Students in grades kindergarten through 12 are a prime target for animal rights advocates, and the research community needs to counter their misinformation with good information. Representatives of a prominent animal rights group, one dressed as a fish, passed out anti-fishing leaflets that said "eating fish isn't good for you" at a Florida elementary school, one example of how these groups deliberately confuse popular issues of healthy eating habits and environmental concerns with an animal rights message. They attract older students by recruiting rock musicians and movie stars to plead their case. Animal rights literature flooding middle and high schools exploits teenagers' growing social awareness and concern for the helpless, a concern that is usually not tempered with knowledge of the part that animals play in improving human health, or personal experience with disease and death. And teachers of subjects other than science often play a role too by, for example, promoting the animal rights agenda during a discussion of civil rights or an exercise in letter-writing.
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