by Anonymous
Friday, Jan. 19, 2007 at 2:26 PM
Grassroots activists have won yet again, as the POM juice company issued a
public statement yesterday that they would never test on animals again
This is
very significant since POM has spent millions of dollars on animal experiments
in the past 10 years, including inducing erectile disfunction and depriving
oxygen to animals' brains. Hats are off to L.A. area activists for their
successful campaign against POM!
Home demos had rocked POM employees and a website, www.pomkills.com, was
launched by local activists after it was revealed that POM was contracting
animal tests. Though legal harassment, injunctions, and the raiding of seven
activists' houses soon followed, area activists didn't back down one bit. Home
demos continued, as did the bad press for POM. Even Pam Anderson and Peta got in
on the action, encouraging the public to "Go Naked" and buy Naked Juice rather
than POM. Soon POM's Vice President resigned, citing pressure from grassroots
animal activists, and an anonymous report claimed that 487 bottles of POM had
been contaminated, leading grocery chain Wild Oats to tempororary pull all POM
from their shelves.
This past week, POM was dealt two more big blows. First, their lawsuit against
PomKills.com was unanimously struck down by the courts, which ruled that the
site was not infringing on POM's copyrights. Second, and sealing the fate of
POM's animal testing, Whole Foos Market (which had received tens of thousands of
emails on the issue) announced that it would stop carrying POM on April 1 unless
they ended their animal testing. Less than 24 hours later, POM issued a
statement promising to do just that.
This campaign - which took only about five months and will save the lives of
thousands of lab animals - shows the incredible effect that intelligent
grassroots campaigning can have. The combination of direct protest against
executives, direct action, bad publicity, and economic pressure (the tipping
point!) led to POM's billionaire owners doing an about face and swearing off
animal testing for good.
Congratualations again to LA area activists for their fantastic victory!