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Animal Rights Group Targets NIH Director's Home (sciencemag.org)

Posted by timothy on from the where-do-you-stand dept.

sciencehabit writes: Late last month, hundreds of people in two Washington, D.C., suburbs received a letter in the mail claiming that one of their neighbors was tied to animal abuse at a government lab. Science has learned that the letters, sent by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), targeted U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins and NIH researcher Stephen Suomi, revealing their home addresses and phone numbers and urging their neighbors to call and visit them. The tactic is the latest attempt by the animal rights group to shut down monkey behavioral experiments at Suomi's Poolesville, Maryland, laboratory, and critics say it crosses the line.

8 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. It shows how powerful misinformation is by damn_registrars · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The PETA folks occasionally have valid points, but this is not one of those times. They latched on to some information that is - at best - partially true and now they are trying to destroy someone's career over it. These people are no better than the "Earth Liberation Front" that "released" a bunch of study animals only for them to be quickly run over by cars.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    1. Re:It shows how powerful misinformation is by jcr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Their aims may be noble

      Nope. Not even close.

      PETA is a criminal nut-cult, run for the sole purpose of propping up the ego of its crazy founder. It might as well be scientology.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    2. Re:It shows how powerful misinformation is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So you ok with assaulting people in their homes if they do something you don't like.

      I am glad I live in a country where shit like this does not fly.

    3. Re:It shows how powerful misinformation is by Dog-Cow · · Score: 5, Interesting

      PETA are hypocrites because people are animals too, and they don't give a shit about how humans are treated by others, or even what they themselves do to humans.

  2. Maybe PETA is angry... by mamono · · Score: 5, Funny

    Because the monkeys have better behavior than they do and they are jealous.

  3. This is brushing the lines with actual terrorism.. by RevDisk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Trying to influence government officials with threats is a very good way to end up with prison sentences.

    Sure, PETA is trying to outsourcing harassment of government officials by misleading information and probably omitting very pertinent information. If anything happens to them, I sincerely hope the responsible folks at PETA are charged as accessories. PETA may or may not have decent points. But the crazies in their leadership negate any possible positives.

  4. Re:Goose meet gander by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is this really what Slashdot has become? Flamebait stories that cause commentators to start doxing people?

    How is this even news for nerds, stuff that matters? It's clickbait of the worst kind.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  5. Re:Easy by Aaden42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Given that PETA’s former director of research Mary Beth Sweetland is an insulin dependant diabetic, I’ll go with a “nope” on that one.

    http://www.humanewatch.org/per...

    That said, she constructed a convenient out for PETA members whose lives rely on animal-tested or derived treatments. Because she’s working for animals, it’s for the greater good. So as long as you’re a PETA member, you can benefit from animal testing and stay alive with modern medicine so you can keep fighting to make sure no one else can. Everyone else has to die though. Wouldn’t be ethical for them to receive treatments that they’re not fighting to prevent anyone else from getting.