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Is Your Coat Fur Fake, or Is It Fido?
Feb 23, 9:42 AM (ET)
By KASIE HUNT
WASHINGTON (AP) - That fur trim on your jacket that you think is fake? Tell it to Fido. An animal advocacy group says its investigation has turned up coats - some with designer labels, some at higher-end retailers - with fur from man's best friend. Some retailers were set scrambling to pull the coats from shelves, take them off Web sites and even offer refunds to consumers.
The Humane Society of the United States said it purchased coats from reputable outlets, such as upscale Nordstrom, with designer labels - Andrew Marc, Tommy Hilfiger, for example - and found them trimmed with fur from domestic dogs, even though the fur was advertised as fake.
"It's an industrywide deception," said Kristin Leppert, the head of the Human Society's anti-fur campaign.
The investigation began after the society got a tip from a consumer who bought a coat with trim labeled as faux fur that felt real. Leppert and her team began buying coats from popular retailers and then had the coats tested by mass spectrometry, which measures the mass and sequence of proteins, to determine what species of animal the fur came from.
(AP) Raccoon dogs are seen at a cage in Tokyo's Ueno zoo in this May 24, 2003 file photo. An animal...
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Of the 25 coats tested, 24 were mislabeled or misadvertised.
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Importing domestic dog and cat fur was outlawed in 2000. Intentionally importing and selling dog fur is a federal crime punishable by a $10,000 fine for each violation. Michael Markarian, executive vice president of the Humane Society, said his group had contacted all the retailers and designers selling mislabeled coats or coats with dog fur
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070223/D8NFFR2O1.html
Damn! I did not see WalMart listed anywhere in there
Only more upscale places, which turned out to be downscale.
Feb 23, 9:42 AM (ET)
By KASIE HUNT
WASHINGTON (AP) - That fur trim on your jacket that you think is fake? Tell it to Fido. An animal advocacy group says its investigation has turned up coats - some with designer labels, some at higher-end retailers - with fur from man's best friend. Some retailers were set scrambling to pull the coats from shelves, take them off Web sites and even offer refunds to consumers.
The Humane Society of the United States said it purchased coats from reputable outlets, such as upscale Nordstrom, with designer labels - Andrew Marc, Tommy Hilfiger, for example - and found them trimmed with fur from domestic dogs, even though the fur was advertised as fake.
"It's an industrywide deception," said Kristin Leppert, the head of the Human Society's anti-fur campaign.
The investigation began after the society got a tip from a consumer who bought a coat with trim labeled as faux fur that felt real. Leppert and her team began buying coats from popular retailers and then had the coats tested by mass spectrometry, which measures the mass and sequence of proteins, to determine what species of animal the fur came from.
(AP) Raccoon dogs are seen at a cage in Tokyo's Ueno zoo in this May 24, 2003 file photo. An animal...
Full Image
Of the 25 coats tested, 24 were mislabeled or misadvertised.
~~~~
Importing domestic dog and cat fur was outlawed in 2000. Intentionally importing and selling dog fur is a federal crime punishable by a $10,000 fine for each violation. Michael Markarian, executive vice president of the Humane Society, said his group had contacted all the retailers and designers selling mislabeled coats or coats with dog fur
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070223/D8NFFR2O1.html
Damn! I did not see WalMart listed anywhere in there
Only more upscale places, which turned out to be downscale.
