May
2000
Taking
a Stand for Vegans
The Satya Interview with Jerry
Friedman
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In 1997 Jerry Friedman accepted a contract
position with Kaiser Permanente, a major health maintenance organization
based in California, as a computer technician. In 1998 he was offered
a permanent position and accepted. He was told that he would need
a
health screening, which included a tuberculosis (TB) test, and have
his blood screened for various communicable diseases. Friedman asked
Kaiser whether the TB test was vegan. A senior drug researcher informed
him that "the product does not have any animal by-products in it
and does not appear to come in contact with any animal by-products during
the manufacturing process." Consequently, Friedman took the TB
test.
Soon after, he was informed that he lacked the mumps antibody—Kaiser’s
policy requires sufficient immunity. Friedman learned from the Centers
for Disease Control (CDC), however, that the mumps vaccine is cultured
in chicken embryos and that there are no nonanimal alternatives. Friedman
refused to take the test and was dismissed as a result. Moreover, Friedman
later discovered that the serum used in the TB test actually contained
bovine (cow) serum.
A long-time animal activist and vegan, Jerry Friedman, with lawyer
Scott Myer, is now suing Kaiser for discrimination and battery, with
a hearing scheduled for April 25. Here, Friedman describes this unprecedented
case and the potential that it has to affect vegans nationwide.
How would you describe your vegan ethical system?
My vegan ethic can be summarized as founded upon the utilitarian
principle to maximize happiness. Happiness is maximized by healthy
humans
and nonhumans (only by a plant-based diet). Happiness extends to preventing
unnecessary death, such as for fur, silk or hides, or hunting. I am
against human and nonhuman slavery—call it labor, entertainment,
or any related forced servitude such as harvesting wool.
My ethics extend to all sentient animals. Sentience is normally considered
the ability to feel pleasure or pain. I believe that if one can feel
pain, one deserves not to have pain unnecessarily inflicted upon them.
Thus, by accepting the mumps vaccine my actions would be saying that
the hens and their children belong in prisons—in factory farms—and
that my happiness at keeping the job and submitting to Kaiser’s
ill-serving policy is more important than resisting the pain and misery
endured by the hens and the deaths of their embryos.
What are the specifically vegan issues in this case?
It’s about protecting ethical vegans from discrimination.
Buddhist prisoners have successfully gotten vegetarian meals because
of their
religion, but an ethical vegan or agnostic would have to fight hard
to do the same. This will be a case where a vegan can singly persuade
any governmental body to provide protection equal to the protections
provided to religions.
In a U.S. Supreme Court case (Gillette v. U.S., 1970), the court recognized
that conscience and belief are the "bedrock of religion."
In an Alabama Supreme Court case (Smith v. Board of School Commissioners
of Mobile County, 1987), the court wrestled with whether secular humanism
was the functional equivalent of a religion, for like Buddhism and Humanistic
Judaism, secular humanists have no belief in god. Russel Kirk, one of
the experts testifying before the Alabama court, said: "Modern
definitions of religion encompass those religions which do not believe
in a transcendent order or in a divine power, but which are primarily
ethical in content rather than transcendent or supernatural."
I argue that ethical veganism should be treated as a religion for those
who adhere to it. Vegans should not be discriminated against in the
workplace or in public; we should not lose employment or housing opportunities;
nor should we be persecuted in any way because of it. I have endured
mild harassment on the job before, which I accept because being vegan
is unusual. But this is the first time my livelihood has been cut off
for no other reason except that I did not compromise my ethics for my
employer.
The precedent this lawsuit will set is to interpret the California
Constitution to include profoundly held ethical beliefs as a protected
class in the
same way that religion is a protected class. This in turn may persuade
other states to follow California’s decision, or perhaps the U.S.
Supreme Court, if California determines that "religion" is
broad enough to include ethical veganism.
There are 11 causes of action in the suit, including discrimination,
battery by fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress;
11
reasons why I’m asking the court to find Kaiser Permanente wrongful
in their deeds and to compensate me for them. The whole complaint can
be viewed on the web [see below].
How did you present your objections to getting a mumps shot to your
employers?
I drafted a letter to Kaiser explaining why I refused to take the
mumps vaccine, founded upon my vegan ethics. The egg-laying hens are
in miserable conditions in the factory farms and the eggs themselves
are unborn chicks (embryos) who are discarded after the vaccine has
been cultured. This use of sentient animals as human commodities is
strictly forbidden by my ethic. The letter further explained that I
would do anything not harmful to human or nonhuman animals to comply
with the spirit of Kaiser’s policy. Their response was the canceling
of my contract and rescission of the offer of employment, specifically
because I did not pass health screening.
One has to ask why mumps, a mild disease according to the CDC, is a
required vaccine, yet the vaccine for Hepatitis B, a deadly disease,
is optional. There are other more severe diseases than mumps that have
vaccines, but Kaiser does not require them.
What’s even more questionable is that mumps is a childhood disease
(85% of cases are in children), yet students aged seven and over are
excluded from having to take the vaccine by the State of California,
and a student of any age can be excused from taking a vaccine for "a
medical condition or personal belief." The State does not require
a religious belief, only a personal belief.
At Kaiser, I was assigned to work at a specific warehouse and had no
exposure to patients. An infectious disease specialist at the University
of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) states that it is basically impossible
for someone infected with mumps to pass the disease to someone with
immunity and then for that person to spread mumps to another person.
This defeats any argument that a Kaiser physician, visiting the warehouse,
could become contaminated with mumps by me and then infect a patient
in Kaiser’s care.
When did you learn that the TB test you had taken contained bovine
(cow) serum? How did that make you feel?
About a year after my termination, I learned from a friend that
the TB test contains bovine serum. I called the manufacturer and spoke
with a representative. At first, she said it was free of animal products,
but after we scrutinized each ingredient she said that Tween 80, a
stabilizer
in the test, was a sugar derived from cow’s or pig’s blood.
I am reasonably certain all vaccines are derived from animals. Some
are derived from pigs which many religious people don’t know about,
as many religious people abstain from pig products.
At the risk of offending some readers, I felt like how I think a pro-life
activist would if they discovered they were unwillingly injected with
fetal tissue. This act ranks at the top of the most offensive things
ever to happen to me. I am troubled by the faulted research provided
by a major medical organization (what if I had been allergic to the
ingredient in question), and that I relied upon that research only to
be injected with the blood of the animals I work every waking hour to
protect from harm.
One of your charges is that you were an "unwitting" experimental
subject. Could you explain this?
Everyone deserves to know everything about any medical procedure
done to them, and knowing this, only their consent should permit a
doctor
to proceed. It’s excused in an emergency, meaning that any delay
to gain this consent would risk the patient’s life or limb. It’s
understandable, according to the State, that if the procedure is already
known to be health sustaining, that it probably isn’t an experiment.
The TB test is neither. Federal and California State law says that
any
person who does not give informed consent to a medical procedure is
considered a medical experiment if the procedure is neither health
sustaining
nor an emergency procedure.
In the case of the TB test, I would have refused the injection had I
known its ingredients. As Kaiser knew veganism was a material concern
of mine, and as they withheld the details of ingredients, they technically
broke that law.
Another charge is that you experienced battery to your person. Could
you explain?
Battery is an "intentional harmful or offensive touching of
another against their will." This is the touching of the needle
to and in my skin and vein, and the TB test—with the cow’s
blood ingredient—being injected into me.
Battery is usually thought of as a mighty and plainly injurious touching,
such as being hit with a fist, but any harmful or offensive touching
is battery. As the law works, because I would have refused the TB test
had my question about the ingredients been answered correctly, Kaiser
injected me with something offensive against my will, and this amounts
to battery (by fraud) and invasion of privacy.
How has this lawsuit and the experiences surrounding it affected
you?
I am morbidly troubled by the injuries I have suffered. I have
lost faith in the medical industry because of their gross mistake in
research,
by Kaiser and the manufacturer. What does a patient need to do to get
good information? I am disgusted whenever I recall the TB test needle
going into my arm. I feel very let down that a company that I was happy
to work for terminated my employment for a policy that wasn’t
serving its purpose. I continue to suffer anxiety and insomnia which
I directly
attribute to these acts, and these in turn cause migraines.
Are you prepared to see this suit to the very end?
I have no reason to abandon this case. I will only be happy if
justice is served. Kaiser needs to apologize for their misdeeds through
the
jury’s judgment.
However, if Kaiser Permanente made a settlement offer that would outweigh
all the good that could come out of this case, which could include
millions
to developing and promoting nonanimal research, millions to promote
plant-based diets, and throw in a million to start a Green Scholarship,
I may abandon this case. It’s unimaginable for Kaiser to make such
an offer, because the good this suit can do has more value than the
money they’ll lose when I win.
What are you doing now?
I am in law school. I wish to become a movement lawyer, working
on keeping the government and businesses accountable for their misdeeds,
and to defend activists when they break bad laws. Allegedly break, I
mean.
To learn more or to read the entire complaint, visit www.bestlawyer.com/vegancomplaint.htm.
Contact Jerry Friedman via email: jerry@activist.com.
