I’ve been reading up more on member organizations in the Coalition for Consumer Information in Cosmetics — the coalition that created the cruelty-free standard I use – and the next one on the list is Beauty Without Cruelty. However, in my quest to learn about all these organizations I’ve been unable to verify which company this actually is, so I’m going to skip it. Apparently there are a few companies and foundations with the name. I initially thought it was the Beauty without Cruelty cosmetics company, but the CCIC webpage does not link to that company — it just lists Beauty Without Cruelty and gives the phone number (212) 989-8073. I googled the phone number, and the only information I found was that Beauty Without Cruelty is based in New York and is “an international organization promoting alternatives to all animal use” (according to viva.org.uk). Since the cosmetics company Beauty Without Cruelty is based in Petaluma, I guess it’s a different organization? I have no idea. (If any of you have any information on this, could you post it here?)

So I’m moving on to the New England Anti-Vivisection Society (the last one! I’ve finally researched all the CCIC member organizations). NEAVS is a non-profit organization based in Boston. It was founded in 1895 (I’d just like to point out to ActivistCash.com that this means NEAVS is an animal rights organization that was founded before the 1980s, which, as I wrote in this post, is contrary to ActivistCash.com’s (ludicrous) position that all animal-rights-organizations (but not animal welfare-organizations) were all founded after 1980.

NEAVS goal is to “expose and replace animal experiments in laboratories and classrooms with ethically and scientifically responsible modern research methods and to protect human beings who may be subjected to such experiments” (luckily most human vivisection experiments went away with prison reform — unless they’re still vivisecting people in prisons and I don’t know about it — they aren’t, are they?) NEAVS also “advocates for the protection of animals through public outreach efforts and publications, through education programs designed to promote greater compassion and respect for life, and through the support of legislative initiatives and litigation intended for the protection of animals.” NEAVS has a really long history – you can read all about its history during these periods: 1895-1920, 1920-1945, 1945-1970, 1970-1995, and its recent history in 1995-2000.

The NEAVS website has a very nice section on what vivisection is, and what you can do to stop it. Basically, it states that vivisection is animal-experimentation — what most people call animal-testing — “cutting, burning, shocking, drugging, starving, irradiating, blinding and killing live animals” (it sounds so much more vivid that “animal testing,” doesn’t it?). NEAVS estimates that 25-40 million animals are cut, burnt, shocked, drugged, starved, irradiated, blinded or killed in laboratories for “biomedical experimentation, product and cosmetic testing,” and educational purposes every year. (Vivisection comes from the latin, vivi, which means “living,” and section, which means “cutting” – which combine to mean cutting into live flesh, and is usually used to designate cutting into live animals/people without an anaesthetic. It’s basically the opposite of dissection, which comes from the latin, dis, which means “apart or away,” and section which means “cut” – which combines to mean “to cut apart” and is used to describe the process of cutting apart dead people/animals. I think it’s interesting that we’ve gone as a culture from being opposed to dissection – in the eighteenth century body-snatchers had to steal live people and kill them to sell them to scientists because many people were opposed to dissection for religious reasons, to being a culture that glorifies animal vivisection. Though in 300 BC, apparently, some Egyptian anatomists are alleged to have performed vivisections on condemned criminals – maybe we’re just cycling back to being that inhumane a society.)

There are a few things you can do to stop vivisection. First, you can buy cruelty-free products (NEAVS has a book that it is its own compassionate shopping guide which is available in the NEAVS store for free, or you can use the CCIC shopping guide). Second, you can write to companies that still test their products on animals to let them know you will not buy their products until they stop testing on animals. Third, you can make sure your charitable contributions are not going to wasteful animal experimentation — only donate to medical charities that do not fund vivisection. Fourth, you can tell the college or university you graduated from that you won’t donate to the alumni fund as long as they do vivisection, and that your contributions will go to fund work to stop vivisection, not to institutions that support it (I think this is a great idea — I wish NEAVS would post a list of universities and colleges that don’t fund vivisection, I’d devote a whole post to it). Fifth, you can educate yourself and others about vivisection – NEAVS offers a lot of free educational brochures at Shop NEAVS, and also offers free reading lists, video lists, and information on materials to donate to public and school libraries. Sixth, you can write letters to the editors of your local paper — NEAVS will be happy to supply you with sample letters and has a list of tips for writing such letters. Sixth, you can check out NEAVS’ action alerts for what you can do to help locally, nationally, and globally. Seventh, you can become a vegetarian (NEAVS has a Vegan/Vegetarian Dining Guide for New England). Eighth, you can become a NEAVS supporter and help abolish vivisection. Ninth, if you live in Boston, you can volunteer at NEAVS.

NEAVS also has an interesting cruelty-free living section – you can buy books, resources, gifts, and t-shirts from NEAVS at the Shop NEAVS store (it includes an interesting article on the psychology of anti-vivisectionist, and some books about science and vivisection), you can buy selected books from Amazon.com that will support NEAVS, you can look at NEAVS’ Cruelty-Free Shopping Guide (which is available for free at Shop NEAVS), or you can choose cruelty-free charities, or you can learn about the Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics (CCIC).

NEAVS has some wonderful programs and campaigns such as Comments on Proposed Regulations for Chimpanzees, The Use of Animals in Eastern Medicines, Tufts Vet School: Placing Research Interests Over Concern For Animals?, A Happy Ending at Greenville, and NEAVS Rescues Young Chimpanzees, The Next Generation: the Next of Kin Curriculum, which is a program put together for teachers to give their students about how awful vivisection is and what alternatives there are to it, NEAVS’ Campaigns of Compassion, Care for Your Companion Animals in an Emergency, postcards and letters campaigns, and some interesting papers & presentations that can be used in campaigns. (There’s also a section on NEAVS’ past victories, and A Voice for Animals – a list of letters to the editors opposing vivisection that NEAVS has collected.)

NEAVS also has information on how to help your pets in case of an emergency by Creating a Care-Info-Card, a section on the Corporate Standard of Compassion for Animals — which is basically what the CCIC promotes and what I’ve based my cruelty-free companies page on, and a link to the Ethical Science and Education Center — a center devoted to educating people about educating without vivisecting, which includes information about animals in education, objecting to dissection, what you might not know: the hazards and harms of dissection, dissection legislation in the US and abroad , alternatives to dissection, tools for teachers, careers in science and medicine that don’t involve vivisection.

NEAVS also has an interesting Better Science section, which talks about

• the benefits of using non-animal tests – they’re more reliable, more humane, can be more cost-effective, and can be more environmentally friendly,
• how science without vivisection can be done – it basically points out that while many scientists cited the need for vivisection to help combat AIDS, non-animal-using-methods were actually used to isolate and identify the HIV virus, discover the mechanism of AIDS transmission, test for the presence of HIV in blood, and test for the therapeutic effect of AZT.
• NEAVS’ positions on numerous things such as xenotransplants – the transplanting of organs from one species to another – basically NEAVS is against it because though it’s been done a bunch of times, no person who has received an organ from an animal has lived more than two weeks with a nonhuman organ. NEAVS position on the Animal Welfare Act is that it is an act that is supposed to protect animals in research yet does no such thing.
• Information about the cruelty and limitations of animal testing.
• Information about non-animal research methods – including non-animal product safety tests such as Corrositex, Agarose Diffusion Method, Cell and Tissue Cultures, Clinical Studies, EpiDerm and SkinEthic, EpiOcular, Irritection Assay System, and Human Keratinocyte/Neutral Red Bioassay, and non-animal methods in biomedical research, such as epidemiological studies, clinical studies, autopsies and post-mortem studies, post-marketing surveillance, non-invasive imaging techniques, tissue and cell culture, mathematical and computer models, chromatography, and spectroscopy, and,
• Information about NEAVS’ funding for non-animal research and education – NEAVS has allocated $1.5 million for research, development and use of alternatives to animal testing in the past 10 years.

NEAVS has an interesting news page – with action alerts , press releases, opportunities to join NEAVS for the Broadway musical Wicked to help raise funds for Project R&R — a project to release chimpanzees from U.S. laboratories), opportunities to join a holiday raffle, and opportunities to help monkeys in Nepal.

If you’d like to help or give money to NEAVS, you can contribute to NEAVS, leave money to NEAVS in your will, give money to NEAVS in honor of someone (or some animal) else, give money to NEAVS in remembrance of someone (or some animal), make in-kind gifts to NEAVS, or volunteer at NEAVS.

Overall NEAVS seems to be a great organization – I love all the programs, and I hope it is successful in all its campaigns to abolish vivisection. I’m glad I researched all the CCIC member organizations – I think I’ve learned a lot, and I may profile other anti-vivisection organizations to increase my knowledge here in the future.

Categories : against animal testing, cruelty free