WINDS OF CHANGE?

Just wondering if these two seemingly small (and unrelated) developments may augur big changes down the road. John Mackey, CEO of the grocery chain Whole Foods, has gone from vegetarian to vegan. "I came across an argument I could not refuse: Eating animals causes pain and suffering to the animals." Personally, I don't get how you can be vegan and run a company that sells any meat, but let's wait a few months and see how this plays out.

And in a small but significant deviation, an NIH official has abandoned the company line that animal-rights concerns would never affect their decisions to test on animals: John Strandberg was asked "about the likelihood of a future ban on experimenting on chimps. Strandberg... effectively guides NIH policy on what animals are used in research. 'It wouldn't surprise me,' Strandberg carefully replied, 'that at some time in the future - I don't want to get into when - that chimpanzees are not used' in biomedical research. No matter how considered his language, Strandberg's comment represented a global shift."