Remembering Sidney Lerner

Sidney Lerner, a New York advertising executive who developed the campaign “Please don’t squeeze the Charmin” (Charmin is a US toilet paper brand known for its softness), recently passed away at the age of 90 on January 12, 2021. WellBeing International would like to convey its condolences to his wife Helaine, his sister Ethel Gardner, and other surviving nieces and nephews.

I first met Sid and Helaine about 25 years ago when I was an advisor to the noted animal advocate and campaigner, Henry Spira. The Lerners were helping Henry in his very successful one-person campaigns on laboratory and farm animal issues. One of those campaigns against animal testing of cosmetics had led to the establishment of the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT) at Johns Hopkins in 1981 and Henry was keen to introduce Sid and Helaine to his contacts at Hopkins. Henry had then started looking at farm animal issues and, wisely, considered the way animals were raised for food a public health issue. Guided by Henry, Sid and Helaine helped to establish the Center for a Livable Future (CLF) at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and Hygiene – formally launched in 1996.

The CLF also provided an outlet for Sid’s genius (he was an advertising executive) in developing memorable phrases and public health campaigns. In conversations with CLF director Dr. Robert Lawrence and others, Sid developed the idea of a campaign that would encourage people to refrain from eating meat on one day a week – and so was born the Meatless Monday campaign – officially launched in 2003. The goal of the Meatless Monday campaign was to improve not only their own health but also the health of the planet by reducing the environmental burden associated with meat production. Al Sommer, at the time the Dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and Hygiene, strongly endorsed the concept. Initially, the campaign was conceived primarily as a public health and environmental initiative but, over the course of the next few years, it was picked up by animal protection organizations as well.

In 2020, the New York City School System (the largest in the USA), adopted a Meatless Monday policy, the latest of many schools, universities and institutions to join the trend to go meatless on Mondays. And a 2019 poll found that 42% of all Americans were aware of the Meatless Monday initiative and 31% said they were cutting back on their meat consumption. Internationally, the campaign has had to be adapted for communities where meat may be an occasional luxury item. For example, in South Africa, there is now a Green Monday campaign promoting the consumption of vegetables on at least one day a week.

Over time, the Meatless Monday campaign expanded to other public health issues such as encouraging people to give up smoking and to move more. As Sid commented, Monday is “the day all health breaks loose!” We know that Sid’s close family and the staff at the Monday Campaigns will miss him greatly, and so will the rest of us who knew him. Sid was not just a “real mensch” who grasped what is the right thing to do, he also brought his principles into life and encouraged people to act on them. We will all miss him greatly!This resilience is on full display in Underdogs, a new book describing the challenges faced by people and their pets in low-income communities. Fortunately, as sheltering resources have grown in the US over the past forty to fifty years (tripling and quadrupling in inflation-adjusted dollars), there are now many more programs helping pet owners in low-income communities to manage pet care costs. And yet the research found that simply making free pet food and low-cost veterinary care available are not sufficient to support the human-animal bond in these communities.

Beyond cost and access, the book reports a number of other obstacles to disseminating affordable basic veterinary care. In the most underserved part of Charlotte, North Carolina, some people distrusted the shelter because its sterilization program reminded them of the state’s forced sterilization of young black women (still occurring as recently as 1974). Others felt ashamed or even stigmatized to accept free services. And yet others were afraid that law enforcement or the immigration authorities would track them down through the personal information they gave to the shelter.

The Charlotte Humane Society tried to overcome these barriers so more animals would receive basic veterinary care. Shelter workers reduced their expectations of what underserved communities can reasonably do for dogs and cats, given the realities of living in or near poverty and the constraints of local culture. Elements of “responsible guardianship,” often touted as the gold standard for pet owner behavior, were frequently impossible to achieve and risked further alienating communities that have long distrusted shelters. Therefore, rather than prohibiting or discouraging pet ownership in underserved communities, shelter workers aimed to develop “reasonable” guardianship standards. Shelter workers also tried to improve low-income pet owners’ relationships with their animals as well as with the shelter itself. Such measures included building backyard fences that enabled unruly dogs to become more approachable, in turn making it easier for owners to touch or play with their pets. Shelter workers also cultured special relationships with “community ambassadors” knowing that people who had used the shelter’s affordable care and spoke highly of it would encourage neighbors with pets to also use these services.

To provide basic veterinary care, many people in low-income communities improvised ways to be responsible for their pets, given available resources and support. Examples of such care were common and flew in the face of the negative stereotypes that tend to identify people in low-income communities as irresponsible or neglectful. With fewer resources, some pet owners made significant sacrifices for the sake of their animals’ welfare just as they routinely did for other family members when they were in need.

One pet owner spent his entire Social Security check to pay his sick dog’s veterinary bill even though he had almost no savings to fall back on for personal expenses. Another paid for pet food with money earmarked for baby food. When evictions or financial hardship hit, people found others to take care of their pets, whether temporarily or permanently, instead of abandoning them on the street or to animal control. In one case, a pet owner moved into public housing that required him to give up his dog. He then asked a friend nearby to keep and feed the dog. He would bike over once a week to clean up after his dog and perhaps provide food as well. After the “substitute” owner was evicted from his home because of gentrification, he found another home to keep his dog.

Given that pet-ownership in these low-income communities is much more resilient than commonly assumed, what might we expect of the broader population as the US gradually returns to a more normal society? We would argue that reports of increased interest in pets, influenced by the changing habits of people spending most of their time at home, may not have led to a big increase in overall pet ownership. For example, the gross number of dogs and cats adopted from shelters actually did not increase in 2020. Therefore, there may not actually have been an unusual increase in the number of pets entering US homes in 2020.

Another concern is that economic downturns result in greater relinquishment of pets. Again, there is no evidence of a surge of pet relinquishments during an economic downturn. Pet ownership and expenditures on pets appears to be relatively resistant to economic conditions although there was a dip in veterinary expenditures in 2010 after the last economic downturn.