The Corporate Interests Behind Center for the Environment and Welfare’s (CEW) Smear Campaign Against Animal Protection Groups
Dr. Crystal Heath - Shelter Veterinarian and Executive Director, Our Honor
A newly-formed group called the Center for the Environment and Welfare recently announced a campaign against the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). Their claims that the widely beloved animal welfare organization is “enriching itself and pushing a radical political agenda [rather] than helping pets in need” sounds shocking but the reality is, this is a classic manipulation strategy used by CEW’s founder to seed doubt in other respected advocacy organizations on behalf of corporate interests.
Who is behind CEW? The name suggests a group of passionate, educated advocates speaking truth to power, but in reality, it's just a website. The “organization’s” executive director Jack Hubbard has served on several animal agriculture industry boards and is a partner at Berman and Company, a corporate public relations firm that serves the interests of food, fossil fuel & alcohol corporations.
The firm’s propaganda videos include “The War Bacon” which depicts happy cartoon pigs in cages to explain how gestation crates– the 2.5-foot by 7-foot metal cages where mother pigs spend 114 days of their pregnancy– are actually good for pigs. They claim veterinarians support this practice, but neglect to mention the nearly 400 veterinarians who disagree, and signed a statement to the United States Supreme Court highlighting the inherent cruelty of the confinement practice. It’s a practice that is also banned in the U.K.
It’s a tough job selling the idea that keeping an animal in conditions equivalent to sitting in a cushion-less airline seat for months on end, without being able to turn around, is actually in the pig’s best interest, but there is no one better suited for the job than Berman & Company.
Hubbard’s partner and Berman’s founder is none other than Rick Berman, a man who takes pride in his nickname "Dr. Evil.” Berman also founded the Center for Organizational Research and Education (CORE) previously called the Center For Consumer Freedom (CCF). This organization is one of many front groups Berman funded via major contributions from tobacco and agribusiness companies like Cargill, Tyson and Monsanto.
The combination of Berman’s congenital hatred for the “nanny state” and passion for “promoting free enterprise and limited government” combined with millions of dollars from corporate interests have turned Berman into a powerful weapon to “demolish the moral authority” of established advocacy groups. Berman’s American Beverage Institute implemented a similar campaign against Mothers Against Drunk Driving. These numerous groups serve as guns with which to “shoot the messenger” and foster public skepticism of organizations and celebrities advocating for change.
CEW hopes their new media campaign smearing the leading animal protection groups will grow into a million-dollar effort. But does CEW actually have an interest in protecting animals? Hubbard says “I'm really concerned about animal rights groups trying to change [the] country’s food policy.” But if that concern was genuine, he would have to address those who have the greatest influence over our food policy— which are the very corporations that benefit from CEW’s advocacy.
Wielding billions in public funds, Big Ag has carefully cultivated dietary habits and consumer choices, drastically increasing our consumption of animal products. In order to meet this demand, companies that prioritized production efficiency above all else garnered the most profits and thus, political influence. Now, 99% of the animals we raise for food are kept in modern intensive animal agriculture facilities—known commonly as factory farms. In order to keep animals from harming each other under such stressful conditions, while maintaining company profits, cruel practices like gestation crates, debeaking, tail docking, and castration without anesthesia became industry standard.
To keep up, breakneck increases in slaughter line speeds became necessary to meet this newly cultivated demand–leading to slaughter worker injuries, animals eviscerated while still conscious, and a vulnerable public put at risk of food-borne diseases from decreased inspections. But Hubbard claims the ASPCA is “pushing wacky and extreme policies in the Farm Bill” for merely advocating for what should be basic animal stewardship—moving away from intensive confinement practices and limiting transport times to slaughter.
The ASPCA is a crucial target for CEW. As hundreds of Big Ag’s producers and lobbyists descend on Capitol Hill, there are few animal protection groups who have the resources and respect to push back against corporate lobbying and the impetus for more maniacal practices. Farmers from 60 years ago would be horrified at the state of farming today—thousands of animals confined to warehouses, and rows upon rows of pigs lined up in gestation crates, and new macabre workarounds developed to end the lives of millions of animals in “emergency situations.” One practice known as ventilation shutdown plus (VSD+) involves sealing up barns, pumping in heat and steam until the animals inside die after many hours.
Other groups on CEW’s hit list include: PETA, HSUS, Mercy for Animals, Animal Equality, World Animal Protection, Global Animal Partnership, the Humane League, the Accountability Board and Our Honor, a group I co-founded. I was shocked to see Our Honor among the nine other names listed and even more shocked to read their description of me and how closely CEW has been following my social media, and news stories.
True to the Berman playbook, CEW cherry picked information to fit their desired narrative that Our Honor is a “fringe group of animal rights veterinarians whose agenda conflicts with the mainstream veterinary profession.” Our mission states “We empower and support animal professionals to speak their conscience, confront systems of violence, and create a more compassionate world for all species.” They highlight the fact that many of the stories we share on our page are from vegan veterinarians, and, in their “shoot the messenger” style, cite my volunteer work with animal protection groups as cause for alarm—implying that I am against people having animals in their lives. In fact, animals are an important part of my life and I hope everyone in the future will benefit from the human-animal bond, but without cruelty, abuse and exploitation.
CEW’s video titled “The Truth About the ASPCA” opens with an announcer saying “What if people on TV had to be honest?” A commercial for the ASPCA appears on the screen with the narrator saying “We run only one shelter.” Criticizing the ASPCA for only having one shelter would be similar to criticizing the Farm Bureau for not actually growing food. The ASPCA's public outreach campaigns have played a key role in inspiring compassion for animals, holding public agencies accountable, encouraging adoption and volunteerism at shelters, educating the public about animal care, and promoting spaying and neutering. Their efforts through education, awareness and policy have played a key role in decreasing the shelter animal euthanasia rate from 13.5 million animals per year in the 1970s, to about one million animals per year.
While the million or so animals euthanized in our shelters every year is a tragedy that animal protection groups are working to remedy, their numbers pale in comparison to the 9 billion land animals we raise for slaughter in the United States, the 4 million broiler chickens, 726,000 pigs, and 29,000 cattle who die just during transport to slaughter every year, the millions more who die before ever making it onto the slaughter truck, or the 58 million commercially raised birds who had to be killed using cruel depopulation methods to stop the spread of avian influenza.
Berman’s concern for the “nanny state” stops short of addressing the billions of dollars animal agriculture corporations receive in public funds—why doesn’t CEW advocate for those funds to be spent to help animals? Perhaps it's because, unlike the groups they attack, helping animals isn’t really their goal after all.
