Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine Black Eye

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
5100 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 404, Washington, DC 20016
Phone 202-686-2210 | Fax 202-686-2216 | Email pcrm@pcrm.org

In 2001, PCRM president Neal Barnard co-signed a series of over 40 letters (on PCRM letterhead) with Kevin Kjonaas, a former “spokesperson” for the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the then-U.S.-director of the violent animal rights group SHAC (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty).

Both groups have been designated “domestic terrorist” organizations by high-ranking FBI officials. SHAC and seven of its leaders (including Kjonaas) are scheduled to face federal Animal Enterprise Terrorism charges in June 2005.

SHAC is singularly dedicated to dismantling Huntingdon Life Sciences, a biomedical research firm that (like the rest of the medical and scientific community) recognizes that breakthroughs in the study of human diseases often require research using animals as test subjects. Huntingdon’s work includes animal research to find new treatments and cures for Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, AIDS, and several forms of cancer.

SHAC activists have chosen to make their feelings known by fire-bombing automobiles, smashing windows, assaulting research employees, and targeting anyone associated with Huntingdon (and their families) for around-the-clock harassment and intimidation.

Barnard and Kjonaas co-signed letters to business leaders in 32 states and 8 foreign countries, urging them not to do business with Huntingdon Life Sciences. Given SHAC’s tactics, these letters can be fairly interpreted as a threat of harassment and violence.

Jerry Vlasak

The Barnard-Kjonaas letters instructed recipients to “read the enclosed studies” -- both of which were co-authored by PCRM’s Jerry Vlasak. A trauma surgeon with connections to SHAC and a deep association with PCRM, Jerry Vlasak told the crowd at the “Animal Rights 2002” convention:

I think we do need to embrace direct action and violent tactics as part of our movement … I don’t think we ought to be criticizing someone, whether we’re criticizing [them] because they’re writing letters, or whether we criticize them because they’re burning down fur stores or vivisection labs.

And at the “Animal Rights 2003” event in Los Angeles, Vlasak made a verbal slip that suggests he may be an ALF thug himself, praising those responsible for “all those hundreds of ALF actions that occurred making us the, er, making the ALF, rather, the number one domestic terrorist group in the United States.” Vlasak also openly endorsed the murder of doctors who use animals in their research:

If these vivisectors were being targeted for assassination, and call it political assassination or what have you, I think if -- and I wouldn't pick some guy way down the totem pole, but if there were prominent vivisectors being assassinated, I think that there would be a trickle-down effect and many, many people who are lower on that totem pole would say, “I'm not going to get into this business because it's a very dangerous business and there's other things I can do with my life that don't involve getting into a dangerous business.” And I think that the -- strictly from a fear and intimidation factor, that would be an effective tactic.
And I don't think you'd have to kill — assassinate — too many vivisectors before you would see a marked decrease in the amount of vivisection going on. And I think for 5 lives, 10 lives, 15 human lives, we could save a million, 2 million, 10 million non-human lives.

At the 2003 conference, Vlasak was billed as a representative of PCRM. He regularly represents PCRM on issues of animal testing. He has written for PCRM’s Good Medicine magazine, and is identified there as “PCRM’s Jerry Vlasak.” In a February 2002 press release on animal experimentation in medical schools, Vlasak is called a “PCRM spokesperson.” And in Vlasak’s own writings, he has described himself as PCRM’s “scientific advisor.”

Vlasak reinforced his advocacy of violence in April 2004, telling a national cable network audience on the Showtime program “Penn & Teller: Bullsh*t” that violence is a “morally justifiable solution” for activists. Vlasak and his wife, the former child actress Pamelyn Ferdin, are both directors of a SHAC-like group in Los Angeles called the Animal Defense League (ADL-LA). Ferdin herself is the legal president of SHAC USA. She carries business cards describing herself as a PCRM employee, but listing ADL-LA’s business address.

ADL-LA’s website candidly states that it “fully supports” the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). Its president is Gary Yourofsky, a convicted ALF felon who serves PETA as its in-school “humane education presenter.”

Vlasak’s threatening animal-rights exploits have been covered by No Compromise, a magazine written by and for supporters of the ALF. Vlasak has personally been arrested several times for animal-rights-related activity, and urges others to “get arrested.”

Neal Barnard is more circumspect about violence. The Animal Rights Reporter has written of him: “Although he disavows the use of violence, he says that researchers ‘have set themselves up for it’ and ‘have to worry’ about animal rights violence. And in an interview with Washingtonian magazine, Barnard says: “We’re demoralizing the people who think there’s a buck to be made in animal research. And they’re starting to get scared, and they’re starting to get angry, and they’re starting to give way.”