Response to an article in the British Veterinary Record, by Prof Bill Reilly

Responding to an article in the British Veterinary Record, by Prof Bill Reilly, calling for religious slaughter to be curbed, a spokesman for Shechita UK said:  

“Prof Reilly’s superficial and imprecise musings about religious slaughter in the UK are indicative of the wider, extraordinarily unscientific approach to the debate on religious slaughter. He, and others like him, consistently draw on a tiny pool of deeply flawed, long since discredited scientific research to suggest that religious slaughter is inhumane. The fact is that there is no conclusive scientific evidence to support his position, and many claiming to have science on their side are either ill-informed or agenda-driven. Shechita is a rapid, humane method of slaughter which incorporates an immediate and irreversible stun by causing an immediate collapse in cerebral perfusion which conforms with both domestic and European definitions of stunning. If Prof Reilly is truly concerned with animal welfare, his time would be better spent campaigning against the so called ‘humane’ methods of mechanical stunning including captive bolt shooting, gassing, electrocution, drowning and clubbing, not to mention the many millions of animals who are ‘mis-stunned’ every year, requiring them to be re-stunned, causing additional and unnecessary suffering.”