STONE RIDGE – A new grassroots organization, Hudson Valley Animal Rights Alliance (HVARA), was created by Kay Riviello and Christine Evangelisti earlier this year. Since then the founders and a group of other animal activists have converged at the Stone Ridge firm of Charles River Laboratories (CRL). They meet on the last Saturday of the month protesting the business's use of animals for experimentation.

Riviello said, "There may have been a time when the animal model was useful. But for many years, not only is it no longer useful; it is detrimental."

She explained that, in modern research, even information gathered from men is not useful for research regarding women.

"Tissue sampling in the laboratory has changed everything," Riviello said.

Charles River Breeding Laboratories was founded in 1947 by a young veterinarian, Dr. Henry Foster in Boston, to supply the research community with laboratory animals. The company continues to expand, including worldwide divisions in countries such as China. However, in 1974 the firm opened a large research model facility in Stone Ridge. In 2009, CRL changed its name to CHARTER standing for Charles River Commitment to Humane Animal Research Through Excellence and Responsibility, but locals still call it Charles River Laboratories.

Starting with her protesting of Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) in Manhattan, with a group named Win Animal Rights, Riviello learned that CHARTER supplies HLS with over 500 animals each day.

That's when I found out that in my midst of upstate New York, there was such a business doing just what I am against," said Riviello.

As a medical legal editor with a twenty-year history in hospital administration, Riviello knows much about medical practices. She said, "I stand by the standards of the organization, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine."

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), founded in 1985, is a nonprofit organization that promotes preventive medicine, conducts clinical research, and encourages higher standards for ethics and effectiveness in research. They feel that the replacement of animal testing and experimentation with non-animal techniques often yields both ethical and technical advantages. They cited that pharmaceutical manufacturers have incorporated non-animal methods in several early steps in the drug development process.

PCRM also states that clinical, epidemiological, and pathological investigations remain the foundation of research on human disease. However, the evolving scientific understanding of the complexity of animals and their social and psychological needs underscores a longtime concern of ethically using them in laboratory science. PCRM presents alternatives to many of the common reasons that traditional medical education sees animal research as a necessity. The organization provides a great deal of information about this on its website, www.pcrm.org.

Riviello said animal activism is a voyage that has taken her many years. She explained that her childhood and early adulthood consisted of taking total care of felines — spaying and neutering, trap and release, and rescue and adoptions.

Now her main job with HVARA is to educate the public in any method she can implement.

"I believe that in this new, computer age, we will soar on eagle's wings with an astounding amount of awareness," she said.

In addition to getting the word out on the Internet, the group performs daily duties of animal rescue, and actively hands out leaflets, makes phone calls, writes letters to editors, issues press releases, and has monthly demonstrations.

Picketing CRL provides a local awareness that Riviello wants to spread and that is HVARA's goal for the Hudson Valley.

"We believe that in the next couple of decades, all animal vivisection (surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism) will be completely obsolete. There have already been overtures by the United States government including the Center for Disease Control and [Food and Drug] Administration that this will occur."

She added that, at this point, she believes vivisection only continues because of the industry that vivisection has created, and said that her organization's goal is "nothing short of abolition" of the practice.

Hudson Valley Animal Rights Alliance meets the last Saturday of each month at the Stone Ridge site of Charles River Laboratories.

Those interested can come spirited and empty-handed or bring signs, cameras, costumes, and their children.

Most of all Riviello said, "We want people to bring their fervent desire that vivisection be abolished now."

The next gathering will be on Saturday, June 26.

Riviello's rules for side-of-road protests are: Stay on the median and do not obstruct traffic in any way. Do not encourage any motorists to unsafely stop and converse or obtain literature. Members must not use profanity.

"We are first and foremost diplomats and ambassadors for the animals we represent," she said.

At this point in time, HVARA has over 600 Facebook members and approximately 20 Valley members. For more information or to become a member put Hudson Valley Animal Rights Alliance in Facebook's search engine — or come on June 26 anytime from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Charles River Laboratory entrance on Route 209 in Stone Ridge, just north of Davenport's Farm Stand.