Americans for Medical Progress Educational Foundation Helping the Public Understand Animal Research in Medicine FRONT LINE NEWS WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH OUR HUMANE GROUPS?

INSIDE THE HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES

     For the past two decades, concern over the threat to the biomedical research community by the animal rights movement was centered on groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the Animal Liberation Front, and the thirty or so other organizations that openly advocate radical opposition to scientists working with animals. During this time, The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has worked methodically to gain a great deal of access to the public. the media and the research community because of its supposedly moderate public stance. The fact is that HSUS is not a moderate animal welfare organization. A closer look at the Humane Society of the United States, including its personnel and programs. reveals a portrait of a hardcore animal rights group positioned, by virtue of its wealth and carefully crafted national and international affiliations, to do more damage to biornedical research than those organizations that openly espouse the radical animal rights ideology and agenda. October 1996

HSUS FACTS - Incorporated: 1954, Delaware Tax Status: 501 (c)(3) tax exempt Staff Size: 10 employees 1995 Income: $38,102,167 Donors: over 2 million   Board Size: 23 members Principals: John A. Hoyt, Chief Executive Officer Paul G. Irvin. President and Treasurer Affiliates: Humane Society International Earthkind USA The Wildlife Land Trust Earthl ind International International Center of Earth Concerns National Humane Education Center Center for Respect of Life and Environment National Association for Humane Education and Environment -121 King Street * Suite 401 * Alexandria, VA 22314-3121 Phone (703) 836-9595 * Fax (703) 836-9594 * Email AMPEF@aol.com * http://www.AMPEF.org

     WHAT IS THE HSUS DOING WITH ALL THAT MONEY? The nation’s largest animal advocacy organization, The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), raises enough money to bankroll at least one well-run animal shelter in every state and have enough left over to spay, neuter, feed and save the lives of tens of thousands of homeless cats and dogs every year.

     So how many HSUS-run animal shelters benefit from its nearly$40 million annual budget? None. Despite what very effective fundraising appeals of the HSUS would suggest, the real work of rescuing stray cats, dogs and other animals is done by local animal shelters and humane societies (which in spite of similar sounding names are NOT affiliated with HSUS). Yet each year. the Humane Society of the United States capitalizes on our concern for the plight of homeless animals with poignant fundraising campaigns that raise tens of millions of dollars in donations. What is HSUS doing with all its millions, if not funding shelters?

     That’s a question raised recently in a decidedly unflattering front-page expose by the HSUS’s home town newspaper, The Washington Post (Sept. 25, 1996), and in U. S. News and World Report (January 22. 1996). The usually sympathetic press took the 42-year-old charitable organization to task over its unseemly financial practices in the personal and corporate affairs of the group and its executive officers. Compounding the alleged financial improprieties of HSUS are growing indications that HSUS is the object of an ideological and programmatic takeover by one of the most extreme animal rights groups in the nation, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). The loss of HSUS’s reputation as a mainstream, middle-of-the-road animal preservation/welfare group would damage its credibility and access to the nation’s political and corporate policy makers. The donor and power base of HSUS is largely built on its moderate persona. The size of both is exactly the reason HSUS would be such a plum for a rival organization such as PETA to control.

     HSUS: ANIMAL EXTREMISTS IN MODERATES’ CLOTHES? For decades, HSUS has worked hard to create a public ideological separation from PETA, well- known for its abolitionist position and confrontational tactics towards biomedical research. However, a look at some of the statements of HSUS officers puts the lie to such moderation. HSL’S CEO John A. Hoyt called biomedical research "absolutely horrfying. ... We have to fight the well-financed and powerfull agri-business and research industries," he wrote in a fundraising letter to HSUS members, referring to "the needless and repetitive experimentation on animals in the research laboratory." "The life of an ant and that of my child should be granted equal consideration." HSUS vice president Michael Fox wrote in his book The Inhumane Society. Board member Robert F. Welborn wrote in HSUS News "I question the moral propriety of causing animals to suffer for the purpose of testing products intended for humans or for dealing with human maladies."

     Recently, the HSUS stood with PETA in opposing xenotransplants. including the baboon bone marrow received by AIDS activist Jeff Getty, and in trying to block a NASA project to study weightlessness in space. The HSUS is currently bankrolling ballot initiatives in six states this fall ostensibly aimed at hunters in Oregon, California, Washington state, Michigan. Idaho and Massachusetts. The real goal behind each campaign is to remove wildlife and habitat policies from the professional stewardship of state wildlife managers. Americans for Medical Progress, the key national research advocacy group that monitors the animal rights agenda, predicted the HSUS ballot initiative tactic against hunting was a test of the tactic to be used later against medical research. Indeed, at the annual meeting of the HSUS in Washington, D.C. this month, the manager of the ballot initiatives campaigns in all six states for the HSUS. Wayne Pacelle, envisioned the initiatives process being used for "companion animal issues and laboratory animal issues and other issues that are appropriate" in the future.

     Can The Humane Society of the United States maintain its moderate masquerade? One need only employ a time-honored journalistic technique: look to its friends, follow the money and ask a few logical questions.

     HSUS – PETA TIES The most influential and critical figure within the national animal rights extremist community is lngrid Newkirk, co-founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Newkirk has built a fledgling organization that did not have $100 in the bank when it started in 1981 into a mammoth propaganda and fundraising machine boasting 500,000 members and an annual budget of $12 million. Newkirk’s skills lie in crafting persuasive animal rights campaigns and arguments as well as networking and orchestrating organizational takeovers. Newkirk’s/PETA’s highest profile ally in HSUS is Wayne Pacelle, vice president for media and government affairs, who is spearheading the political campaigns by HSUS against wildlife management and hunting. Pacelle is ideologically aligned with Newkirk and was hired directly into HSUS from Cleveland Amory’s Fund for Animals. Amory is also the mentor of PETA co-founder Alei Pacheco. Newkirk enlisted Amory’s support in 1987 when she seized corporate and financial control of the anti- research New England Anti-Vivisection Society and its multi-million dollar bank account. the first of her moves to consolidate the animal movement under her influence.

     Former Newkirk/PETA employees and associates now at HSUS include its chief computer guru. the head of its national and international investigations who also oversees its lucrative Wildlife Lands Trust. two key HSUS investigators and a host of other functionaries throughout the HSUS corporate structure, including its lab animal section, which manages the medical research issue. Martin Stephens heads the HSUS Laboratory Animals section and publicly preaches the very moderate research doctrine of reduce, refine and replace the use of animals in biomedical research. According to a former HSUS employee. Stephens’ true agenda is not different than PETA’s strict anti-animal research dogma. A veterinarian and research scientist in her own right. the former HSUS employee was told by Stephens to get real, because "we oppose all animal research." With Stephens as point man, HSUS allied with PETA to condemn specific research, including NASA’s Bion program to investigate weightlessness in space, as well as xenotransplants, the use of animal organs to replace diseased human organs.

     HSUS PRESIDENT SURRENDERS PASSPORT HUMANE SOCIETY/CANADA BOUNCES IRWIN, SUES HSUS The questionable financial dealings of HSUS appear linked to recent hostile dealings between the organization and its Canadian affiliate, the Humane Society of Canada, as well as with a curious incident with its president and treasurer, Paul G. Irwin. Irwin was forced to surrender his Canadian passport because of false information he gave on his passport application. Born in Canada, Irwin claimed a Canadian address as his "permanent" residence while maintaining a legal, ’permanent" residence in Maryland. Early this summer. Irwin found himself bounced from the board of directors of the Humane Society of Canada. At question is a million dollars HSC claims Irwin and HSUS illegally withdrew from HSC coffers and carried back to the United States. The portrait painted by HSC suggests HSUS may have been using HSC as a way-station in a money laundering operation. HSC is suing HSUS to return the cash and pay damages that bring the total HSUS exposure, if HSC wins it’s lawsuit. to $5 million.

     A recent report on HSUS fundraising practices by the Philanthropic Advisory Service (PAS) takes HSUS to task for "reporting irregularities" based upon what PAS believes are indications that HSUS under-reported fundraising costs. The PAS report is not the only controversy surrounding HSUS fundraising. European law enforcement authorities reportedly opened an investigation into direct mail appeals soliciting Dutch citizens on behalf of three supposedly distinct organizations: the Amazon Children’s Foundation, the International Foundation for Alzheimer Research, and the Humane Society International Foundation. According to Dutch news reports, none of the organizations are registered with the national Central Bureau for Receiving Funds (Central Bureau Fondsenwerving), the letters were similar in language and style, the articles of incorporation of all three foundations are similar, their administrators are all Americans. and they were registered by the same notary. Dutch authorities and the media are concerned that the money raised in that country will simply vanish with no guarantees that its use will reflect the fundraising rhetoric and benefit the alleged charitable activities described in the solicitations. Indications are that authorities may well be looking into a connection linking HSUS president Irvin’s irregular Canadian passport, the reporting irregularities spotted by PAS, the allegedly unauthorized fund transfers from HSC, and the Dutch fund-raising letters.

     In other legal matters, former longtime HSUS board member Irwin H. "Sonny" Bloch, who hosted the HSUS’s PBS television show "Living with Animals," was sentenced this month to nearly two years in prison for income tax evasion and lying to the Securities and Exchange Commission. He faces sentencing shortly in Pennsylvania on mail fraud charges, which could bring an additional five years of jail time and in New Jersey for eight counts of fraud, which could put him away for thirty years.

     HSUS’s IRWIN AND HOYT SLAMMED FOR LAVISH LIFESTYLE Meanwhile, serious questions over HSUS’s financial dealings with its executives are coming to light. Those questions surround the lavish life style enjoyed by HSUS president Paul G. Irwin and Chief Executive Officer John A. Hoyt. HSUS pays Hoyt, $237,871 and Irwin $209,051 in salary. HSUS bought Hoyt’s home in Germantown, Maryland for $310,00 in 1986 and allowed him to live in it until 1992 when Hoyt bought a home in Virginia and HSUS sold the Maryland property for $3,00,000. HSUS paid Irwin $85,000 for renovations to a Maine cabin Irwin held in trust for HSUS and used by Irwin and his family for vacations. HSUS sold the cabin for $98,237 in 1995. In 1988 an internal investigation by the board of directors of HSUS revealed "salary supplements" of $41.000 for Hoyt and $33.000 for Irwin over a three year period. In 1982 Hoyt received a $100,000 interest-free loan from an HSUS board member. Another board member subsidized overseas travel for Hoyt’s wife for years. Legal documents showed that Irwin collected $15,000 in executor’s fees from the estate of an HSUS board member, without notifying the board of directors in advance, as mandated by the HSUS code of ethics. Irwin owns five houses, including a $786,500 residence in Darnestown, Maryland as well as a Mercedes, Lincoln Town Car and a Corvette.

     So what does HSUS do for homeless cats and dogs with its $38 million? We’d love to know?