Any folks from AZ here? re: Covance's animal testing facility in Chandler...

[Duppers]

Dear xxxxxx,

If you have been a supporter of PCRM for more than a year, you probably know about PCRM’s efforts to support the citizens of Chandler, Ariz., in their fight to stop the construction of Covance’s huge new animal testing facility. Covance is one the largest companies in the world that experiments on animals for drug and chemical companies. Thousands of animals are tortured and killed every year in Covance facilities.

Although legal efforts were unable to halt construction of the project, our friends in Chandler have submitted a citizen-led initiative to ban the importation of nonhuman primates into Chandler. Covance is the largest importer of nonhuman primates in the United States for experimentation and is already building cages to house them at its Chandler facility. While this initiative would not stop Covance from performing all of its cruel tests on animals, it could spare hundreds, if not thousands, of animals’ lives.

More than 15,000 signatures from among the 150,000 registered voters in Chandler must be collected by July 7, 2008, in order to put this initiative on the November 7 ballot. This is a very short timeframe for this effort and there is much work to be done.

Here is how you can help today:

1. If you are a citizen of Chandler, please go to http://www.healthychandler.com/ or send an e-mail to [email protected] to find out where you can go to sign a petition or attend the campaign kick-off rally on Wednesday, June 11, at Desert Breeze Park at 7 p.m.

2. If you are a citizen of Arizona, you are eligible to help collect signatures for petition. To assist in this effort, please send an e-mail to [email protected].

3. If you don’t live in Arizona, but have friends, family, or other acquaintances there, please pass this message along and encourage them to do what they can do to prevent Covance from killing more innocent animals.


We will keep you updated on the success of the signature collection effort, and if it succeeds, how you can assist in efforts to have this initiative succeed at the polls on November 7 in Chandler.

Best regards,

Hope Ferdowsian, M.D., M.P.H.
Director of Research and Policy

[flvegan]

1. I love the move, I think I hate the wording.

IIRC, doesn't the initiative say something about importing into or just simply having/keeping primates in Chandler? Wording in regards to importing/keeping should also reflect a certain amount of habitational/residence time to cut the circus, zoo, entertainment etc industry out of the mix.

JMO, I still love the initiative and I applaud any action against the Covance torture machine.

[LeftyMom]

2. Why do that?

Keeping zoos/circuses etc out would be a lovely bonus.

[flvegan]

3. Because it won't pass.

The idea is to keep Covance out. When some idiot shows up to the town meeting and says, "well, guess you'll never have a zoo, or the right to have a monkey as a pet, and forget Ringling coming to town and the money they might bring" folks lose their minds.

That's a whole 'nother fight.

[LeftyMom]

4. I didn't sign up for a movement to protect some animals and not others.

:shrug:

[flvegan]

5. Neither did I.

This is about keeping Covance out. If it was about protecting every animal, then it should seek to outlaw the sale of meat/eggs/dairy, leather, fur, any chemical ever tested on an animal, dogs kept outside, hunting, the animal bits used in tires and paint...

But, I did sign up for a movement to protect every animal I could. This has potential, so here I am.

I'll take the loss in AR points from the "no compromise vegan militia" idiots with no problem.

[LeftyMom]

6. I don't really feel like arguing about it.

You know where I'm at.