Bruce Friedrich

Right now, the USDA is allowing diseased bird organs to be sold for food, in violation of federal law. Because USDA won't enforce the law, thousands of animals are suffering miserably, and the consumers of these diseased products are at a higher risk for a variety of ailments, including type...

Every now and then, a movie comes along that is capable of fundamentally changing the worldview of its audience. Speciesism: The Movie, a new documentary by Mark Devries, is that kind of film.

The word "speciesism," which has been popularized by Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer, refers...

Lent is upon us, the holiest time of the year for Christians -- a time for us to ponder the meaning of Christ's sacrifice on the cross, his proclamation of "Good News" for the poor and downtrodden, and the degree to which our lives align with Christ's vision. Many will...

The past few months have been deeply encouraging for Americans who care about the worst abuses of farm animals, as legislation has been introduced that would -- once and for all -- relegate the barren battery cage to the dust bin of history and the two most well-known pork producers...

Sunday's New York Times and Washington Post agree that the Supreme Court's new term is likely to be, to quote the Post's front page, "the most significant term of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.'s six-year tenure." For those of us in the animal rights community, that's an...

While most of the United States experiences the onset of scorching summer heat, it's a great day for snowballs in Hell. For 25 years, Farm Sanctuary's Mephistopheles has been the egg industry, which is the most abusive of all the farmed animal industries. And yet today, the egg...

Catholic bishops in the U.K. want to reinstate year-round meatless Fridays, which sounds great to me, except for one thing: They still seem to think that fish are swimming vegetables.

Like all other animals killed for food, fish are sentient beings who value their lives.

As 1.5 million people cheered, Pope John Paul II was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on Sunday. The beatification, declaring Pope John Paul II as holy, is a major step toward his likely sainthood.

His...

The most recent example of that old adage "with friends like this, who needs enemies" has come in the form of what I would have called a silly controversy, except that the controversy has had a measurable negative impact.

You may have heard about a "scandal" that rocked the vegan...

Just in time for Earth Day, April 22, European scientists released a groundbreaking report linking meat consumption to nitrogen pollution. Nitrogen pollution? What on earth is nitrogen pollution?

Nitrogen is commonly used to fertilize crops. Between 70 and 80 percent of agricultural greenhouse...

Tax Day is around the corner. While there is ample controversy over various elements of the tax code (and over taxes in general), one new tax that would make tremendous sense is an excise tax on meat, eggs, and dairy products.

Americans have to pay an excise, or "sin,"...

I'm frequently invited to college campuses to debate the ethics of using animals for food. Over the past 18 months, I've engaged in this discussion with student debaters from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell and more than 30 other universities. Last Thursday, I was supposed to engage Columbia University...

With two wars going on, the economy still faltering, and the government on the brink of shutting down, why is Congress protecting Ringling Bros. Circus?

One would think that exclusively serious issues would command Congress' attention, but according to sources on Capitol Hill, the staff of the House Committee on...

At PETA, we unabashedly labor for animals to be treated with basic respect, which demands (at the very least) that we not eat them, wear them, torment them in laboratories, and beat them into submission so they can perform unnatural acts for the purpose of "entertainment." Basically, we...

Amid the political riots in Egypt, the U.S. State Department is evacuating U.S. nationals. But evacuees are being told that they are not allowed to take their animal companions on the plane. This leaves the terrified evacuees with an impossible choice: leave their beloved companions behind to face certain death,...

Advent is upon us. It's a particularly holy time of the year for Christians, a time for us to ponder the meaning of Christ's birth, his proclamation of "Good News" for the poor and downtrodden, and the degree to which our lives align with Christ's vision. And so I view...

On Friday, the New York Times ran a front page story about chicken slaughter; the paper's quote of the day comes from a farmed animal researcher for the RSPCA, Marc Cooper, who says about chicken slaughter, "people don't want to know too much."

Indeed, slaughter is something meat-eaters...

The biggest killer in America is heart disease (it kills almost 50 percent of Americans), and obesity is at epidemic levels.

For years, Doctors like HuffPo Medical Editor Dean Ornish, John McDougall, Caldwell Esselstyn and Neal Barnard have been pointing out...

The recent recall of half a billion eggs has been bad news for the egg-consuming public. But it's been stellar for the birds. The recall has placed chickens -- and where they come from -- front and center in the national consciousness.

As a result of all the media coverage...

For the past few years, I've been spending a lot of time on college campuses, discussing the ethics of eating animals with college debate teams; I argue that vegetarianism is an ethical imperative for all members of the student body, and my adversaries (two members of the school's debate team)...