Mommy, Why Does Nightly News Hate Animals?

It is absolutely inconceivable that Nightly News would allow Vesicare (a GlaxoSmithKline product) to sponsor Monday's "Making A Difference" segment about a woman who uses her Arizona ranch as a rescue shelter for animals that are unwanted or unable to be cared for. Did anyone at NBC even think about this? Did it occur to any of the producers that Glaxo is one of the world's largest utilizers of animal testing? You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes or a PETA member to know that Glaxo tests its products on animals. Obviously, the NBC producers knew that Glaxo does animal testing. They simply chose to ignore it. More animals probably died in order to bring Vesicare to market than have been rescued by Deborah Wilson! This is from Maria Menounos's Monday Daily Nightly blog: "Visiting Dr. Wilson's ranch outside Phoenix, I immediately saw just how much she loves animals...She is so passionate about the plight of animals that she's scheduled another day of surgery into her full-time job as a gynecologist to help pay for all the expenditures. She has forgone luxuries and vacations as well, all to finance the animals...Her belief is that animals are God's creatures and we are supposed to help them, too. They provide us with love, companionship and even healing as proven with therapy animals. So why not save them?" Why didn't Maria Menounos ask Ms. Wilson what she thinks of Glaxo's use of test animals? I wonder if Menounos even informed Ms. Wilson that her story would be sponsored by a company that tortures and kills animals.

Amazingly, this is not the first time Nightly News has allowed the animal torturers at Glaxo to sponsor a MAD segment about animal rescue. Last Jan. 2, Glaxo sponsored a segment about Jon Wehrenberg's organization "Pilots 'N Paws", which flies dogs from crowded animal shelters to other less crowded shelters where they can more easily be adopted. And last Nov. 21, Glaxo was allowed to sponsor a MAD segment about Lorita Lindemann, who rescues former race horses and keeps them from being euthanized or turned into dog food. I wonder what Mr. Wehrenberg and Ms. Lindemann thought of the fact that their stories were sponsored by Glaxo. Is anyone at NBC paying attention? Why is no one at Nightly News connecting the dots here? Allowing Glaxo to sponsor these segments is so inappropriate that it boggles my mind. I guess it's just a question of money. If NBC was paid enough, they would probably allow Anheuser-Busch to sponsor a segment about families that have lost loved ones to drunk drivers. NBC obviously doesn't care about the morality or appropriateness of their sponsorships. This is inexcusable. Brian Williams is always talking about how much he loves dogs. This makes me wonder. Brian and the Nightly News producers owe apologies to Deborah Wilson, Jon Wehrenberg and Lorita Lindemann. They also owe an apology to the viewers.