this poisonous weed of anti-Semitism is growing in practically every patch of criticism against Israel! There are those who are taught that there is an enemy who wants to take their country and kill them. To prevent this pretty bubble from bursting, they are never taught about Sabra and Shattila, nor are they taught about Ariel Sharon’s war crimes or that in Israel 2009, there are roads that Palestinians aren’t allowed on, or that Palestinian territories are filled with checkpoints, surrounded by walls and every few metres there is a watch tower with Israeli soldiers.

Conversely, there are many Jews in Israel and across the world who totally disagree with the actions of the Israeli authorities. Understanding that this is not a conflict of religion is vital, it is crucial to realise that it is a murder, a lack of recognition by the zionist regime and their denial to a nation; to humanity. Yet the Zionists clearly state that they rely on the Bible and the Torah, for their imaginary right to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian people and to subjugate them. This is a pathetic joke.

The facts stated above, have been repeated many a time in depth by numerous academics who illustrate the wrong committed by Israel, morally and legally. The continuous breach of international law by Israel and her silence and lack of co-operation is ignored by the UN who are arguably powerless, but also by powerful third states who all seem to provide Israel with preferential treatment. They stand idle whilst Israel and other countries from Sri Lanka to Burma to Zimbabwe commit massacres on their doorsteps! Why? Why in this case are they participating in such treacherous conspiracies with the Zionists and allowing a story of terrorism, tyranny, oppression and injustice to take place upon a people? We are turning to these people for help, for hope, for recognition of the Palestinian people, when it is these very leaders who supported and assisted the creation of the Zionist State of Israel.

Sajjad Khan argues that, the American dominance in leading the world is unwanted,

“What hasn’t been challenged is Obama’s and Bush’s contention that America needs to play the dominant leadership role in the world. America’s allies may welcome this, but there is no evidence that the people of the world at large are crying out for American leadership.”

Following this quote, I would argue that America et al, including the UK, have decided to lead the world especially in its complacent behaviour towards Israel, they must now use their leadership roles to change the ugly nature of the war on terror, to hold those liable who started an illegal war, to question the legitimacy of Israel’s actions and to uphold a system of law and order for all.The international community imposes sanctions not against the occupier but the occupied, not against the oppressor but the oppressed, not against the criminal i..e the law breaker but against the victim; he who the law is supposed to protect. No man is surely above the law and all who are under it must be held to account equally.

The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) of South Africa commissioned a study, assessing Israel’s practices in the occupied Palestinian territories under International law. It concludes and, clearly demonstarates that Israel since 1967, has been the belligerent Occupying power in these Palestinian territories, and that its occupation of these territories is illegal, it has become a colonial enterprise which implements a system of Apartheid. The study correctly argues that, for States the legal consequences of Israel’s breach of the peremptory norms prohibiting colonialism and apartheid are clear:

“When faced with a serious breach of an obligation arising under a peremptory norm, all States have the duty not to recognise this situation as lawful and have the duty not to aid or assist the maintenance of this situation. Further, all States must co-operate to bring this situation to an end. If a State fails to fulfill these duties, axiomatically it commits an international wrongful act. If a State aids or assists another State in maintaing that unlawful situation, knowing it to be unlawful, then it becomes complicit in its commission and itself commits a wrongful act.”

Following this research, it is fair for one to evaluate that, the UK, US and EU are all equally collusive in Israel’s grave breaches of International law. They have taken next to nothing action to uphold the opinion of the International Court of Justice that held the route of the wall and the settlements a complete breach of the Geneva convention. There is a further breach of International law when considers Israel’s practices in the light of Article 2 of the Apartheid Convention and the continuous torture and imprisonment the Palestinians are subject to.

An article in the Independent newspaper titled, ‘UN retreats after Israel hits out at Gaza report’ is a perfect example of the manner in which Israel throws the mantle of victimhood over itself and its people. The report was solely concerned with the death of 40 civilians outside a UN school in Jabaliya and the use of white phosphorous on the UN’s field office compound in January 2009. It did not concern itself with the massacre as a whole, nor the illegality of Israel’s control of the Gaza strip. General Ban Ki Moon then stated in his covering letter that he was carefully considering what actions, if any, to take and instead spoke out against Hamas! Ban Ki Moon then went out of his way to thank Israel for her co-operation and repeats that Israel has “the most moral army in the world” and laid full responsibility for casualties on Hamas.

She continues to play the old game of divide and rule between rival Palestinian parties. She is so moral that she allows her defence forces to use the most technical advanced weaponry in the world with the exception of the US. Its computerised drone planes (which it sells to the UK) send back extremely detailed information about every square foot of the Gaza strip. She has refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty- the most widely supported international accord and bedrock of international efforts to contain and remove the nuclear menace. Whereas all other Middle Eastern States, including Iran, are signatories to the NPT, Israel’s lack of cooperation allows it to avoid the inspection and reporting regime that almost all other countries are required to follow. And we are concerned about North Korea and Iran?

The relationship between the EU and Israel has been upgraded, a relationship which already extends privileged trade access in a treaty which has strict conditions on human rights which are not invoked, and so, a relationship which undermines the whole structure of International law. One odd and disturbing aspect of global politics today is the confusion between negotiations and problem-solving. Governments are engaged in a massive negotiation, but they are not engaged in a massive effort at problem-solving. How can the law be upheld without the Justice? How can there be peace in Israel/Palestine, when our governments flaunt the words, extremist, terrorist, fundamentalist, so freely and refuse to negotiate with ‘certain’ people.

Israel will not be losing any sleep over Obama’s speech which was delivered in Cairo. As noted by Siegman in his book, titled, “Gaza: The lies of war,” Middle-East peace-making has been smothered in deceptive euphemisms. There can be no peace without justice for the Palestinians. When Netanyahu lays out Israel’s ideas of a Palestine state, our leaders must question instead of blindly supporting words which are candy coated but which are really simple and elucidate no real change. Our leaders must ensure that, Israeli politcal and military leaders face and answer difficult questions before an International criminal court. Justice for Palestine must become a reality, the answer is simple no justice, no peace!

For how many more years will she, Israel poison the world with her lethal mix of paranoia and the necessity of overwhelming military strength and aid from third states, spurring them on, crying the words “ein briera, there is no alternative,” unhindered, from one atrocity to the next. Better to avoid the poison altogether than to try to heal from the damage it causes.

By globe trotting, roving reporter- Firdous Patel.

iMasalha, N, ‘ Expulsion of the Palestinian: The Concept of "Transfer" in Zionist Political Thought,’(Institute for Palestine Studies: 1992)
ii Dayan, M, Address to the Technion , Haifa, reported in Haaretz, 1969
iii Shlaim, A, “How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe,” in The Independent, 7th January 2009
iv Khan, S, ‘What the West needs now is Ideological Change,’ in Khilafah magazine March 2009
v Democracy and Governance Programme, Middle East Project, at : www.hsrc.ac.za/DG.phtml
vi ibid.
vii Macintyre, D, UN retreats after Israel hits out at Gaza report, in The Independent
viii Siegman, H, “Gaza: The lies of war,” (London: Review of Books) 29th January 2009.
ix Lerman, A, “Netanyahu’s gift to Lieberman,” in the Guardian, 17th June 2009

Boycott these brands that support the Israel occupation.-

http://www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-israel.html

by Firdous Patel

When the peace of Christmas was brutally shattered by Israel’s genocidal attack on a mainly unarmed civilian population, thousands of angry activists took to the streets in mass protests around the country. The barbaric assault on Gaza by the Israeli military, resulted in the murder of 1500 Palestinians and injuries to over 6000 innocent civilians.

However, after the continuous campaigning, numerous protests and even after Israel’s all-out assault on Gaza, the imprisoned ones continue to suffer. The bombing, shooting and shelling may eventually stop. The buildings eventually restored brick for brick. The electricity and water running as it always has done. But the psychological trauma inflicted upon the children of Gaza cannot be erased so easily.

Gaza's leading child psychiatrist, Dr Abdel Aziz Mousa Thabet, who has studied the effects of violence and trauma on children for 20 years, said about 65% of young people in the enclave suffer severely from post-traumatic stress disorder.

"There are many other traumatic symptoms, like headaches and abdominal pain and vomiting. There's an inability to concentrate, panic, anxiety, irritability," he said. "I've observed much change in the children. They are more anxious, more fearful. Children are panicky because of the explosions. Children want to leave. You hear it. They feel there is no hope, that the world can't do anything for them and they can't do anything for themselves."

Thabet goes as far as evaluating that it is the impact of this trauma that leads these children to the extremes in years to come. Thabet believes that the traumatising of children was having a profound effect on Gaza's future. The children he studied in the early 1990s are now adults and suffer from Post traumatic stress of at least mild severity.

"They become fighters. I warned about this 15 years ago, that in 15 years these traumatised children will be more aggressive, they will want to fight, there will be more violence in the community. You saw it in the factional fighting in Gaza in 2007," he said.
"So now we will have another generation of more aggressive behaviour. They will go to more extremes because they have no future. This is a problem. I've been warning people of this but nobody was listening. It's a cycle of aggression. Children see their parents killed in front of them. What do you expect?”

Those who have studied the psychological impact inflicted upon Gaza’s children believe that Post Traumatic Stress disorder and other psychological consequences may last a lifetime. Two decades of bloody conflict in the Gaza strip has confronted these children with an atrocity that even the money of all the western world cannot repair.

Up to 80% of Palestinian children suffer from behavioural problems due to the experience that their young minds have been made to comprehend. They carry the heavy emotional, social and spiritual burdens associated with the death of loved ones, discrimination, racism, economic ruins and destruction of homes and communities. It should be noted that these devastating problems have only been created since the years of conflict, occupation and violence.

Dr. Samir Gota, a professor of psychology at the Islamic University of Gaza, states that there has been a significant increase in the number of parents visiting psychological health centres in the Gaza Strip enquiring about treatments for psychological breakdowns after having recognized these symptoms in their children following the bombings which have affected the cities, towns and refugee camps of the Gaza Strip.

The WHO lists the Psychological consequences of conflict situation in Gaza as follows:
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Major Depression, the unpredictability of the day-to-day situation further adds to the stress and anxiety felt by not having control over ones lives. Behavioural changes result in the youths eventually turning to drugs, suffering from insomnia, domestic violence, excessive alcohol consumption; these being a mere few of the extensive cost of Israel’s physical and psychological bloodbath in Gaza.

Palestinian children have not known a day of real peace. It is difficult to protect children from sights of destruction, the dangers of war and insecurity. Even if they were not actively fighting on the streets, they still could not help but experience the national struggle on an emotional level. The atmosphere of insecurity, danger, violence, and hostility that prevailed during the previous Intifada inevitably left scars on the mental health of the Palestinians children and will continue to do so until the violence ends once and for all.
Children must have safe places for healing and emotional support to be able to overcome these problems in order to continue to live normal, productive lives

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In 2002, David Beckham was voted 2 nd in BBC TV's “Sports Personality of the Year” competition. After having spoken to a number of friends and contacts who are genuine lifelong Manchester United supporters who watch their team week in week out.(I at this point would like to hasten to add that I am NOT a ‘yernited' fan-My team is one with a proud history that is run by corrupt fools-Bury-but that's another story.)Still, I digress. The point is that in the previous 12 month period Beckham had around only a handful of good to great games when appearing for the Reds. The rest of the time his performances had ranged from abysmal to average. So, add that to the two vital goals for his country in the games against Greece and Argentina and captaining the side to a famous trouncing of the Germans and do you really get somebody worthy of finishing 2nd not only in football, but in the whole of British sport!

IIt would appear that the ‘manipulable masses' have swallowed the media fuelled frenzy and bought in to the hype, voting for somebody because of their fame and high profiled lifestyle. Is that the way such awards are now to be allocated – based upon how much attention is received on the front pages of newspapers and magazines as opposed to what they ACTUALLY achieve in their chosen fields of sport?

When it comes to the ‘phenomenon' that is David Beckham has not the whole ‘situation' gone past the point of sanity and become utterly ridiculous. Do we really need to see pictures of him and his family every day, everywhere they go and of almost everything they do? Now, there are those out there who say that he and his wife are themselves attention-seeking individuals who crave the attention and publicity and constantly want to be in the spotlight. Certainly I for one don't buy the Victoria Beckham suggestions that they are ‘just an ordinary family trying to lead their lives.' Anyone involved in the world of showbiz and music especially welcomes the attention of the media - it's what drives their careers and contributes enormously to generating sales!

The actions of Victoria Beckham and her husband would also seem contrary to what she states. At their media dubbed home of ‘ Beckingham Palace ' they invited some 360 special guests. In attendance were family, friends and in the main high profile celebrities such as Elton John, Adam Faith and a mass of other famous rich people whose wealth when added together could wipe out the deficit of some of the most debt ridden countries on the planet. A one-hour T.V. programme was made on this event as the ‘publicity-shy' couple invited the cameras to film the whole spectacle. As I sat and watched this programme I initially thought that potentially this could be a great coup.- the possibility of the ‘coolest couple in Britain ' sending a message to millions of people including many impressionable youngsters. A chance to show that everyone should look to have some social responsibility and try to help those less fortunate or incapable of helping themselves. That caring for others can be ‘sexy' and something we should look to embrace.

Instead what we were ‘treated' to was the following:

Mr. & Mrs. B going into elaborate detail of how they spent in excess of 45,000 pounds

in having rare Chinese plants flown from the other end of the world to appear in a special commissioned floral arrangement.

Details of how they had spent over 40,000 pounds on employing over 100 security people and the drastic measures they had gone to, to ensure the safety of their guests.

More details of how 32,000 pounds had been spent on creating an especially unique Marquee, stage and dining area to facilitate the guests and 84 chefs required.

Excess and consumerism were promoted to the full!

After the entertainment of a comedian and singer. Victoria then took to the stage and made a speech on how wonderful David is, David then took to the stage and made a speech on how wonderful Victoria is. More specially commissioned floral bouquets were then swapped. We then got down to the “real business”(?).

An auction for charity- Items of Beckham and his team mates: boots, shirts, pendants etc. items of Posh's and the Spice Girls: memorabilia, dresses, gold discs etc. were placed under the hammer (unfortunately not literally in case of the Spice Girls records!)

A camera was then taken round the celebrity gathering as they all dressed up to the nines sipped on champagne or the like. Tracey Shaw, Louise and Jamie Redknapp, etcetera, etcetera all had the same to say; a variation on a theme;-‘how wonderful and delightful David and Victoria are.'

Why it was almost as if it had been manufactured to promote David and Victoria as being such wholesome and incredible people. Surely not!

But, how much did they raise for charity, that's the important thing after all - isn't it folks? Well, 360 of Britain 's finest celebrities raised 344,000 pounds between them.

Less than a grand a head – a truly sterling effort. Still, perhaps those that eat the crumbs that fall from their table should be appreciative of how lucky they really are.

Whilst I wouldn't hold the Beckham couple completely responsible for this obsession that we as a nation seem to have redeveloped with over indulgence and wealth (very evident in Thatchers Britain of the 80's-greed is good). Spending mass amounts of money on things that more often than not we don't actually NEED has been back in vogue for far too long. And at the top of the tree for endorsing this lifestyle are the ‘golden' couple themselves.

Whilst the media will say that it's the publics fault and they are merely providing them with what they demand – claiming that they reflect as oppose to influence what society sets as the ‘norm'. The reality surely is that the media and the role models of the day be it rock stars, actors, celebrities or footballers now set the trends which most people choose to adopt.

But we all have a responsibility. Whilst we as consumers can exercise our right to purchase off those we approve of or simply not purchase at all in the case of newspapers and lifestyle magazines. And whilst those who are parents can choose to bring up their children with their own set of values, people are nevertheless going to be influenced by those in the public domain held up as successful people to aspire to.

Why should it be held to be not only acceptable but deemed to be something we should admire, that the likes of Beckham etc should own several oversized properties with price tags going into the millions. The same needs to be questioned in regard to Beckham, Giggs , Yorke, etc.etc. when they five or six high performance cars, with the totals running into hundreds of thousands of pounds. Is there only line of ‘defence' - “People like Jamiroqui and Elton John spend far more money than I do.” And “ You're only jealous, you'd do the same if you had the money.”- Well, sorry, don't generalize me or other people who do have morals and principles and are capable of holding on to them whatever our financial circumstances. Whilst I and others like me may not necessarily have millions there are people out there who have attained some degree of financial independence and don't feel the need to display the attributes of greed, egocentricity and selfishness. Is not the bottom line that these people have that much money they really do not know what to do with it? Can they not see past the boundary posts of their own lives and into the effects of what they say and what they do? Are they even bothered?

When it comes to David Beckham the footballer – because these days it can quite easily be forgotten that in the main, that is what he supposedly is. Is the England captain the world-class player that some would have us believe. Or again, is ‘Golden Balls' a man with friends and admirers in the right places to convince or project to us that he really is as good as the best.

Is ANY England player truly world class and capable of consistently producing it when it matters most. Certainly from what has been seen on both the European and World stages the answer would have to be no. Yes, Beckham and the likes of Owen have previously cut it with best on a consistent level with the rest of the Premiership. As have the likes of Gerrard, Campbell, Lampard and Terry. But when it comes to achieving results in Europe and the World stage the glimpses seem somewhat sporadic.- Liverpool and Manchester United only have one European honour each in recent times. Chelsea and Arsenal are teams that still cannot get past the final Champions League hurdles- and if they were, how valid would there wins be in terms of an English contribution?- only time will tell.

And whether people like it or not England are still a ‘nearly, but not quite' team. 1966 remains the last time a trophy was won. Are the semi-finals or quarter finals to be deemed success for the nation that claims to have invented the game? – For some the answer is clearly yes.

So let's try and be objective about David Beckham and his football ability:

His free-kick taking ability has been exceptional and as dangerous as anybody in the world. His low projected crosses from the flank are delivered with deadly pinpoint accuracy, unique and unrivalled- but since his move to Madrid he has often assumed a more central role and this vital dimension of his game has fallen away considerably.

His long ball passing can be incredible and again stands up there with the best.

However, his goal return from open play is modest.

His tackling is very little more than average.

His heading ability is adequate.

His temperament and leadership qualities are suspect to say the least.- It is said that he leads by example and his performances inspire those around him. His penalty misses against France and Portugal and overall abysmal tournament in Euro 2004 lead many to suggest he was no longer England captain material. Some suggested that he was no longer good enough to be even considered for the side.

So is this the pedigree of a ‘world superstar' that many would have us believe that he is?

Does Sven Goran Ericsson pick David Beckham for his ability on the football field or to avert the media attention from himself and his own high profiled role/misdemeanors?

When it comes to Beckham the:- role model- style leader – man.

What exactly are we dealing with?

It is said that he is considered attractive/desirable/sexy by large amounts of the female population, not only in the UK but the world over. No reason to dispute anything there.

It is also said that he is admired/idolized/ adored by a large number of males around the world, especially the under 25-age group. Again, I'm sure that to be the case. The ‘marketing men' rarely get it wrong and the large number of endorsements and sponsorship deals with which he is involved saw it seen as possibly the first time a club has signed a player for what he could do for breaking them into new commercial markets.-Real Madrid go for the Asian dollar.

Even his dalliance with his P.A. is said not to have damaged his ‘perfect' family man image- his share price /advertising fee has risen.


But when it comes David Beckham is it not a case of all style and little content?

In his early days he was mocked for his baby like voice and nervous lisp. Still, a trip to the right style consultant and development coaches can help address that. And why not. Should not people whoever they are look to improve, develop and evolve as much as they can throughout life. Should not everyone try to widen their horizons and better themselves and the things they have as part of their lives. But for all the tags that are bestowed upon Mr.Beckham is there any evidence of spiritual development, any signs of a gaining of knowledge or words of worldly wisdom or experience that he can be seen to pass to his mass flock of followers? Whilst Becks can be seen to be re-inventing his own style and launching/inventing/re-launching every fashion look or trend or passing gimmick under the sun. What's going on inside? And don't get me wrong, there are too many people out there with very little style who just fade into the background and show no signs of individuality. But does style have to come at the expense of substance?

Are the ‘icons' of our age to be nothing more than male bimbo's?

In the times in which we live are people only to be judged to have achieved success by the possessions that they have?

There are some by now whom I'm sure will consider this article to be getting a tad too ‘heavy', a little too ‘deep' in the analytic department. “Is this not just about a game of football?” “Are players who manage to achieve success not allowed to enjoy the fruits of their labour?” “ Has the boy not done brilliant?”

Well, that depends on the individual and it also depends on the society that we have and the society that we want.

But I would say there is something fundamentally wrong when there are footballers earning salaries running into millions per year. When firefighters, junior doctors, nurses and teachers are paid less than some semi-professional conference players. I believe ‘enough is enough' would be the understatement of this century.

And to those who say that this is the job of politicians and councilors or the like or up to the football authorities in the game to place wage caps or the like. I say it is up to the individual to face up to the responsibility they have when they accept such status.

Everybody can try and pass the buck and everybody can think of a reason why somebody else other than them has a ‘solution'. It's not black and white and it ain't necessarily simple or straightforward-but we are all citizens of the planet and we all need to take responsibility for our actions and give some thought as to how they affect others.

So as the time not now arrived where players themselves or in conjunction with the PFA

now make some serious effort to make a financial difference to their local communities?

Should not high profile players be declaring a certain percentage of their wage to go to help the funding of schools, hospitals or local community projects or the like, a little like Niall Quinn did with the proceeds from his testimonial but on a more regular basis. At the very least we surely need a change in attitudes from everybody.

Footballers can make a difference to the society in which we live and can be instrumental in instigating how people choose to live their lives.

Isn't it time for some real heroes to emerge.

L.D. – Dec 2004.

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Becoming vegetarian is more than a moral decision, it is a threat to the new world order.

By Tony Wardle, Viva! LIFE

In the 1960's, I became the father of a beautiful little girl. It was a time when the talk was of peace, great changes were being demanded and old, repressive values were being challenged.

Seemingly from nowhere, we began to show concern for the environment. I remember a newspaper article in The Guardian headlined Spaceship Earth. It likened our planet to a space craft, the environment to a life support system and global resources to the stores on this tiny space shuttle. The conclusion was simple- either we started to behave responsibly and sustainably or we would eventually pay a terrifying price for our stupidity. The logic was inescapable and my eyes were opened.

I was filled with hope because it seemed that we were finally beginning to formulate caring, commonsense policies that would create a saner, less avaricious world. I felt my daughter had the prospects of a wonderful future and vowed I would never judge her by her financial success but by the generosity of her spirit, the openness of my heart, her capacity for love and understanding and her ability to embrace values of care and compassion. She has rewarded me handsomely.

In August, 2002, I again became a father – of twins – and two tiny little mites cried their first cries in a very different world. What had happened in the interceding 37 years is incredible.

The civilizing values that ordinary people had fought for over decades and thought they had won in perpetuity- decent healthcare, education, secure retirement, affordable transport and control over their own institutions- are all in an advanced state of dismemberment. No longer are these essential support systems judged on their ability to meet the needs of those who use them but on their ‘efficiency' – a code for eventual profitability. If money can't be made from them, they're not worth supporting.

Like the word ‘love' in American movies, the word democracy is constantly abused – and the more it is quoted, it seems, the more fragile becomes democracy itself. A refusal to ban hunting or to take back the railways into public ownership are simple examples of contempt for democracy on a national level. On an international level it is to accuse countries such as Iraq of being undemocratic while historically supporting every foul dictatorship that emerged, providing they allowed western multinationals to grow and prosper on cowed and cheap labour.

That Saddam Hussein is a dictator, cruel and barbarous and spits on human rights is beyond question. But that has always been his way, yet it didn't stop us queuing up to sell him armaments, helping him in his war against Iran and acting as apologists for him when he gassed Kurdish villagers. I remember Douglas Hurd (Home Secretary) claiming that the massacre might have been perpetrated by the Kurds themselves in order to gain public sympathy for their cause. That was cynicism polished to a high sheen.

So, Saddam is evil because he attacks Kurds. When the Turks do the same thing we remain silent because they are one of us. Saddam kills people publicly and barbarically and we complain. When Saudi Arabia makes a spectacle of slicing off the heads of terrified little Philippino servant girls in Jedah's Chop Chop Square, we remain silent and keep the arms shipments flowing.

The principle protagonist in this war- which in reality is an invasion- is not Mr.Bush, egged on by our own administration, but global capital. Bush is merely the mouthpiece. He has introduced a string of measures at home which reward the energy companies who paid for his election and permit them to trash the environment at will. He has transferred resources from the poorest to the richest and is happy to leave 40 million of his own people without any access to health care while talking of human rights. Internationally, he has torn up arms limitation treaties so that the military/industrial complex can prosper, turned his back on the World Court, refuses to acknowledge global warming as a problem and declines to sign the Kyoto agreement on limiting CO2 emissions. He claims God as his mentor but it is the devil who can be heard chuckling the loudest.

The ideology which lies behind these domestic and foreign policies is not difficult to understand. The US accounts for 25 per cent of the world's pollution because of its irresponsible and profligate use of global resources. We like to blame overpopulation for the world's problems and yet the birth of one American child is 20 times more damaging than the birth of an Ethiopian child or Bangladeshi because each US child will consume 20 times more of the world's precious resources than either of these. For a British child it is between six and 10 times more so we are hardly free from criticism.

The economic system that drives the US- and increasingly the entire planet- requires ever increasing consumption to keep it afloat. A consumer economy which does not grow will quickly collapse. So, like a huge and bloated queen bee, the rest of the world is now engaged in sustaining the US way of life, crawling all over it to meet its insatiable demands, hopefully waiting for the crumbs that might be brushed from the dining table. The key to this constant growth is, of course, oil.

Once self sufficient, the US now gobbles up 25 per cent of world oil production and has to import over 50 per cent of its needs, much of it from the despotic Saud regime in Saudi Arabia. This dependency will grow to two-thirds by 2020, just at the time when production has peaked and demand is dramatically increasing – a frightening situation for any oil addict. The Saud family are unlikely to survive and may well be replaced by a fundamentalist regime who wouldn't hesitate to use oil as a political weapon against the US.

Iraq has the second largest reserves of oil in the Middle East and a compliant, US-backed regime would provide just the security the US needs if it is to continue consuming the world like a frentic Pacman. Cynics now believe that the US war on terrorism and its global campaign to gain control of foreign oil reserves are one of the same thing and the invasion of Afghanistan fits neatly into this mould.

The new Caspian oil-producing countries of Azerbaijan, Kazakistan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, clustered around Afghanistan's northern border, were at risk of being swallowed up by the Taliban and their anti-US fundamentalist bile. As it is, that threat has been defused and a strong US military presence in these countries now keeps them politically in line and at the same time allows the expensive but vulnerable new oil pipeline from the Caspian to the Mediterranean to be patrolled and defended.

If you have God and right on your side you don't need to lie. So, when we are told that there is a link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, despite a complete lack of evidence, we know that something else is cooking. When it is claimed weapons inspectors will never find the laboratories producing deadly spores and chemicals because a front is all that's needed, we know that front rooms exist as commonly in Bermondsey as they do in Baghdad. When it is claimed that a clapped-out 30-year-old Russian made missile that might manage to travel 100 miles on a good day with the wind behind it is a threat to the entire western world, it pushes rhetoric to new frontiers.

And then, of course, there's MAD- mutually assured destruction. The balance of terror which supposedly kept the Russian nuclear might at bay for 50 years crumbles impotently when confronted by a dad's army of reluctant conscripts and a dozen or so Airfix kit tanks- or so we're told.

While this floodtide of rhetoric has been swirling over the airwaves, those who monitor the real state of the world have been throwing their hands up in despair. The UN Environment Agency, the World Watch Institute, even the conservative World Wildlife Fund are all saying that human's tenure of this planet is extremely limited unless we act now to curb our profligacy and the devastating damage it is causing to the natural world. And now comes our own Environment Minister, Michael Meacher, with an apocalyptic article in The Guardian. It is hard to believe he is in the same government as Blair and Prescott.

He likens the human race to a deadly virus which is transforming the world and its ecosystems at an exponential rate, climate change being only the most obvious example. At last someone confirms our own warning that we are in danger of creating a phenomenon called positive feedback, which once begun cannot be reversed.

Meacher maintains that temperatures are forecast to rise by as much as 5.8 degrees Celsius this century- by 8.1 degrees in some parts of the world. Even a slight warming of the oceans reduces their ability to absorb CO2, causing even more warming. But worse, if higher temperatures cause instability in the shallow waters of the Artic, a devastating 10,000 billion tones of methane – 20 times more damaging than CO2 – could be released. Incredibly, while scientists say we should be reducing carbon emissions by 60 per cent to lessen this risk, they are projected to increase by 75 per cent by 2020.

“The ultimate concern is that if runaway global warming occurred, temperatures could spiral out of control and make our planet uninhabitable. This is the first time that a species has been at risk of generating its own demise” says Meacher.

The US could not have indicated any more clearly that it has no intention of listening to Mr. Meacher nor the scientists who inform him. Nor will it curb its destructive, gargantuan appetite. In fact it has constructed a world order whose main purpose is to keep its consumption going. The World Trade Organisation, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are the non-militaristic tools through which the economies of smaller countries are thrown open to US multinational exploitation. When these imperialistic institutions fail to get their way, armed invasion is now the reserve position.

Once it was just industries which were swallowed up but now it is such basic necessities as the provision of clean water, health care, social services and transport. If you are in doubt as to what the world will look like under this global hegemony, just go to Harlem and Watts and the massive slums of Philadelphia, Detroit and Washington, where infant mortality rates are on a par with some of the poorest developing countries; or talk to the 40 million US citizens who have no right to healthcare; or take a look at Southern Africa and witness the despicable spectacle of US multinational pharmaceutical companies refusing the right to impoverished countries to produce cheap ‘generic' versions of AIDS drugs for their stricken people. Meanwhile, the number of AIDS orphans climbs to the stratosphere. Increasingly, take a long, hard look at our own society and see what is happening to it with carbon-copy policies.

It is this which is the real betrayal by Blair and his New Labour. They have signed up lock, stock and barrel to the most rapacious form of capitalism the world has ever seen which, like the economic dinosaur it is, will thrash around in a damaging orgy of frenzied, myopic self-interest, trying to ward off the death agonies which are already starting to bite.

And what has all this got to do with us veggies and those who are horrified by the desperate cruelties handed out to animals? Everything! Of all the world's damaging consumer habits, meat production and dairying are the most damaging. Pick any environmental problem – almost any one - and you'll find these industries at the heart of it. Deforestation and the spread of deserts; loss of soil fertility and erosion; water pollution and the drying up of the water table; nitrogen pollution and acid rain. And of course, global warming.

And it's set to get worse. The introduction of GM technology has nothing to do with feeding starving people but is a concerted attempt to increase crop production in order to provide sufficient food to spread factory farming across the world. Here, in these fetid and stinking prisons, is where the profits lie- not so much the meat itself but the battery of fertilizers, pesticides, drugs and antibiotics necessary for intensive agriculture and to keep these systems afloat.

Fifty billion animals a year consume an awful lot of chemicals! They also eat an unimaginable volume of high-quality feed while the 12 million children who die from hunger-related diseases every year are merely part of the collateral damage.

By stepping aside from this frenetic destruction you are clearly stating there is more to your ethos than profit and loss. It would seem you have a very different view of what the world should look like and it is a more benevolent value system that guides your life. For this reason you are a threat and so you can continue to expect to be marginalized, trivialized, patronized and reviled. It doesn't mean to say that you will not prevail because one thing the attack on Iraq has taught us is that people can think for themselves. We have to hope this is only a beginning.

II sincerely hope my little boys will develop the same loving values as their sister but they are going to need something else. The real weapon of mass destruction that threatens all of us is the adulation of profit and its rapacious destruction of our beautiful world. If it is to be stopped, my boys will have to become revolutionaries. We can only hope that in order to save the world there are to be more parents and their children who realize that their very existence is at stake.

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Bristol and slavery were once synonymous as this West country port was built on the proceeds of human suffering. The triangular trade was extremely profitable and every ship owner's dream because their vessels were never empty. To West Africa they carried cloth from Manchester and steel from Sheffield, slaves were transported across the Atlantic to the West Indies and the ships then returned home stacked with rum, sugar and cotton.

When Michael Mansfield QC reminded the Viva! 10 th anniversary dinner audience of the similarities between the slave trade and modern livestock farming, I don't think anyone was aware of just how closely the one mirrors the other. There are shockingly obvious comparisons such as branding, the method of transport, the ‘breaking' of trouble makers and enforced breeding to produce saleable offspring. But it is the nature of the campaign that eventually ended this obscenity that I find extraordinary and which confirms the old saying that there's little new in this life.

The whole thing started with a court case. Captain Luke Collingwood, incompetent skipper of the vessel Zong, doubled the crossing time to Jamaica because of bad navigation. His cargo of 440 slaves became ill and as many would have no value on arrival, he ordered his men to throw 133 of the sickest overboard. Those who resisted were dumped in the ocean still wearing their iron shackles. He later falsely claimed the maritime law of ‘jettison', saying these were sacrificed so that others could live because water was so short. Such an action was perfectly legal and the vessel's owners would be entitled to claim insurance of 30 pounds for each body. The court case was not about his murdering so many men, women and children but because the insurers contested his claim that water was short.

This was 1787 and sparked the start of a campaign that was to last 51 years before ending in success. Every step of this struggle is eerily familiar as are the atrocities we now fight against-including the slow asphyxiation in multi-tiered ships of thousands of sheep for Australia's Middle East livestock exports and the dumping of the sick ones into the sea. Just as in factory farming, the death rate of slaves was built into the economic equation- death brought about by the barbarous belief that a black person had no feelings, was a beast and was utterly dispensable. It is only six years since animals in Europe were granted the status of sentient creatures and not goods.

Of course, the church had a view on this exploitation just as it has a view on modern farming. The Church of England then owned one of the most prosperous sugar plantations in Barbados, which, like every other sugar plantation, systematically worked slaves to death. Today it invests in factory farming and meat retailing and proudly boasts of its market skills: “Beef and sheep showed good results; dairy alone languished.” Well, they're only beasts and beasts warrant no mention of any kind in this supposedly moral giant's ‘ethical investment policy.'

Then, it was left to the Quakers to oppose slavery from a religious standpoint and now it is still the Quakers who largely oppose animal exploitation for moral reasons. So no change there!

Twenty-five-year old divinity student, Thomas Clarkson, was spurred into action by the Zong case and for years was the anti-slavery movement's only full time organizer. He learned then what many are still learning now- that organizing is not enough, a media campaign is essential. He also produced a newsletter to keep in touch with his supporters and began what was the first ever direct mil campaign, asking his followers to make regular donations. No change there, either!

Within a few years, Clarkson was urging a consumer boycott, encouraging people to avoid all goods which were a product of slavery. Hundreds of thousands responded and soon, some manufacturers began labeling their goods with welfare claims “produced by the labour of free men!” Others tried to mislead the public by pretending that their slaves were cosseted and pampered. When parliament looked like it might regulate the treatment of slaves, planters quickly drew up their own voluntary code of practice, packed with claims of concern-little different to the so called self regulated quality assurance schemes that litter today's meat counters-Assured British Meat, the Little Red Tractor and the RSPCA's Freedom Food scheme.

Slaves were transported under the very best conditions, they said: “If the weather is sultry and there appears the least perspiration upon their skins, there are two men attending with cloths to rub them perfectly dry and another to give them a little cordial. They are then supplied with pipes and tobacco.” And of course, when they arrived at their destination, things were equally as considerate and each happy slave family was allocated ‘a snug little house and garden and plenty of pigs and poultry'-slavery's equivalent to ‘the best animal welfare in the world.'

One pro-slavery writer even suggested changing the name from ‘slave' to ‘assistant planter' to quell the cries of outrage. Just this year, a meat industry committee suggested changing the name of the cruel, metal-barred cage called the farrowing crate to… the ‘freedom nest'.

The fact that people were boycotting sugar was damaging profits and so it was promoted as an essential foodstuff. ‘Sugar is not a luxury but a necessary of life and great injury have many persons done to their constitutions by totally abstaining from it.' Sound familiar? The press played a similar role to the one it plays now, with The Liverpool General Advertiser running a doom laden editorial complaining about the ‘infatuation of our country (with abolishing slavery) running headlong into ruin.' Before parliament would take up the issue it insisted on lengthy hearings, made even longer by the delaying tactics of the slave industry which stretched the process out for years.

When it did eventually reach parliament, again a familiar pattern emerged. The Duke of Clarence, one of the sons of George III, in his maiden speech to the House of Lords, claimed that he was “an attentive observer of the state of Negroes” and found them well cared for and “in a state of humble happiness.”

The cries of today's UK farmers that improvements in animal welfare will only lead to a flood of foreign imports of cruelly-produced meat is nothing new either. The Duke addressed this issue from a slavery perspective, claiming that if the trade was abolished it would be taken up by foreigners ‘who would not use them with such tenderness and care.'

Betrayal came from other parliamentarians who, with their words, pretended to support the abolition of slavery-spoke passionately against it- and then slipped the knife home by demanding it happen ‘gradually'. The gradualist argument won the day. Such tactics have been employed by modern Conservative MPs to ‘talk out' legislation to ban such obscenities as the sow stall. But you know that when the opposition begins to adopt your own rhetoric, no matter how duplicitously, you have won the moral argument.

As I write this, the House of Lords has rejected a Bill to ban fox hunting, passed by an overwhelming majority of the lower house. And so it rejected in its entirety the Bill to phase out slavery. The main difference between the two events was that in 1792, the prime minister William Pitt, spoke eloquently for an end to slavery while in 2004, prime minister Blair tried every possible tactic to sabotage the anti-fox hunting Bill and it was only fear of his own backbenchers that eventually allowed it through. We will now wait and see if the law is enforced or weakened in some way.

Posters and other images of intensive farming have been fundamental to advancing animal issues- and it was the same back then. The plan below showing the true conditions in which slaves were transported, was printed in its thousands and appeared in pubs and houses across Britain. It required no argument or explanation.

The trade in slaves was finally banned by parliament in 1807 but it was a further 29 years before slavery itself was abolished. On August 1 st , 1838, 800,000 slaves across the British Empire became free in law. You could argue that it was another 100 years or more before it became a fact.

There is one remaining similarity between the campaign to end slavery and that for animal rights- both are altruistic in that those who fight them stand to gain nothing if they succeed. They are born out of a desire for a better, more equitable, more just world where relieving the suffering of others is an end in itself. Both are noble, both are born of the finer aspects of the human spirit and both are opposed to bigotry, spite, ignorance and self-interest. Surely no one would argue that the world is not a finer place because most slavery has ended. And one day, that judgment will be applied with equal certainty to the end of animal exploitation.

John Newton was born in 1725 and served as a slave ship captain for many years. His experiences affected him deeply and he eventually became a preacher, writing the hymn, Amazing Grace. The first verse reflects the experiences of many of us and could serve as an anthem in the battle to turn the world away from its casual abuse of sentient creatures (and I speak as an atheist).

Amazing Grace how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me, I once was lost but now I'm found; Was blind, but now I see.

I'll give the last word to anthropologist-and Quaker- Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has!”

Tony Wardle

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By Virgil Butler

(former chicken slaughterhouse employee)

The chickens had been on the truck for hours in the freezing cold. When the night shift started, five cages full of them- approximately 6,000 chickens in all, some frozen to cages- were dumped from a forklift onto the conveyor belt in a cloud of dust that smelled like death. The motors started the line running. The chickens- I call them ‘peepers' because they were 7 weeks old, little more than babies- were panicking. Some were squawking. Some were peeping. Some huddled in silence, trembling.

I tried hard not to let this work get to me, because it was the only work in town, and I had a wife and baby to feed.

Seven of us would hang the peepers upside-down, 182 a minute, placing their legs in the shackles whizzing by. Many of their eyes met mine, and it was obvious that they were terrified.

Every so often, a ‘one-legger', chicken hung in a shackle by only one leg, went by. The supervisor wanted these birds off the line the fastest way possible. With the screaming birds going by at 182 a minute, the fastest way is to rip the bird off the shackle, severing the leg, then throw her in a pile of other one-leggers to slowly bleed to death or die of shock. So many birds died this way every shift.

Once someone deliberately hung some chickens by their heads so the guy on the end would have to snatch them off and rehang them right. But he just hung their feet into the same hooks with their heads, so these chickens almost surely were scalded alive. The scalding alive is pretty routine anyway, though, because birds often miss the stunner and are fully conscious when being dipped in scalding hot water for feather removal.

Once someone lined up a dozen peepers so sick they couldn't struggle and shoved each one's head up the butt of the one ahead of her. When we pulled them apart to hang them, they were bleeding and barely alive. Another time, someone went in at break time when the line was stopped and hung 20 birds by their wings instead of their feet, just for ‘fun'. The line started and before we could shut it off, most of them were mutilated by the machinery. They were thrown into the Dumpster with several hundred runts who had been culled because the growth antibiotics didn't work on them – all were grounded up alive.

Then there was the guy on the end who simply picked up a piece of pipe and began whacking off chicken's heads with it. The heads hit the wall and splattered like tomatoes.

These are some of the many horrors the chickens endure. I won't eat chickens or any other animal now. I have looked into their eyes and seen sheer terror and unspeakable agony. I couldn't save these birds, but I hope that by telling the truth about what they go through, I will encourage other people to stop eating them, too . This is how you can help bring an end to the torture of these innocent beings.

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Helping or Hurting?

When you donate to a charity,
do you know where the money actually goes?

Could your gift be contributing to animal suffering?

Some health charities ask for donations to help people with diseases and disabilities yet spend the money to bankroll horrific experiments on dogs, rabbits, rats, mice, primates, hamsters, pigs, ferrets, frogs, fish, guinea pigs, sheep, birds and other animals. While human health needs cry out for attention and so many people are going without medical care, animal experimentation enriches laboratories and scientists but drains money from relevant and effective projects that could really help save lives.

Instead of pillaging animals’ bodies for cures for human diseases, compassionate charities focus their research where the best hope of treatment lies: with humans.

They realize that animal experiments are unnecessary, unreliable, and sometimes dangerously misleading. Enormous variations exist among rats, rabbits, dogs, pigs, and human beings, and meaningful scientific conclusions cannot be drawn about one species by studying another. The reality is clinical and epidemiological studies of humans are far more accurate a picture.

Aspirin poisoined cats, yet had no effect on fever in horses. Benzine causes leukemia in humans, but not in mice. Insulin produces birth defects in most animals but again not in humans. The use of paracetamol was stopped for just short of ten years due to it having adverse effects on guinea pigs.

Most of the important advances in health are attributable to human studies. Among them anesthesia, bacteriology, germ theory, the stethoscope, morphine, radium, penicillin, artificial respiration, antiseptics, the CAT,MRI, and pet scans. The discovery of the relationship between cholesterol and heart disease and between smoking and cancer; the development of x-rays and the isolation of the virus that caused AIDS. Animal testing played no role whatsoever in any of these advancements.

Compassionate, modern charities know we can improve treatments through up-to –date, non animal methods and they fund only non-animal research, leading to real progress in the prevention and treatment of disease- without starving, crippling, burning, poisoning, or cutting open animals.

The following health charities and service organizations DO NOT conduct or fund animal experiments.

Action for Blind People
14-16 Verney Road, London, SE16 3DZ. 020 7732 8771

The Back –Up Trust
Business Village, Broomhill Road, London SW18 4JQ. 020 8875 1805

Bath Cancer Research Unit
Wolfson Centre, Royal United Hospital, Bath BA1 3NG 01225 824124

Big C Appeal
10a Castle Meadow, Norwhich NR1 3DE. 01603 619900

British Allergy Foundation
30 Bellgrove Road, Welling, Kent DA16 3PY. 020 8303 8525

British Deaf Association
1-3 Worship Street, London EC2A 2AB. 020 7588 3520

British Institute for Brain Injured Children
Knowle Hall, Bawdrip, Bridgewater, Somerset TA7 8PJ. 01278 684060

British Polio Fellowship
Unit A, Eagle Office Centre, The Runway, South Ruislip HA4 6SE 020 8842 1898

British Red Cross
9 Grosvenor Crescent, London SW1X 7EJ 020 7235 5454

Caring Cancer Trust
14 Newham Lane, Ryde, Isle of Wight PO33 4ED 01983 810375

Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research
84a Tilehurst Street, Hitchin, Herts SG5 2DY 01462 436819

Eating Disorder Association
First Floor, Wensum House, 103 Prince of Wales Road, Norwhich, Norfolk NR1 1DW. 01603 619090

The Humane Research Trust
Brook House, 29 Bramhall Lane South, Bramhall, Stockport SK7 2DN 0161 439 8041

IBS Appeal
Gastroenterology & Nutrition Research Trust, Central Middlesex Hospital, Acton Lane, London NW10 7NS. 020 8453 2205

Lord Dowding Fund For Humane Research
261 Goldhawk Road, London W12 9PE. 020 8846 9777

Menopausal Research & Info Service
17 Burlescoombe Road, Thorpe Bay, Essex SS1 3QG 01702 589555

Migraine Action Association
Unit 6, Oakley Hay Lodge Business Park, Great Folds Road, Great Oakley, Northants NN18 9AS. 01536 461333

National Deaf Children’s Society
15 Dufferin Street, London EC1Y 8UR 020 7490 8656

Natural Medicines Society
PO Box 232, East Molesey, Surrey KT8 1YF 020 8974 1166

New Approaches to Cancer
PO Box 194, St.Peter’s Hospital, Guildford Road, Chertsey, Surrey KT16 0PZ 01932 879882

Pain Relief Foundation
Clinical Sciences Centre, University Hospital Aintree, Lower Lane, Liverpool. L9 7AL. 0151 529 5820

Quest Cancer Research Charity
E3 Seedbed Business Centre, Coldharbour Road, Harlow CM19 5AF 01279 451359

Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation
200 London Road, Liverpool L3 9TA 0151 794 8800

Samantha Dickson ResearchTrust
The White House, Chatter Alley, Dogmersfield Hook, Hants RG27 8SS 01252 627426

Sense-National Deafblind & Rubella Association
11-13 Clifton Terrace, Finsbury Park, London N4 3SR. 020 7272 7774

York Against Cancer
31-33 North Moor Road, Huntindon, YO32 9QN 01904 764466.

Alternatives To Animal Testing