Cracking the Shell of Animal Rights Activism

It’s flu season, and as The New York Times reports today, President Obama has declared the H1N1 flu outbreak a national emergency while supplies of H1N1 flu vaccines are lagging. People have even been camping out in front of doctors’ offices to get the in-demand injections. So what would happen if this shortage faced additional pressures -- from animal rights groups? The possibility isn’t as far-fetched as you might think. Scientists produce vaccines for the flu by using chicken eggs. It takes 3 eggs to make a single dose of flu vaccine. So with over 307 million people in the US, somewhere in the neighborhood of 920 million eggs would be required to make a vaccine for every American man, woman, and child. Why is this important? Because as we’re telling readers of the Cleveland Plain Dealer today, animal rights activists like those who run the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) are pushing efforts like across the U.S. (like California’s Proposition 2 last year) that threaten domestic egg production and our ability to respond to vaccine demand...read more