@pcrm.org is demonizing #eggs to protect hens

4.10: news.pol/animal rights/
pcrm.org is demonizing eggs to protect hens:
4.17: summary:
. Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
(pcrm.org) wants us to be vegans,
which includes demonizing eggs;
and it turns out that their primary reason
has to do with animal rights.
. I am sure we can humanely steal eggs;
what this requires is not a boycott,
but the implementation of a certified humane egg;
by Humane Farm Animal Care!
(see sample of passing hen care Standards).

(unfortunately my Eggland's Best didn't pass yet).

some national brands that did pass:
Safeway O-Organic Omega-3 Brown Eggs;
Costco Kirkland Signature Organic Cage Free Brown Eggs;
Lucerne Cage Free White Eggs,
other notables:
Pearl Valley dried eggs 50#.
whites only...
leading the humanE race...
The Farmer’s Hen Cage-Free Eggs
California Glaum Egg Ranch eggs,
Minooka, IL
Pasture Raised Eggs
NestFresh
farmer's henhouse
small is good... (free range beats cage free)
get #flockinghappy

Get #FlockingHappy about hen welfare
and raise your voice by supporting our mission
to make humanely produced eggs available to all.
We believe everyone should be able to enjoy
true free range eggs so we’ve created this campaign
to improve the lives of all hens
and to seek to put an end to factory farming.
Every show of support will be matched by
a monetary donation by the happy egg co.
to Compassion in World Farming,
the leading international farm animal welfare organization,
until we reach 25,000 signatures.

who is pcrm.org?:
. the Physicians Committee does lifesaving work
to stop animal cruelty in testing and training labs,
and promote responsible medicine and healthy living.

books promoted by pcrm.org:

Prisoned Chickens Poisoned Eggs
Karen Davis, PhD
An inside look at the modern poultry industry.
The original edition of this book exposed modern poultry practices,
revealing the tragedy chickens endure
through the lens of an industry that
brutally processes them without remorse.
Newly revised, Karen Davis again looks at the
horrific conditions these animals face
- in spite of free-range and cage-free claims -
and at the heightened risks consumers face
living in a world in which avian influenza,
food poisoning, global warming,
and genetic engineering interface with
the expansion of poultry production and consumption.
The author offers a compelling argument for adopting
a compassionate, plant-based cuisine
as an alternative to the inhumane practices
the industry offers. This book will help both flextarians
and non-vegetarians alike understand the real price
of their breakfast or dinner
and may provide the catalyst need to change warfare to welfare.

Pleasurable Kingdom:
By Jonathan Balcombe, Ph.D.
formerly the associate director with
The Humane Society of the United States.
Despite widely held perceptions, life for animals
is much more than a bleak battle for survival
and the avoidance of pain.
PCRM research scientist Jonathan Balcombe, Ph.D., in
his new book Pleasurable Kingdom:
Animals and the Nature of Feeling Good,
takes a look at growing evidence that animals are
able to enjoy themselves.
While it is now generally agreed that animals feel pain,
it has yet to be formally recognized that they can
experience life’s pleasures.
Balcombe combines scientific evidence with anecdotes
to assert that all creatures can get pleasure
from many things, including play, sex, food, and anticipation.
Dr. Balcombe notes that the possibility of
animals’ ability to feel positively
has distinct ethical consequences for humans.

Second Nature:
by Jonathan Balcombe, Ph.D.
Do baboons have a keen sense of right and wrong?
Do chickens find certain human faces attractive
in the same way people do?
Do cats and dogs get their feelings hurt?
In his new book, Second Nature,
animal behavior expert Jonathan Balcombe, Ph.D.,
makes the case that animals,
once viewed only as mindless automatons,
actually have rich sensory experiences and emotional complexity.

The Exultant Ark:
by Jonathan Balcombe, Ph.D.
In more than 130 striking images, this book
celebrates the full range of animal experience
with dramatic portraits of animal pleasure.
These photos, windows onto the inner lives of pleasure seekers,
show two polar bears engaged in a bout of wrestling,
a young bull elk sticking out his tongue to catch snowflakes,
and many other rewarding moments.

system to reduce animal testing:

pcrm's director of regulatory testing,
Kristie Sullivan, M.P.H.:

. adverse outcome pathways (AOPs)
is a framework for chemical hazard assessment
that is prioritizing modern test methods
in order to reduce animal testing.

The National Institutes of Health’s
National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS)
Tox21 program,
which uses high throughput screening (robotics),
has provided AOP data by screening more than
10,000 chemicals for 60 different tests.
NCATS is also developing an online resource
called BioPlanet,
which is a collection of 2000 human-relevant pathways.
The Environmental Protection Agency is also using data from
its Toxicity Forecaster (ToxCastTM) robotic testing platform
to create AOPs.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD),
which sets chemical testing guidelines worldwide,
is developing and recording a network of AOPs
using crowdsourced information technology tools
including the AOP Wiki and Effectopedia.
. pcrm.org scientists have held the
secretariat position of the International Council on
Animal Protection in OECD Programmes since 2006;
they work together with the OECD and other groups
to develop and promote the OECD’s AOP program globally.

Sullivan has led a team of international experts
to develop an AOP that will pave the way for
regulatory acceptance of non-animal
respiratory sensitization testing methods.

pcrm.org and the Human Toxicology Project Consortium
also created an AOP Learning video Channel.

the OECD's AOP Users' Handbook.

intro to effectopedia:
Instead of testing an individual chemical
in such a way that results apply only to
the context of narrow experimental conditions,
Effectopedia is being designed to define
the conditions under which knowledge can be
transferred from a single experiment
and applied to many other situations:
species, levels of biological organization,
exposure routes, exposure durations, and chemicals, etc.
While the graphical editor of Effectopedia
facilitates the delineation of AOPs,
a key element for success of this approach
is to create a common organizational space
that helps scientists in different disciplines
recognize broader applications for their work.
Effectopedia will identify exactly where
special knowledge is needed
to quantitatively link biological effects
and will aid specialists in creating
a larger context for their research
for experts with similar interest in a specific toxicity pathways.
Effectopedia will create live scientific documents
that are instantly open for focused discussions and feedback,
whilst giving credit to original authors and reviewers.