The images in the following program are very sensitive and may be as disturbing to viewers as they were to us. However, we have to show the truth about cruelty to animals, praying that you will help to stop it.

Concerned viewers, this is the Stop Animal Cruelty series on Supreme Master Television. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is a US-based animal rights group with over two-million members and supporters worldwide. PETA focuses on ending animal suffering in factory farms, the entertainment industry and research laboratories.

The caring organization also works to halt the use of animals in the fashion industry. Their tools to protect our animal friends include conducting animal cruelty investigations, organizing public outreach efforts, sponsoring animal welfare legislation, performing animal rescues, and creating pro-animal ad campaigns featuring prominent celebrities.

I believe we’re all the same; we’re all flesh and blood. We all have emotions. We all feel pain and joy and love, and so it’s not any fairer as if you would use your neighbor’s child to test something, that you would use another of your neighbors who happens not to be human. But we’ve used billions and billions and billions of animals. We don’t have a cure for the common cold! So this is not good science.

This week we feature an interview with Ingrid Newkirk, president and founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals regarding the sickening practice of animal testing.

Many different kinds of species are used to test. They most commonly start with mice and rabbits and rats. They then move to dogs. Once those tests have been completed, often they move to monkeys and they do use cats and dogs in these experiments too.

It’s not for a scientific reason that these animals are chosen. It’s because they’re small, they’re available, they’re easy to handle, and they’re cheap.

On a scale that is almost unimaginable, annually 100 million animals across the globe, or more than three animals a second, are subjected to the horrors of so-called experiments that deeply frighten, seriously injure, mentally scar, and savagely kill these innocent beings.

Animals used in these tests are treated as disposable tools by laboratories and after years of working in such facilities, many researchers become jaded and fail to comprehend the sheer torment faced by the animal inmates on a daily basis. Why is this occurring? There is a fundamentally incorrect belief held by some that trials on animals can accurately predict how a consumer product, chemical, drug, vaccine, or other substance will react with or affect the human body.

The physiology of all these animals is different from each other, let alone different from our physiology. The only common thing is they all feel pain when you put a substance inside them.

Take for instance the Draize test, used for testing cosmetics, personal products, and household items. There are two types of this utterly heartless and disgusting test - one is for eye irritancy and the other is for skin irritancy. In the former, a solution is made of the substance that is being assessed and is applied to the animal’s eye – typically causing fierce burning, itching and intense discomfort.

If this wasn’t outrageous enough, clips are used to keep the animal’s eyes open for days on end to prevent them from clearing away the solution by blinking. In addition the head is immobilized to prevent movement during this entire process. Often the victim’s eyes begin to bleed and become ulcerated. The so-called researchers involved then subjectively score how much damage has been done to the eyes in order to “judge” the substance’s toxicity.

It definitely doesn’t mean that you can test on a rabbit, and especially a rabbit’s eyes, which is what they do, and decide that you will or won’t have harm if it gets into a human eye. Because a rabbit has about 19 different characteristics to their eye than to the human eye and the physiology of all these animals is very different.

With the Draize skin irritancy test, the animal is shaved and the substance is applied to their skin. The tested area is then covered with plastic sheeting. As one can imagine the skin can become severely inflamed and injured. Again, the lab personnel subjectively score the extent of the mutilation – hardly what can be called objective science.

I think it’s very important to know that testing on animals does not make these products safe for you. If you take an ammonia floor cleaner that has been tested on animals and you pour it down your throat or put it in your eye, it’s still going to hurt you. So it’s not a safety test. It’s a bureaucratic regulation that they need to change.

But there are four basic tests: They put it down an animal’s throat, they put it in the animal’s eyes, they force the animals to inhale mass quantities of it, and they shave the animal’s back and apply the substance and then bind the animal up and then they simply record how much damage is done.

As documented by the animal advocacy group In Defense of Animals, a laboratory in the USA was keeping hundreds of adult chimpanzees locked up in cold, dark, barren cages and purposely exposing them to dangerous infectious diseases like hepatitis.

The investigators found that the vast majority of the primates had lost touch with reality due to their 24-hours a day, seven days a week isolation and the inability to move about like in the wild. The chimps exhibited signs of deep mental disturbance such as rocking back and forth constantly.

Almost everything you can imagine is done to all these animals. For chimpanzees, they often take the babies away and use them in what they call “maternal deprivation experiments.” But chimpanzees like all animals have been put into chambers and pressure has been applied to see if their lungs collapse or if their organs burst.

They’re deprived of everything. They are given electric shocks to see their reaction. They’re kept in isolation. They’ve even been sent into space. So everything you can imagine has been done to animals just for pure curiosity.

And the way in which they’re kept causes great fear and misery because they’re separated from their families. They’re never allowed to take even a few steps. They’re kept in a metal box. And often they’ve come from jungles or woods or rivers, and they don’t know what’s happening to them. And they live in a constant state of heightened fear.

There are numerous scientifically valid ways to verify the safety of a product without causing harm to animals. With human micro-dosing, extremely small quantities of the drug under evaluation are injected in humans with the risks to the participant of having any sort of reaction to the drug being very, very low.

Instead of the obscene Draize skin irritancy test, scientists can culture human skin cells to create a model of human skin upon which a product can be applied and assessed. Three-dimensional tissue engineering, scanning the human body using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and statistical modeling are other methods to conduct product safety studies without animals being hurt.

You need to use human skin-patch tests or computer modeling with human data, not force-feed these substances to animals or put these substances in animals’ eyes.

Today we have high-speed computers with human data. We have amazing technology! It’s absolutely beyond the time when we were so stupid and ignorant and un-technologically sound that we used animals.

By buying cruelty-free products, we as consumers have the ability to reward those companies that have rejected animal experimentation and the use of animal ingredients. Through our collective purchasing power, we can make those corporations that do not treat animals with dignity and respect quickly change their ways or go out of business.

I think we’re at a point in society and in time where we can have something kind for every cruel thing and we’re very powerful; throughout the day everything we eat, everything we wear, how we wash our hair, anything we use and how we entertain ourselves, what medicines we take, can all be obtained without hurting animals.

And that I think is our responsibility as thinking, kind human beings. That is what we want to think of ourselves. So that’s what we have to remind ourselves of every time we pay for something, every time we do something, “Is this kind?” And we can make it kind.

Everyday products from shampoos to toothpaste, to floor cleaner, to oven cleaner, are often tested on animals. And so you have to be very careful when you’re shopping not to choose the ones that are tested that way.

There are about 600 companies you can buy from that are what we call cruelty-free, not tested on animals, and many of them also have no animal ingredients, which is wonderful. (Very good.) But you have to look for the label or check out on the PETA website which cosmetics and household products are good and which are tested on animals still.

To support their inspiring, compassionate projects, Supreme Master Ching Hai recently presented PETA with a contribution of US$15,000. The following excerpt is from a letter she sent to Ms. Newkirk:

With our warmest gratitude, we applaud and salute the invaluable work PETA does and we deeply respect the determined persistence shown in pursuing your goal of obtaining ethical treatment for animals.

It is a goal that ever more people are sharing, thanks in large part to the inventive and daring approaches PETA has adopted to bring the world’s attention to what goes on behind closed doors. Shining the light of compassion into dark places is the work of Heaven – through angels such as those working for PETA. We tip our hats to you in admiring salute! With Great Honor, Love and Blessings Supreme Master Ching Hai

I’m very grateful because this will help a lot of animals. A lot of animals will be spared suffering because we will put these funds to good use. So we are very grateful to Master Ching Hai, as always.

Ingrid Newkirk later wrote a letter to Supreme Master Ching Hai, from which the following is an excerpt:

Dear Supreme Master Ching Hai, Your support of PETA and your commitment to animal rights put you in the company of our most dedicated members and closest friends— the vanguard of our work to end cruelty to animals. [Y]our compassion for animals is reflected in your commitment to our work. With your support, PETA will continue to work tirelessly to expose animal cruelty whenever and wherever it occurs. With appreciation, Ingrid E. Newkirk President

Ingrid Newkirk, we sincerely thank you and all PETA members for your deep dedication and commitment to advancing the cause of animal rights around the world. May Heaven assist PETA in its ongoing efforts to safeguard the well-being of all animals and promote kindness and love to them.

Be Veg, Go Green 2 Save the Planet!

For more details on People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, please visit: www.PETA.org

Thank you for joining us today on Stop Animal Cruelty. Up next is Enlightening Entertainment, after Noteworthy News. May all animals enjoy lives of everlasting tranquility.