POM Animal Testing

POM Juice Testing Information Background People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) learned that POM Wonderful has funded several animal experiments in early 2006. Thousands of activists and POM drinkers have written to the company urging them to drop animal tests, and PETA has met with the company several times. They have continually refused to have anything resembling a productive dialogue with PETA, and as such have made no steps towards a policy that would not allow animal experiments.
The FDA's Statement on Animal Tests for Juice/Food Products "The FDA's review of proposed health claim(s) and product safety is based on an evaluation of a body of supporting evidence for the claim(s), and not on specific types of studies. As such, the Agency is not aware of any circumstances that would result in the FDA requiring a food or beverage company to conduct laboratory experiments on animals". (Emphasis added).
"Animal studies … cannot adequately support a relationship between the substance and the disease by themselves. A company can substantiate their proposed health claim(s) based on data generated from laboratory and/or clinical studies that were conducted solely on humans".
Examples of POM Funded Animal Tests Below are several examples of the unnecessary and cruel experiments POM has funded. Brain Injury Experiment Funded an experiment published in 2005 titled "Maternal Dietary Supplementation with Pomegranate Juice is Neuroprotective in an Animal Model of Neonatal Hypoxic-Ischemic Brain Injury". Pregnant mice were fed POM Wonderful juice and, after giving birth, their pups were sealed in a chamber for 45 minutes where breathable oxygen was almost entirely cut off in order to induce severe brain injury. Baby mice were killed, decapitated, and had their brains removed for study. Source: http://www.pedresearch.org/cgi/content/full/57/6/858 Atherosclerosis Experiment Funded a test published in 2005 in which vivisectors attempted to study atherosclerosis in mice—an experiment that is fundamentally flawed since mice lack the human enzyme related to this disease, so mice had to be artificially induced with atherosclerosis. Certainly more substantial results could have been yielded in a clinical study of humans who suffer from atherosclerosis, as the goal was to learn about the effect of pomegranate juice in humans, not mice (who don't even suffer from the disease at hand). The animals were killed for observation. Source: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/102/13/4896
Erectile Dysfunction Experiment A POM-affiliated researcher conducted a study, published in 2005, to see if pomegranate juice could treat erectile dysfunction in rabbits (pomegranate juice was supplied by POM). But since rabbits don't suffer from this condition, experimenters created it in the animals with sudden balloon injuries of their arteries. The rabbits were killed for observation. Source: http://www.pomwonderful.com/pdf/Journal_of_Urology.pdf Memory Experiment In a 2005 POM-funded study, experimenters fed elderly rats pomegranate juice and put them through the Morris water maze, a stressful test in which the animals must find, from memory, a hidden platform submerged in a tank of water. The results were inconclusive. Source: http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/projects/projects.htm?ACCN_NO=407875&showpars=true&fy=2005
Pomegranate Juice that is NOT Tested on Animals Naked Juice and Old Orchard both make a 100% refrigerated pomegranate juice, and have signed PETA's Statement of Assurance that they do not fund any animal experiments. Frutzzo also makes a 100% pomegranate juice and has told PETA that the company funds no animal testing (however PETA is waiting to receive a signed statement from the company to that effect).
Note: It is very likely that there are other juice companies who make a 100% or blend pomegranate juice that is not tested on animals, but the above are companies who have expressed this, in writing, to PETA.

posted by Sacred Steve at 9/15/2006 10:09:00 PM