Published Letters and Op-Eds from
COK’s Writers Group

It Is Right to Show Concern for Animal Welfare

Published in the Des Moines Register on March 14, 2004.

The Register briefly mentions the fact that the National Advertising Division of the Better Business Bureau found that the egg industry’s “Animal Care Certified” logo is misleading. What it doesn’t mention is that a wide array of experts have come to the same conclusion.

The Humane Society of the United States asserts, “The United Egg Producers is not tackling the systematic abuses within the industry that severely compromise the welfare of individual birds . . . . [The UEP guidelines] seem designed more to mollify consumers than to address the extreme animal welfare abuses that have become the norm in this industry.”

The egg industry’s guidelines for so-called Animal Care Certified eggs permit birds to be caged so intensively that they cannot even flap their wings. The voluntary guidelines also permit starving hens to the point where they’ve lost 30 percent of their body weight, as well as burning off parts of their beaks without any painkiller.

When the industry uses false and misleading advertising on egg cartons to pretend its baby steps make the industry humane, no one should be fooled.

Paul Shapiro
Compassion Over Killing, Takoma Park, Md.