Humane Society of United States Not so Humane to People

The Humane Society has outed itself as indifferent to human welfare. When the HSUS revealed abuses by a meat packer, leading to a massive meat recall, many applauded. But apparently, the HSUS kept the news of animal abuse and downer cows entering the food chain to themselves for months. From the story:

At a hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Representative Michael C. Burgess, Republican of Texas, assailed the Humane Society for waiting to inform the federal government. “Why wait until February to release the video?” Mr. Burgess demanded of a Humane Society representative. “Why wait until now to bring this to our attention?”

His criticism echoed a point made last week by Ed Schafer, the secretary of agriculture, who said he was “extremely disappointed”in the Humane Society. He complained that “for four months, theoretically, animals were not being properly treated, and the Humane Society stood by and allowed it to happen.”

Humane Society representatives said Tuesday that the criticism was misplaced. They said the primary concern of their organization is animal welfare, not food safety, and as soon as they had the tape they took it to local prosecutors in California.

What? So, to promote their animal rights agenda, they were willing to allow people to be exposed to potentially tainted food! And, it was willing for animals to continue to be abused until they had the images they wanted to discredit meat eating. That says it all, doesn’t it?

And don’t buy the baloney that they didn’t trust going to Agriculture Department to stop the abuse. HSUS’s primary goal was to embarrass the beef industry because they raise cattle—which animal rightists consider slaves—and slaughter them for food—which liberationists see as murder. Exposing the abuse of the downer cows was merely the means to that overarching end.