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Although some children dream of running away to join the circus, it is a safe bet that most animals forced to perform in circuses dream of running away from the circus. Colorful pageantry disguises the fact that animals used in circuses are captives who are forced-under threat of punishment-to perform confusing, uncomfortable, repetitious, and often painful acts. Circuses would quickly lose their appeal if more people knew about the cruel methods used to train the animals; the cramped confinement, unacceptable travel conditions, and poor treatment that they endure; and what happens to them when they “retire.”

A Life Far Removed From Home

On its Web site, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus boasts that it “criss-cross[es] the country 11 months out of the year, logging more than 25,000 miles.”(1) Because circuses are constantly traveling from city to city, animals’ access to basic necessities such as food, water, and veterinary care is often inadequate. The animals, most of whom are quite large and naturally active, are forced to spend most of their lives in the cramped, barren cages used to transport them, where they have only enough room to stand and turn around. Most animals are allowed out of their cages only during the short periods when they must perform. Elephants are kept in leg shackles that only allow them to lift one foot at a time. The minimum requirements of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) are routinely ignored.
 
The temperature extremes that animals are subjected to during their travels with the circus cause misery and sometimes death. A young lion named Clyde died in a sweltering boxcar as a Ringling Bros. train crossed the Mojave Desert on a day when temperatures exceeded 100°F. Clyde’s caretaker told the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that his supervisors refused to stop the train, even when he warned them that the lions were in danger.(2) The Suarez Bros. Circus kept polar bears in hot, humid Puerto Rico in 8-foot-by-7-foot cages without air-conditioning or a regular chance to swim before U.S. officials finally ordered that the bears be confiscated and sent to a more suitable climate.(3)

Veterinarians qualified to treat exotic animals usually aren’t present or available at circuses, and many animals have suffered and died as a result of a lack of proper medical attention. Ricardo, an 8-month-old baby elephant, was killed in 2004 after suffering severe and irreparable fractures to both hind legs when he fell off a circus pedestal at Ringling’s breeding and training compound in Florida. As an undersized calf born to a young mother who was unable to nurse him, Ricardo likely suffered from malnutrition, and fragile bones may have contributed to his fatal fall from a dangerously high platform.(4) An African elephant named Kenya who was performing with the Australia-based Sydney Circus suffered a fatal heart attack when he was “hassled by dogs” according to accounts reported in The Belfast Telegraph.(5)
 
Unnatural Environments, Unnatural Behaviors
The lives of baboons, chimpanzees, and other primates used in circuses are a far cry from those of their wild relatives, who live in large, close-knit communities and travel together for miles each day across forests, savannahs, and hills. Primates are highly social, intelligent, and caring animals who suffer when deprived of companionship. Like all animals used in entertainment, primates do not perform unless they are forced to-often through beatings and solitary confinement. After watching video footage of baboons in a traveling circus called Baboon Lagoon, Dr. Robert Sapolsky, a research associate with the Institute of Primate Research in Kenya, said, “[T]raining most baboons to do tricks of the sort displayed is not trivial … it is highly likely that it required considerable amounts of punishment and intimidation.”(6)
 
During the off-season, animals used in circuses may be housed in traveling crates or barn stalls; some are even kept in trucks. Such unrelieved physical confinement has harmful physical and psychological effects on animals. These effects are often indicated by unnatural behaviors such as repeated head-bobbing, swaying, and pacing.(7) A study of circuses conducted by Animal Defenders International in the United Kingdom “found abnormal behaviors of this kind in all of the species observed.” Investigators witnessed elephants who were chained for 70 percent of the day, horses who were confined for 23 hours per day, and large cats who were kept in cages up to 99 percent of the time.(8)

The tricks that animals are forced to perform-such as bears’ balancing on balls, apes’ riding motorcycles, and elephants’ standing on two legs-are physically uncomfortable and behaviorally unnatural. The whips, tight collars, muzzles, electric prods, bullhooks, and other tools used during circus acts are reminders that the animals are being forced to perform. These “performances” teach audiences nothing about how animals behave under normal circumstances.

Beaten Into Submission

Physical punishment has always been the standard training method for animals in circuses. Animals are beaten, shocked, and whipped to make them perform-over and over again-tricks that make no sense to them. The AWA does not prohibit the use of bullhooks, whips, electrical shock prods, or other devices used by circus trainers. Trainers drug some animals to make them “manageable” and surgically remove the teeth and claws from others. 
 
Video footage shot during a PETA undercover investigation of Carson & Barnes Circus revealed Carson & Barnes’ animal care director, Tim Frisco, viciously attacking, yelling, and cursing at and shocking endangered Asian elephants. Frisco instructed other elephant trainers to beat the elephants with a bullhook as hard as they could and to sink the sharp metal bullhook into the animals’ flesh and twist it until they screamed in pain. The videotape also showed a handler using a blowtorch to remove elephants’ hair and chained elephants and caged bears exhibiting stereotypic behaviors caused by mental distress.

Clyde Beatty-Cole circus has been cited repeatedly by the USDA for animal welfare violations. According to congressional testimony provided by former Beatty-Cole elephant keeper Tom Rider, “[I]n White Plains, N.Y., when Pete did not perform her act properly, she was taken to the tent and laid down, and five trainers beat her with bullhooks.” Rider also told officials that “[a]fter my three years working with elephants in the circus, I can tell you that they live in confinement and they are beaten all the time when they don’t perform properly.”(9)

Archele Hundley was an animal trainer with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. She says she worked with the company for three months and quit after she allegedly saw a handler ram a bullhook into an elephant’s ear for refusing to lie down. Ringling Bros. “believes that if they can keep these animals afraid, they can keep them submissive,” Hundley said. “This is how they train their employees to handle these animals.”(10)

Animals Rebel

These intelligent captives sometimes snap under the pressure of constant abuse; others make their feelings abundantly clear when they get a chance. Flora, an elephant who had been forced to perform in a circus and was later moved to the Miami Zoo, attacked and severely injured a zookeeper in front of visitors.(11) As Florida police officer Blaine Doyle-who shot 47 rounds into Janet, an elephant who ran amok with three children on her back at the Great American Circus in Palm Bay-noted, “I think these elephants are trying to tell us that zoos and circuses are not what God created them for … but we have not been listening.”(12)

What You Can Do
As more people become aware of the cruelty involved in forcing animals to perform, circuses that use animals are finding fewer places to set up their big tops. The use of animals in entertainment has already been restricted or banned in several U.S. localities-including South Carolina and Orange County and Pasadena, California-as well as in cities around the world, like New Delhi, Belfast, and Rio de Janeiro. The council of the Chester-le-Street district in the U.K. banned events in which animals perform, calling them “a relic of a bygone era.”(13)

Don’t patronize circuses that use animals. PETA can provide literature to pass out to patrons if the circus comes to your town. Find out about state and local animal protection laws, and report any suspected violations to authorities. Contact PETA for information on ways to get an animal-display ban passed in your area.

Take your family to see only animal-free circuses, such as Cirque du Soleil or the Pickle Family Circus.

References

1) Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, “Always on the Move, It’s The Town Without a ZIP Code!” Feld Entertainment, Inc., 2006.
2) Marc Kaufman, “USDA Investigates Death of Circus Lion; Activists Challenge Ringling Bros.’ Account, Say They Notified Federal Officials,” The Washington Post 8 Aug. 2004.
3) Howie Paul Hartnett, “2 of 3 Polar Bears Make It to N.C.,” Charlotte Observer 20 Nov. 2002.
4) Marc Kaufman, “USDA Investigates Death of Circus Lion,” The Washington Post 8 Aug. 2004.
5) Victoria O’Hara, “Circus Elephant Died After Being ‘Hassled by Dogs,’” The Belfast Telegraph 7 Aug. 2007.
6) Robert Sapolsky, letter to PETA, Jun. 2004.
7) Randi Hutter Epstein, “Circus Life Drives Animals Insane, Two British Rights Groups Contend,” Associated Press, 24 Aug. 1993.
Jan Creamer and Tim Phillips, “The Ugliest Show on Earth,” Animal Defenders, Ltd., last accessed 22 Nov. 2004.
9) Testimony of Tom Rider, legislative hearing on H.R.2929, 13 Jun. 2000.
10) Ira Cantor, “Bill Would Outlaw Hooks Used on Elephants,” Milford Daily News 17 Oct. 2007.
11) NBC 6 News Team, “Elephant Who Attacked Handler Was Circus Star,” NBC6.net, 17 Dec. 2002.
12) Louis Sahagun, “Elephants Pose Giant Dangers,” Los Angeles Times 11 Oct. 1994.
13) “Circuses Face New Ban,” The Journal 27 Nov. 2000.

—

Dogfighting—a blood “sport” in which two dogs are pitted against each other in a fighting pit and forced to rip each other to shreds in a fight to the death for the “amusement” and monetary gain of onlooking gamblers—is illegal in the United States and is a felony in every state except Idaho and Wyoming.(1) Experts estimate that tens of thousands of people are involved in professional dogfighting, while an additional 100,000 may be participating in so-called “streetfighting” or informal dogfights.(2) Forced to Fight and Left to Die

The most commonly bred dogs for fighting are Staffordshire terriers, American Staffordshire terriers, American bulldogs, and American pit bull terriers. All of them are usually referred to as pit bulls. Dogs are highly social pack animals who need and deserve love, attention, and exercise and thrive in an environment that offers the companionship of other dogs and human guardians. Dogs who are used for fighting are chained, taunted, and starved in order to trigger extreme survival instincts and encourage aggressiveness.Typically, before their first birthdays, puppies bred for fighting are placed in front of other dogs in order to test their aggression. At around 15 months, two prospective “fighters” are forced to participate in a “roll”—their first fight, which lasts about 10 minutes—followed by a second fight that lasts an hour. Survivors are chained again (sometimes with weighted logging chains) for a couple of months until they are ready for their first “show.” Breeders “train” dogs by forcing them to tread water in pools; run on a treadmill while a cat or another terrified animal, who may be someone’s stolen companion animal, is placed in a cage in front of the dog (to be caught and mauled to death as a reward afterward); and hang on with their jaws while dangling from a chain baited with meat.(3,4) The dogs are likely injected with steroids, and some breeders go so far as to sharpen their dogs’ teeth, cut off their ears (in order to prevent another dog from latching on), and add roach poison to their food so that their fur might taste bad to other dogs.(5,6)

Dogs that “win” fights are forced to fight again and again and are bred to produce profit-making puppies. One breeder who was claimed to be a particularly successful fighting dog earned $100,000 in stud fees in a single year.(7) “Rape stands,” which are routinely confiscated from large-scale dogfighting operations, are contraptions used by breeders to strap down resistant female dogs so that males can impregnate them. Dogs that do not fight or lose fights may be used as “bait” animals or may be abandoned, tortured, set on fire, electrocuted, shot, drowned, or beaten to death.

What Happens at Dogfights A dogfight could be a street fight, which lasts only a few minutes and takes place in an alley or a back yard, or it could fall under one of two levels of organized fights: hobbyist and professional.(8) Organized fights tend to be highly secretive, with word spreading by mouth or via the Internet. Participants may meet in one place and be taken en masse to another location so that even they don’t know where they’re going until they arrive.  Abandoned houses, garages, warehouses, and fields all serve as sites for dogfights—places that can be easily scouted by lookouts and quickly evacuated in advance of a raid.(9)A “pit” consists of a dirt or carpeted floor that is anywhere from 8 to 16 square feet and is surrounded by a wooden—and often portable—enclosure that is about 3 feet high. Dogs are taken to either end of the ring and released at the “face your dogs” command. Break or parting sticks are used to pry apart fighting dogs, who clamp down so fiercely that it is not uncommon for dogs to “fang” themselves (i.e., bite through their own lips).(10) The fight could go on for hours—until one dog is seriously injured or dies or, “[s]hould the police interfere, the referee … name[s] the next meeting place,” according to rules posted on a breeder’s Web site.(11)

Dogs are ranked by their “gameness”—the ability to keep fighting even when pain and loss of blood have caused their bodies to go into shock.(12) A federal prosecutor recalls a case in which one of 18 dogs found in a raid had 70 open wounds and was missing half a jaw while another dog’s body was 75 percent covered in scar tissue.(13) A Louisiana state police officer who conducts dogfighting investigations says, “When you go to where these fights have happened, you’ll find a couple of dog corpses or a pit full of blood.”(14)

The Tip of a Criminal IcebergDogfighting usually involves other crimes in addition to cruelty to animals. One infamous breeder planted “directional mines” on his property in an attempt to keep people away; a land surveyor was injured when one of these devices exploded.(15)Gambling—which is frequently illegal and often involves large sums of money—is found at many dogfights, as are firearms and other weapons that are sometimes used in violent crimes, including murder, as occurred at a Texas home when three intruders bound the wife and children of a well-known pit bull breeder and killed him for the $100,000 that he had won at a fight.(16) A detective told the

New York Daily News that “you can get more drugs and guns off the street by breaking up dog rings than you would breaking up drug rings.”(17) An Ohio sheriff says that “just about every dogfighting search warrant we’ve done, we’ve found drugs.”(18)A review of Chicago dogfighting incidents over a three-year span found that in the nearly 400 cases, more than half the dog owners had gang affiliations and almost all had been arrested at least two times.(19)

Young children are sometimes present at dogfights; Baltimore’s Health Department lists dogfighting as a child welfare issue on its Web site and cautions parents that “[c]hildren are exposed to exhibits of extreme brutality, illegal gambling, drugs, and guns associated with these cruel events.”(20)

These tortured dogs do not make good companions, as breeders commonly mate close relatives together in an effort to pass on the traits of dogs that are especially aggressive and whose instincts and training motivate them to kill other animals. “We’re sitting on a powder keg,” says one Ohio dog warden.(21)

What You Can DoFederal law bans interstate commerce import and export of fighting dogs, and the penalty is three years in jail with a $250,000 fine.(22) But as a Texas sheriff remarked, “If you don’t know it’s going on, there’s not a whole lot you can do. It’s organized crime.” Officials often stumble across dogfighting operations accidentally while searching property for other reasons. For instance, in 2007, authorities were searching Michael Vick’s property in rural Virginia for suspected drug activity when they discovered dogs who were tied to car axles with logging chains as well as dogfighting equipment, including treadmills, chains, whips, and injectable drugs.(23)Dogs raised for fighting are usually chained (or “tethered”), which is a safety hazard for the dogs and the community. A study published in

Pediatrics magazine reported that “[b]iting dogs were significantly more likely … to be chained” and nearly three times as likely to attack than dogs who were not tethered.(24) While many cities and counties have addressed this cruel and dangerous practice in an effort to prevent tragedies from striking near home, others consider such legislation only after chained dogs maul children in their areas. For more information on how you can get your community to enact an ordinance that bans or at least restricts tethering, please visit HelpingAnimals.com.If you suspect that dogfighting is happening in your neighborhood, contact local law enforcement authorities.

References 1) CNN.com, “Dogfighting a Booming Business, Experts Say,” 18 Jul. 2007.
2) CNN.com.
3) Bill Burke, “Bloodsport. Dogfighting Once Had a Following Limited to the Rural South. But in the Age of the Internet, This Violent, Illegal Activity Has Seen a Cultural Shift,” The Virginian-Pilot 17 Jun. 2007.
4) Julian Walker and Tom Campbell, “The Growth of Dogfighting,” The Richmond Times-Dispatch 3 Jul. 2007.
5) Burke.
6) Childs Walker, “Dogfight ‘Culture’ Reaches to Baltimore; Officials Link Bloody Pastime With Drugs, Gun Dealing, Gangs,” The Baltimore Sun 1 Jun. 2007.
7) Burke.
Walker and Campbell.
9) Renée C. Lee, “Dogfight Culture Thrives on Secrecy: Lack of Police Training Hinders Enforcement, Animal Welfare Experts Contend,” The Houston Chronicle 4 Sept 2007.
10) Drew Jubera, “Dogfighting: A Shadow World of Bloodlust,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 20 Jul. 2007.
11) G.A. Trahan, “American Pit Bull Terrier ‘Cajun Rules,’” Balkan Boys’ Kennels, 25 Jun. 2007.
12) Associated Press, “Vick Case Latest Stain on Pit Bull’s Changing Image,” 25 Jul. 2007.
13) Tom Weir, “Vick Case Sheds Light on Dark World of Dogfighting,” USA Today 7 Jul. 2007.
14) Weir.
15) Burke.
16) Lee.
17) Lisa Olson, “Dogfighting World Is Inhumane Society,” New York Daily News 19 Jul. 2007.
18) Mark Gillispie, “Brutal Underground Sport Comes to Light; Secrets of the Dogfighting World Unleashed as Federal Officials Look at Case of NFL’s Vick,” Plain Dealer 10 Jun. 2007.
19) Walker.
20) Baltimore City Health Department, “Dog Fighting: Why You Should Care,” 25 Jul. 2007.
21) Gillispie.
22) CNN.com.
23) WAVY-TV 10, “Vick Claims No Knowledge of Situation on His Property,” 28 Apr. 2007.
24) Kenneth A. Gershman et al., “Which Dogs Bite? A Case-Control Study of Risk Factors,” Pediatrics 93 (1994): 913-7.
Article from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Given the chance, cows nurture their young and form lifelong friendships with one another. They play games, have a wide range of emotions, and demonstrate personality traits, such as vanity. But most cows raised for the dairy-products industry are intensively confined, leaving them unable to fulfill their most basic desires, such as nursing their calves, even for a single day. They are treated like milk-producing machines and are genetically manipulated and pumped full of antibiotics and hormones that cause them to produce more milk. While cows suffer in animal factories, humans who drink their milk increase their chances of developing heart disease, diabetes, several types of cancer, and many other ailments.

Cows Suffer on Dairy Farms

Cows produce milk for the same reason that humans do-to nourish their young-but calves on dairy farms are taken away from their mothers when they are just 1 day old. They are fed milk replacers (including cattle blood) so that their mothers’ milk can be sold to humans.(1,2)

Female cows are artificially inseminated shortly after their first birthdays.(3) After giving birth, they lactate for 10 months and are then inseminated again, continuing the cycle. Some spend their entire lives standing on concrete floors; others are confined to massive, crowded lots, where they are forced to live amid their own waste. Cows have a natural lifespan of about 25 years and can produce milk for eight or nine years. However, the stress caused by the conditions in animal factories leads to disease, lameness, and reproductive problems that render cows worthless to the dairy-products industry by the time that they’re 4 or 5 years old, at which time they are sent to be slaughtered.(4,5)

On any given day, there are more than 8 million cows on U.S. dairy farms-about 14 million fewer than there were in 1950. Yet milk production has continued to increase, from 116 billion pounds of milk per year in 1950 to 170 billion pounds in 2004.(6,7) Normally, these animals would produce only enough milk to meet the needs of their calves (around 16 pounds per day), but genetic manipulation, antibiotics, and hormones are used to force each cow to produce more than 18,000 pounds of milk each year (an average of 50 pounds per day).(8,9) Cows are also fed unnatural, high-protein diets-which include dead chickens, pigs, and other animals-because their natural diet of grass would not provide the nutrients that they need to produce such massive amounts of milk.(10)

Mastitis

Painful inflammation of the mammary glands, or mastitis, is common among cows raised for their milk and is one of dairy farms’ most frequently cited reasons for sending cows to slaughter. There are about 150 bacteria that can cause the disease, one of which is E. coli.(11) Symptoms are not always visible, so milk’s somatic cell count (SCC) is checked to determine whether the milk is infected. Somatic cells include white blood cells and skin cells that are normally shed from the lining of the udder. As in humans, white blood cells-also known as “pus”-are produced as a means of combating infection. The SCC of healthy milk is below 100,000 cells per milliliter; however, the dairy-products industry is allowed to combine milk from the teats of all the cows in a herd in order to arrive at a “bulk tank” somatic cell count (BTSCC); milk with a maximum BTSCC of 750,000 cells per milliliter is allowed to be sold.(12,13) A BTSCC of 700,000 or more generally indicates that two-thirds of the cows in the herd are suffering from udder infections.(14)

Studies have shown that providing cows with cleaner housing, more space, and better diets, bedding, and care lowers their milk’s SCC as well as their incidence of mastitis.(15) A Danish study of cows subjected to automated milking systems found “acutely elevated cell counts during the first year compared with the previous year with conventional milking. The increase came suddenly and was synchronized with the onset of automatic milking.”(16) Instead of improving conditions in animal factories or easing cows’ production burden, the dairy-products industry is exploring the use of cloned cattle who have been genetically manipulated to be resistant to mastitis.(17)

The Veal Connection

If you drink milk, you’re subsidizing the veal industry. While female calves are slaughtered or kept alive to produce milk, male calves are often taken away from their mothers when they are as young as 1 day old and are chained in tiny stalls for three to 18 weeks to be raised for veal.(18,19) Calves raised for veal are fed a milk substitute that is designed to make them gain at least 2 pounds per day, and their diet is purposely low in iron so that their flesh stays pale as a result of anemia.(20) An enzyme from their stomachs is used to produce rennet, an ingredient used in many cheeses.(21) In addition to suffering from diarrhea, pneumonia, and lameness, calves raised for veal are terrified and desperate for their mothers.

Environmental Destruction

Large dairy farms have an enormously detrimental effect on the environment. In California, America’s top milk-producing state, manure from dairy farms has poisoned hundreds of square miles of groundwater, rivers, and streams. Each of the more than 1 million cows on the state’s dairy farms excretes 120 pounds of waste daily.(22) Overall, animals in animal factories, including dairy farms, produce 1.65 billion tons of manure each year, much of which ends up in our waterways and drinking water.(23) The Environmental Protection Agency reports that agricultural runoff is the primary cause of polluted lakes, streams, and rivers. The dairy-products industry is the primary source of smog-forming pollutants in California; a single cow emits more of these harmful gases than a car does.(24)

Eighty percent of all agricultural land in the U.S. is used to raise animals for food or to grow grain to feed them-that’s almost half the total land mass of the contiguous 48 states.(25) Each cow raised by the dairy-products industry consumes as much as 50 gallons of water per day.(26)

Human Bodies Fight Cow’s Milk

Besides humans (and companion animals who are fed by humans), no species drinks milk beyond infancy or drinks the milk of another species. Cow’s milk is suited to the nutritional needs of calves, who have four stomachs and gain hundreds of pounds in a matter of months, sometimes weighing more than 1,000 pounds before they are 2 years old.(27)

Cow’s milk is the number one cause of food allergies among infants and children, according to the American Gastroenterological Association.(28) Most people begin to produce less lactase, the enzyme that helps with the digestion of milk, when they are as young as 2 years old. This reduction can lead to lactose intolerance.(29) Millions of Americans are lactose intolerant, and an estimated 90 percent of Asian-Americans and 75 percent of Native- and African-Americans suffer from the condition, which can cause bloating, gas, cramps, vomiting, headaches, rashes, and asthma.(30) Studies have also found that autism and schizophrenia in children may be linked to the body’s inability to digest casein, a milk protein; symptoms of these diseases diminished or disappeared in 80 percent of the children who switched to milk-free diets.(31)

A U.K. study showed that people who suffered from irregular heartbeats, asthma, headaches, fatigue, and digestive problems “showed marked and often complete improvements in their health after cutting milk from their diets.”(32)

Calcium and Protein Myths

Although American women consume tremendous amounts of calcium, their rates of osteoporosis are among the highest in the world. Conversely, Chinese people consume half as much calcium (most of it from plant sources) and have very low incidence of the bone disease.(33) Medical studies indicate that rather than preventing the disease, milk may actually increase women’s risk of getting osteoporosis. A Harvard Nurses’ Study of more than 77,000 women ages 34 to 59 found that those who consumed two or more glasses of milk per day had higher risks of broken hips and arms than those who drank one glass or less per day.(34) T. Colin Campbell, professor of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University, said, “The association between the intake of animal protein and fracture rates appears to be as strong as that between cigarette smoking and lung cancer.”(35)

Humans can get all the protein that they need from nuts, seeds, yeast, grains, beans, and other legumes. It’s very difficult not to get enough calories from protein when you eat a healthy diet; protein deficiency (also known as kwashiorkor) is very rare in the United States and is usually only a problem for people who live in famine-stricken countries.(36) Consumption of excessive protein from dairy products, eggs, and meat has been linked to the formation of kidney stones and has been associated with colon cancer and liver cancer.(37,38) It’s also suspected that consuming too much protein puts a strain on the kidneys, which compensate by leeching calcium from the bones.(39)

What You Can Do

The best way to save cows from the misery of animal factories is to stop buying milk and other dairy products. Discover the joy of soy! Fortified plant-derived milks provide calcium, vitamins, iron, zinc, and protein but do not contain any cholesterol. These alternatives are perfect for cereal, coffee, and soups and also work well in baked goods and other recipes. Many delicious dairy-product alternatives-such as almond, rice, oat, and soy milks as well as Soy Dream and Tofutti “ice cream”-are available in grocery and health-food stores. Visit VegCooking.com for ideas, or call 1-888-VEG-FOOD to order a free vegetarian starter kit.

References

1) David Goldstein, “Up Close: A Beef With Dairy,” KCAL, 30 May 2002.
2) Stephanie Simon, “Mad Cow Casts Light on Beef Uses,” Los Angeles Times 4 Jan. 2004.
3) David R. Winston, “Goals for Heifer Rearing,” Department of Dairy Science, Virginia Polytech University, 1 Oct. 1996.
4) Anne Karpf, “Dairy Monsters,” The Guardian 13 Dec. 2003.
5) Richard L. Wallace, “Market Cows: A Potential Profit Center,” University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2004.
6) U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agriculture Statistics Service, “Milk Production,” 18 Jul. 2006.
7) Don P. Blaney, “The Changing Landscape of U.S. Milk Production,” Statistical Bulletin Number 978, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Jun. 2002.
Blaney.
9) David Pace, “Feeding a Bucket Calf,” Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service, Oklahoma State University.
10) Simon.
11) Helen Pearson, “Udder Suicide, E. Coli Kill Off Milk-Making Mammary Cells,” Nature 6 Aug. 2001.
12) National Mastitis Council, “Guidelines on Normal and Abnormal Raw Milk Based on Somatic Cell Counts and Signs of Clinical Mastitis,” 2001.
13) P.L. Ruegg, “Practical Food Safety Interventions for Dairy Production,” Journal of Dairy Science 86 (2003): E1-E9.
14) National Mastitis Council.
15) S. Waage et al., “Identification of Risk Factors for Clinical Mastitis in Dairy Heifers,” Journal of Dairy Science 81 (1998): 1275-84.
16) Morten Dam Rasmussen et al., “The Impact of Automatic Milking on Udder Health,” Proceedings of the Second International Symposium on Mastitis and Milk Quality (Vancouver: 2001).
17) Michael Raine, “Cloning-New Era in Breeding Technology Raises Hopes, Concerns,” The Western Producer 17 Jul. 2002.
18) Susan C. Kahler, “Raising Contented Cattle Makes Welfare, Production Sense,” Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 218 (2001): 182-6.
19) U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service, “Safety of Veal, From Farm to Table,” May 2005.
20) John M. Smith, “Raising Dairy Veal,” Ohio State University, information adapted from the Guide for the Care and Production of Veal Calves, 4th ed., 1993, American Veal Association, Inc.
21) The European Food Information Council, “Chymosin and Cheese Making,” 2003.
22) Marla Cone, “State Dairy Farms Try to Clean Up Their Act,” Los Angeles Times 28 Apr. 1998.
23) M. Jenkins and D.D. Bowman, “Viability of Pathogens in the Environment,” Pathogens in the Environment Workshop Proceedings (Kansas City, Mo.: 23-25 Feb. 2004).
24) James Owen, “California Cows Fail Latest Emissions Test,” National Geographic News 16 Aug. 2005.
25) Marlow Vesterby and Kenneth S. Krupa, “Major Uses of Land in the United States, 1997,” Statistical Bulletin Number 973, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1997.
26) Rick Grant, “Water Quality and Requirements for Dairy Cattle,” NebGuide, Cooperative Extension, Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 1996.
27) Ontario Farm Animal Council, “Beef Cattle Farming in Ontario,” 2005.
28) American Gastroenterological Association, “American Gastroenterological Association Medical Position Statement: Guidelines for the Evaluation of Food Allergies,” Gastroenterology 120 (2001): 1023-5.
29) National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse, “Lactose Intolerance,” National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Mar. 2003.
30) Courtney Taylor, “Got Milk (Intolerance)? Digestive Malady Affects 30-50 Million,” The Clarion-Ledger 1 Aug. 2003.
31) “Milk Protein May Play Role in Mental Disorders,” Reuters Health, 1 Apr. 1999.
32) Severin Carrell, “Milk Causes ‘Serious Illness for 7M Britons.’ Scientists Say Undetected Lactose Intolerance Is to Blame for Chronic Fatigue, Arthritis, and Bowel Problems,” The Independent 22 Jun. 2003.
33) Karpf.
34) D. Feskanich et al., “Milk, Dietary Calcium, and Bone Fractures in Women: A 12-Year Prospective Study,” American Journal of Public Health, 87 (1997) 992-97.
35) Karpf.
36) U.S. National Library and the National Institutes of Health, “Kwashiorkor,” Medline Plus Medical Encyclopedia, 13 Jun. 2006.
37) Gary C. Curhan et al., “A Prospective Study of Dietary Calcium and Other Nutrients and the Risk of Symptomatic Kidney Stones,” The New England Journal of Medicine 328 (1993): 833-8.
38) Kathleen M. Stadler, “The Diet and Cancer Connection,” Virginia Tech, Nov. 1997.
39) Karpf.

–Jeffrey S. Kaye, Ph.D

January 27, 2008

Alan E. Kazdin, Ph.D.,
President, American Psychological Association
750 First Street, NE
Washington, DC 20002-4232

Dear Dr. Kazdin,

I hereby resign my membership in the American Psychological Association (APA). I have up until now been working with Psychologists for an Ethical APA for an overturn in APA policy on psychologist involvement in national security interrogations, and I greatly respect those who are fighting via a dues boycott to influence APA policy on this matter. I hope to still work with these principled and dedicated professionals, but I cannot do it anymore from a position within APA.

Unlike some others who have left APA, my resignation is not based solely on the stance APA has taken regarding the participation of psychologists in national security interrogations. Rather, I view APA’s shifting position on interrogations to spring from a decades-long commitment to serve uncritically the national security apparatus of the United States. Recent publications and both public and closed professional events sponsored by APA have made it clear that this organization is dedicated to serving the national security interests of the American government and military, to the extent of ignoring basic human rights practice and law. The influence of the Pentagon and the CIA in APA activities is overt and pervasive, if often hidden. The revelations over the Constitution and behavior of the 2005 Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS) panel are a case in point. While charged with investigating the dilemmas for psychologists involved in military interrogations in the light of the scandals surrounding Guantanamo’s Camp Delta and Abu Ghraib prison, it was stacked with military and governmental personnel, and closely monitored and pressured by APA staff.

I strongly disagree with APA’s current position on interrogations and am unimpressed with recent clarifications of that position that allow for voluntary non-participation in specifically defined cases where torture and abuse of prisoners is proven to exist. I have discussed my reasoning for this elsewhere, both in public and blogging on the Internet. In 2007, I was a panelist in a “mini-convention” held at the APA Convention in San Francisco, which examined the dispute over interrogations, presenting my findings on secret and non-secret psychologist research into isolation, sensory deprivation and sensory overload.

The following is a review of my objections to APA policy and practices:

1) APA’s position on non-involvement in torture allows psychologists to work in settings that do not allow the basic right of habeas corpus, in addition to practices of humane confinement as delineated in the Conventions of the Geneva Protocols and various international documents and treaties.

2) APA maintains, in private communications, that relegating various modes of psychological torture (sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, isolation) and the use of drugs in interrogations to something less than outright prohibition in recent APA position papers does not mean APA had any intention of providing a “loophole” for interrogators in the practice of coercive interrogations. APA also promises to clarify its position on these matters in an “ethics casebook.” When it has found it exigent, as with the PENS resolution, to step outside normal procedure to clarify its position, it has done so. I find it noteworthy that recent APA clarifications of its position are treated as something requiring less than direct organizational expression.

3) APA continues to propagate a position that it knows is false: that psychologists operate in interrogation settings to prevent abusive interrogations. While sometimes citing the compelling conclusions about context and behavior outlined by Zimbardo, and stemming from his famous Prisoner Experiment, it twists the representation of this research by making psychologists a quasi-police force monitoring abusive interrogations. On the contrary, the Zimbardo research leads to a more unsettling conclusion, i.e., that human beings in general are susceptible to participation in abusive behavior based upon contextual factors. In fact, the Zimbardo research argues, as Dr. Zimbardo himself has done, against participation in these kinds of interrogations.

4) APA has shown little interest in the many revelations regarding psychologist participation in torture, or in psychologist research into abusive or coercive interrogations. Excepting only a brief period in the late 1970s, when widespread and public exposure of CIA mind-control programs raised considerable scandal, APA has shown little inclination to confront the history of psychologist participation in such research, nor of its own institutional role in this research.

5) Finally, recent APA activities, such as the joint CIA/Rand Corporation/APA July 2003 workshop in the “Science of Deception,” point to questionable current participation in unethical practices and illegal governmental activities. I queried relevant actors and APA leaders as to what actually occurred at this workshop, which the APA Science Directorate described as discussing how to use “pharmacological agents to effect apparent truth-telling behavior.” Also considered was the study of “sensory overloads on the maintenance of deceptive behaviors.” Workshop participants were asked, “How might we overload the system or overwhelm the senses and see how it affects deceptive behaviors?” I never received any answer from relevant APA personnel, including the current director of ethics, about what went on at this workshop.

The latter episode captures the terrible trap into which APA has fallen. When making agreements with state intelligence and military agencies, it is customary to sign secrecy agreements. This makes it impossible to reasonably assess and monitor the activities of psychologists in national security settings. Furthermore, the subordination of military psychologists to the chain of command of the armed forces allows for ineffective, if not impossible, oversight of psychologist activities. But the problem with secrecy does not end there. Major researchers — including a former APA president — who have contracted with the government or had their work utilized by the military … have told me they are unable to discuss matters beyond a certain point, or else have tried to restrict discussion of these matters, no doubt due in part to secrecy restrictions.

In the book Psychology in the Service of National Security, published by the APA in 2006, A. David Mangelsdorff, the editor, writes, “As the military adjusts to its changing roles in the new national security environment, psychologists have much to offer.” He notes the recent forward military deployment of psychologists, their use in so-called anti-terrorism research, and assistance in influencing public opinion about “national security problems facing the nation.” L. Morgan Banks, Chief of the Psychological Applications Directorate of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, and a member of the controversial PENS panel, wrote elsewhere in the same book about the “bright future” for psychologists working with Special Operations Forces. Never mind that SOPs have been implicated in torture in Afghanistan — including receiving instructions in coercive procedures from some of the same psychologists who attended the APA/CIA workshop noted above. Nowhere in the book could I find a discussion of ethical problems surrounding these issues, nor of the political and social questions implicit in such outright support of governmental initiatives and military policy. In fact, curiously, there is no discussion of psychologist participation in military interrogations anywhere in the book.

Despite otherwise notable and positive stances and activities of the APA on other social issues — such as combating prejudice against gays and lesbians, or against racial prejudice — it is an unfortunate but urgent fact that APA has become subordinated to the state when it comes to military matters. APA acts as an arm of the Pentagon and a support agency for the CIA. Those differences that exist between the APA and the Bush Administration on interrogation policies mirror differences within the administration itself, and within different governmental departments. In these cases, APA acts as the instrument of a faction within government, rather than as an independent actor and representative of the profession and its ideals and goals.

I would suggest the following remedies, if any are still possible, to reverse the degeneration of the APA into a willing instrument of U.S. military and intelligence interests:

1) A full opening of all APA archives related to research and participation in activities with the military, including its intelligence arms, and a call for the government to declassify all documents related to the same;

2) The disestablishment of Division 19, the Society for Military Psychology, from the APA;

3) The immediate rescission of APA’s Ethics Code 1.02, which was changed in 2002 to permit adherence “to the requirements of the law, regulations, or other governing legal authority” when there is otherwise a conflict between the law and psychologists’ ethical practice. Opponents of 1.02 have rightly compared it to the Nazi defense of “following orders” at Nuremberg;

4) A call for the formation of a civilian cross-disciplinary investigatory panel to examine the past history and current collaboration of scientific and medical professionals with the government, especially its military and intelligence agencies, to encompass fields as diverse as psychology, anthropology, linguistics, and sociology, with a goal of producing recommendations on interactions between government and the scientific and medical communities;

5) A moratorium on research into interrogations;

6) Sever the link that ties APA’s definition of “cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment” in its various resolutions from the Reagan-era Reservations to the UN Convention Against Torture, which seeks to weaken that definition by relying on suspect interpretations of U.S. law rather than international definitions;

7) The immediate cessation of all support for involvement of psychological personnel in participation in any activity that supports national security interrogations.

The sordid history of American psychology when it comes to collaboration with governmental agencies in the research and implementation of techniques of psychological torture is one that our field will have to confront sooner or later. In a larger sense, the problems presented here are inherent in a larger societal dilemma regarding the uses of knowledge. This problem was recognized by the first critics of untrammeled scientific advance, and represented powerfully by Goethe’s Faust, and Mary Shelley’s Doctor Frankenstein. Human knowledge is capable of producing both good and evil. The scientist, the scholar, and the doctor hold tremendous responsibility in their hands. That they have not shown themselves, in a tragic number of instances, to ethically wield or control this responsibility has meant that the 21st century opens under the awful prospect of worldwide nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare, while a sinister, behaviorally-designed torture apparatus operates as the servant of nation-states wielding these awful weapons of mass destruction.

It’s appropriate to close with a statement about the problem of serving powerful national interests from a former president of the APA, a leading and important pioneer in our field, and also, for awhile, a member with top secret clearance in the CIA’s MKULTRA mind control program, Carl Rogers. One wonders if Rogers’ exposure to the world of secret government military projects didn’t inform his feelings about psychologists and government, as expressed in his famous debate with another seminal psychologist, B. F. Skinner:

“To hope that the power which is being made available by the behavioral sciences will be exercised by the scientists, or by a benevolent group, seems to me a hope little supported by either recent or distant history. It seems far more likely that behavioral scientists, holding their present attitudes, will be in the position of the German rocket scientists specializing in guided missiles. First they worked devotedly for Hitler to destroy the U.S.S.R. and the United States. Now, depending on who captured them, they work devotedly for the U.S.S.R. in the interest of destroying the United States, or devotedly for the United States in the interest of destroying the U.S.S.R. If behavioral scientists are concerned solely with advancing their science, it seems most probably that they will serve the purposes of whatever individual or group has the power.”

Sincerely yours,

Jeffrey Kaye, Ph.D.
San Francisco, CA

Jeffrey Kaye is a psychologist active in the anti-torture movement. He works clinically with torture victims at Survivors International in San Francisco, CA. As “Valtin,” he regularly blogs at Daily Kos, Docudharma, American Torture, Progressive Historians, and elsewhere.