Alert: Help the Citizen-Led Fight Against Covance, AZ. Cross Post Okay

June 12, 2008

--- On Tue, 6/10/08, PCRM Director of Campaigns Hope Ferdowsian, M.D., M.P.H. <info wrote:Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM)

If you have been a supporter of PCRM for more than a year, you probably know about PCRM¢s efforts to support the citizens of Chandler, Ariz., in their fight to stop the construction of Covance¢s huge new animal testing facility. Covance is one the largest companies in the world that experiments on animals for drug and chemical companies. Thousands of animals are tortured and killed every year in Covance facilities.

Although legal efforts were unable to halt construction of the project, our friends in Chandler have submitted a citizen-led initiative to ban the importation of nonhuman primates into Chandler. Covance is the largest importer of nonhuman primates in the United States for experimentation and is already building cages to house them at its Chandler facility. While this initiative would not stop Covance from performing all of its cruel tests on animals, it could spare hundreds, if not thousands, of animals¢ lives.

More than 15,000 signatures from among the 150,000 registered voters in Chandler must be collected by July 7, 2008, in order to put this initiative on the November 7 ballot. This is a very short timeframe for this effort and there is much work to be done.

Here is how you can help today:

1.

If you are a citizen of Chandler, please go to http://www.healthychandler.com/ or send an e-mail to HealthyChandler to find out where you can go to sign a petition or attend the campaign kick-off rally on Wednesday, June 11, at Desert Breeze Park at 7 p.m.

2.

If you are a citizen of Arizona, you are eligible to help collect signatures for petition. To assist in this effort, please send an e-mail to HealthyChandler.

3.

If you don¢t live in Arizona, but have friends, family, or other acquaintances there, please pass this message along and encourage them to do what they can do to prevent Covance from killing more innocent animals.

We will keep you updated on the success of the signature collection effort, and if it succeeds, how you can assist in efforts to have this initiative succeed at the polls on November 7 in Chandler.

Best regards,

Hope Ferdowsian, M.D., M.P.H.Director of Research and Policy

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine 5100 Wisconsin Ave., N.W., Ste. 400 Washington, DC 20016 Phone: 202-686-2210E-mail: info

Forward this message to a friend