Today is National Call in Day for Farm Animals!

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National Call-In Day for Downers is tomorrow -Thursday, May 1st. Please call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask for your U.S. representative’s and two U.S. senators’ offices (If you don’t know, just tell them where you live). Your 30-second phone calls urging your legislators to “please cosponsor H.R. 661/S. 394 ensuring that downed animals are not abused and do not enter the food supply†are critical. Thanks for spreading the word about

this. The prestigious Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production just concluded its 2.5-year study of American animal agriculture with unanimous findings from its 15 members. The Commission was chaired by former Kansas governor John Carlin and included, among others, former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, former Dean of the Univ. of Tennessee 's College of Veterinary Medicine Dr. Michael Blackwell , and more. The panel concluded that factory farms pose unacceptable risks to public health, the environment and animal welfare. It also issued a series of recommendations, including a phase-out of battery cages, gestation crates, veal crates, foie gras, and tail-docking of dairy cows, along with inclusion of poultry under the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act. The Commission even put out a press release in which it cites the pending California anti-cruelty ballot measure as one of “the types of modest animal welfare public policy improvements that the Commissioners recommend implementing.†The Washington Post published a great story on page A2 today entitled, “Report Targets Cost of Factory Farming.†USA Today’s story begins, “The way America produces meat, milk and eggs is

unsustainable, creates significant risks to public health from antibiotic resistance and disease, damages the environment and unnecessarily harms animals, a report released Tuesday says.†The Wall Street Journal’s coverage focuses both on the problems caused by factory farming and the Commission’s conclusion that the “agriculture industry is exerting ‘significant influence’ on academic research.†And the Des Moines Register’s

piece highlights the fact that the Commission is accusing “some livestock interests of trying to disrupt a wide-ranging study of the industry by threatening to yank financing for scientists and universities.†http://pets.Fortheanimals7/join http://www.myspace.com/fortheanimals7