Anonymous ID: a9bbe6 July 20, 2022, 9:59 a.m. No.16769108   🗄️.is 🔗kun

>>16769021

>>16769021

In October 2017, public health and animal rights activists in New York City launched a campaign to compel Commissioner Bassett to enforce seven public health codes violated during Kaporos, a ritual animal sacrifice that takes place before Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.[16] From October 2017 to July 2018, the activists disrupted four of her public speaking engagements and staged five protests in the lobby of the NYC Department of Health (DOH).[17] The activists alleged that Dr. Bassett was turning a blind eye to the health code violations because the ultra-Orthodox Jews who practice the ritual represent a powerful voting bloc. During Kaporos, an estimated 60,000 six-week-old chickens are intensively confined in crates without food or water for up to several days before being slaughtered and discarded.[18] Many die of starvation, thirst and exposure before the ritual takes place. A toxicology reported submitted to the court as part of an ongoing lawsuit against the DOH stated that the ritual posed a risk to public health in the neighborhoods where it took place. While Commissioner Bassett had not publicly acknowledged the toxicology report or the activists' claims about the health code violations, she issued a public statement asserting that "there remains no evidence that the use of chickens for Kaporos poses a significant risk to human health."[19]

 

In an interview with the Boston University School of Public Health, Dr. Bassett acknowledged the role of activists when politics is compromising public health, "Those of us who work in government face the reality of the fact that the people who appoint us have to go back to the public and back to the ballot box to be reappointed, so there's always going to be a need for advocacy from people outside of government. For someone who is passionately committed to many issues embraced by advocates, it can be difficult to acknowledge the role that I play as a political appointee. I can't always be at the barricades!"[20]