Experimenters are douching, poisoning, force-feeding, starving, irradiating, bleeding, suffocating, beheading, and dissecting animals purportedly to market health claims to consumers about mushrooms, soybeans, and other common foods. PETA has sent a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack urging him to abolish what effectively amounts to a draconian “tax” on farmers who must pay for these cruel tests and forever end this senseless bloodshed.

After you’ve taken action on PETA’s alert, please politely urge the agricultural commodity research and promotion boards below to stop paying for all tests on animals.

Here are some talking points to get you started:

• [Name of the board] has funded animal tests in an attempt to establish human health claims for marketing [the fruit/vegetable that the board represents], but this is misleading because there are drastic physiological differences between species.
• [Name of the board] uses the mandatory assessment fees paid by the farmers to fund these animal tests, so it effectively serves as a draconian “tax” on struggling farming communities.
• [The fruit/vegetable that the board represents] is a common food with a long history of safe human consumption. Researchers could have instead pursued safe and effective human studies, which would yield superior, human-relevant results.
• The Hass Avocado Board, the National Mango Board, and the National Watermelon Promotion Board—major agricultural commodity research and promotion boards—have recently adopted public policies banning animal tests. I urge your board to take the same progressive stance and ban them as well.
• The majority of Americans oppose animal testing. We as consumers don’t want to be misled by health claims based on unreliable animal experiments.
• Dozens of major food and beverage manufacturers have already prohibited animal testing to establish health claims for marketing products and ingredients.
• Please adopt a public policy that bans the funding of all tests on animals.

Below, please see the list of agricultural boards, their social media pages, phone numbers, and examples of tests on animals (references) that they have funded.

The Mushroom Council

Experimenters fed pigs white button mushrooms, repeatedly poked their anuses, took their blood, and killed and dissected them.

United Sorghum Checkoff Program

Experimenters fed rats sorghum bran and a chemical that induces colitis and then killed and dissected them.

United Soybean Board

Experimenters fed genetically modified mice who were prone to cystic fibrosis a soy ingredient or a laxative, and then killed and dissected them. Forty-nine animals died from the disease before experimenters were able to kill them.

Washington Red Raspberry Commission

Experimenters fed mice a high-fat diet with raspberry purée, starved them, took their blood, and killed and dissected them. (Note: After the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Processed Raspberry Council was disbanded in 2019, the Washington Red Raspberry Commission took over its research projects, including this experiment. See the funding credit here.)

Thank you for your compassion for animals.