After a 10-year moratorium on animal tests, cosmetics giant Mary Kay has at last agreed to never test its products on animals again! “Having assessed the current degree of scientific knowledge, the company does not foresee any situation in which animal testing might be necessary in the future,” said a spokesperson. Mary Kay ranks as the largest cosmetics company to sign the Corporate Standard of Compassion for Animals, a stringent, internationally accepted standard put forth by the Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics, of which PETA is a member.

Colgate-Palmolive has taken a step toward banning cruel product tests by placing a moratorium on all animal tests in its adult personal care product line. This includes deodorants, hair care products, fragrances, shaving products, talcs and soaps (but not dental products). Colgate’s announcement comes 18 months after the company requested a meeting with PETA to talk about reducing its use of animals.

We continue to work with Colgate to end tests on animals for all its products.

Please thank Colgate for ending animal suffering for its personal care products and ingredients and encourage the permanent elimination of all animal tests. Write to: Mr. Reuben Mark, Chief Executive Officer, The Colgate-Palmolive Company, 300 Park Ave., New York, NY 10022-7499; fax: 212-310-3263.

Actor/activist Edward Asner has taken the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to task for its refusal to retire a group of 111 Air Force chimpanzees from research. Instead of allocating funds toward humane care for the chimps, the Pentagon has decided to spend $50 million to dispense the sex-enhancing drug Viagra to military personnel. Many of the chimpanzees, who are descendants of NASA’s animal “test pilots,” have been labeled “surplus” by the Air Force. They have spent years confined to laboratory cages for invasive and torturous experiments.

Urge the DOD to give these “soldiers” a well-earned discharge. Write to:

Honorable William S. Cohen
Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-1000

Impaled on a 5-foot-long meat hook and dangling in front of a 16-foot banner, PETA activist Morgan Leyh steered consumers toward a vegetarian diet outside the U.S. National Cattlemen’s Beef Association’s annual meeting in Charlotte, N.C. On today’s factory farms, cattle are dehorned, branded and castrated without anesthesia. To maximize profits, they are crowded onto vast feedlots for “finishing.” Finally, they are trucked without food or water, through all weather extremes, to a terrifying slaughterhouse. Hungry?

New Jersey veterinarian Dr. Howard Baker has been charged with 15 counts of animal cruelty, including punching, kicking and choking cats and dogs after PETA’s Michele Rokke, who worked as his vet assistant, videotaped the incidents with a hidden camera and then filed a complaint with the SPCA. Dr. Baker has admitted to slapping animals in his care, which his defenders call “part of the dominance that a vet must establish in treating an animal.” Rokke testified that other employees witnessed and reported abuses.

Good news! Thanks to visitors who expressed concern for the animals held at the “I.Q. Zoo” in Scottsdale, Ariz., the cheap roadside attraction has closed. The “zoo” consisted of ducks, chickens and rabbits trained to perform silly tricks such as playing the piano with the drop of a quarter or “dancing” on a rotating disk. The animals were confined in cramped, plexiglass cubes and forced to perform in order to obtain food.

Stay alert for animals in your communities. If you know of a roadside zoo or traveling animal act, call and/or write letters of protest to the manager or sponsor. Contact our Research, Investigations & Rescue Department if you need assistance.

The Big Apple Circus bills itself as a “performing arts” organization and has received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Big Apple has also claimed that the animals (including horses, ducks, pigs and dogs) used in its performances are treated like “royalty” and that none of them has been removed from the wild. Not only are bullhooks and whips employed by Big Apple just as with any circus, but PETA has learned that two of the three elephants used in the Big Apple Circus are wild-caught.

• Write to NEA officials (1100 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W., Washington, DC 20506) and tell them there is nothing artistic about forcing animals to perform cruel and unnatural tricks for human entertainment. Urge them to take a progressive stance against the exploitation of animals in entertainment by supporting truly artistic productions such as non-animal Cirque Ingénieux, Circus Chimera or Earth Circus.

• Order PETA’s Circus Check leaflets to distribute when the circus comes to town.

PETA’s new campaign features bottles of yellow liquid labeled “Tinkle” that urge women to “take Premarin or just drink it straight.” Actor/comedian Mo Gaffney, star of Broadway’s The Mineola Twins, and well known as the American wife in Absolutely Fabulous and the wisecracking marriage counselor on Mad About You, appears in our Tinkle ads.

• If you take Premarin, ask your doctor to prescribe an effective and humane alternative. For more information about cruelty-free alternatives to Premarin, call PETA’s hotline at 1-800-KNOW-PMU or check out PETA’s Web site at www.MenopauseOnline.com.

PETA and the Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights are offering students the option of replacing the use of live rodents in procedures such as oral dosing and venipuncture. Eleven veterinary schools have already signed an agreement to end rodent use altogether.

Contact PETA for a “Cut Out Dissection” pack if your class (any grade) is told to perform dissection.

The Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics, an umbrella group of animal rights organizations including PETA, has unveiled a new logo that goes beyond labeling of personal care and household products as “cruelty-free” or “not tested on animals.” The new symbol will not only signify that the product itself was not tested on animals, it will also tell consumers that as of the company’s date of compliance, the product’s ingredients were not tested on animals, either. By agreeing to use the logo, companies such as John Paul Mitchell Systems and Kiss My Face show that they are committed to manufacturing safe products without animal testing.

•Write for PETA’s free pocket-sized “Shopping Guide for Caring Consumers,” which lists these totally cruelty-free companies. In the U.K., write for our caring consumer pack.