Expert: (Ms) Andy Schulgasser - 9/26/2006

Question
WHY THE HELL DO U PEOPLE THINK THAT ANIMAL TESTING IS A BAD THING?!?! HUH!?
When people stand against animal testing, others would think of them as sensitive and compassionate. But what they do not think of is the great advantages that animal testing will cause. When a person says that animal testing is a bad and cruel thing, he/she doesn’t think of the kinds of food that he/she eats. Most of the foods people eat these days are animals, and no one ever thinks that this is a cruel thing to do. When talking about animal testing, think about the great and massive medical effects it will have on humans in the future. SO STFU AND LIVE UR LIFE! GOD PUT ANIMALS ON EARTH SO WE CAN USE THEM!

Jake Nettle

Answer
Dear Jake:

What's sad here in addition to animal suffering is that unfortunately, you believe the people who tell you that testing on & eating animals is necessary & beneficial for people.

From the anger I hear in your email it sounds like your mind is not open to hearing anything except the beliefs that certain other people have taught you, but I want to give you the benefit of the doubt.  I want to believe that you (as all of us) are an intelligent person & open to hearing all thoughts before you choose a decision.  So, here goes.

The reality is that those organizations promoting these beliefs are organizations that are either doing it for their own profit (the beef, dairy, pharmaceutical industries) or the doctors who've been trained to think that surgeries & drugs are what people need.

The sadness is, in addition to causing enormous suffering to innocent animals is that enormous suffering is caused to people.  There are great plant-based foods (vegan) that if people followed this type of diet they would not be suffering with the incredible amount of diseases that our society is currently suffering with.

In addition, the animal experiments have enormously slowed down the progression of healing for people.  There are much more effective alternatives to animal testing that the scientists refuse to use because their minds are closed.  They have the belief that "we've always done it that way & that's how we're going to continue doing it".

If our whole society did everything that way, we'd never have the majority of advantages that we have today.  Every new creation we have:  TV, Radio, Computers, etc. would not exist if people were not willing to be open to trying new things.

I'd like to recommend some great resources for you because I know you are a person who wants to be educated & know the truth.  Ignorance hurts us enormously.

I'd like to recommend a great website:  www.pcrm.org (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine).  This is a wonderful organization that educations on prevention of disease, staying healthy &, yes, it is against animal testing.  It is made up of all vegan  (total vegetarians) medical physicans, nutritionist, etc.

Some great books that will be enormously informative are John Robbins "Diet for a New American", "May All Be Fed" & he has other books out as well.  If you'd like to know who he is, he was the aire to the Baskin-Robbins fortune.  His family was grooming him to take over the family business.  He decided he wanted to learn everything about the business.

He explored more than his family did & when he discovered the realities of how dairy ice cream, etc. is made & the devastation it causes to animals, us & the environment, he chose to NOT be involved with the business & instead devote his life to educating people about the horrors the the factory farming industry & more.

You may want to read these books but from what I remember, I believe the story was that he had a falling out from his family but when his father got ill from eating the typical animal foods & the doctor told him he was going to die, his father became open to John's diet & his health was improved.

This was many years ago that I heard John speak about this.  His family sold the business & the next owners also learned about the realities & they decided to sell also because they did not want to be involved with that kind of business.

Another great book is:  "Mad Cowboy" by Howard Lyman.  If you remember him, he was the X-cattle rancher that was on Oprah who also educated her & the world about the horrors of the animal eating industry.  That brought her to state she'd "never eat a burger again" which brought on the lawsuit from the beef industry which, of course, Oprah won.

Jake, I know you're a smart person because you care enough to write a letter when you thing people are being hurt.  Because of this, it's important that you educate yourself so people do NOT get hurt.

I appreciate the time you've taken to write this letter.

Andy