AR-News: (UK) Activists face jail as new law backs labs

Tue Feb 3 19:13:36 EST 2004

From: primfocus at waste.org

Activists face jail as new law backs labs

Home Office prepares legislation to protect scientists after primates
research centre is abandoned

Robin McKie and Mark Townsend
Sunday February 1, 2004
The Observer
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,11026,1136439,00.html.

Sweeping new powers against animal rights activists are being prepared by
the Home Office. New legislation would make it an imprisonable offence to
intimidate scientists involved in animal research, and prevent large groups
gathering outside laboratories. A national police unit dedicated to tackling
animal terrorism could be set up.
The decision follows last week's announcement that Cambridge University has
abandoned construction of its proposed Primate Research Centre. The
laboratory, where scientists would have carried out research on Parkinson's,
Alzheimer's and other brain diseases, was ditched because of the costs of
protecting buildings and staff from people protesting about the use of
primates in experiments had begun to spiral out of control. The laboratory's
price tag had already risen from £24 million to £32m and was expected to
increase even more as security estimates soared.
Now talks are going on between research chiefs and government officials in a
attempt to find alternative ways of supporting research on apes, which have
brains similar to humans and are considered vital for developing new
treatments for neurological disorders. At the same time the Home Office is
preparing a specific set of laws to protect UK scientists from attacks.
Most senior scientists and drug company officials believe only a few dozen
hardcore activists are responsible for these attacks. 'Britain has the best
neuroscience in the world but a handful of activists are driving away
companies that want to exploit that expertise. And don't forget,
pharmaceuticals made a &pond;3 billion contribution to our balance of trade
last year,' said Trevor Jones, head of the Association of the British
Pharmaceutical Industry.
Tactics used by activists include throwing rape alarms on the roofs of the
homes of lab staff, planting burning crosses in gardens, sending bomb
threats to schools of employees' children, pouring acid on cars, smashing
homes and daubing on walls claims that staff are rapists and paedophiles.
'Nobody wants to disrupt the right to peaceful protest but this is beyond
what any civilised society should be expected to tolerate,' Jones said. 'The
law is not strong enough.'
Between November 1999 and September 2002 an estimated 450 demonstrations,
many of them violent, took place outside Huntingdon Life Sciences
Laboratory, the Cambridge animal research centre that has become a focus for
attacks. There were arrests on only 28 occasions.
'Until scientists can carry out a limited number of controlled experiments
on animals, including primates, we are not going to find cures for
Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other diseases,' said Aisling Burnand, chief
executive of the Bioindustry Association.
Last year a wave of attacks were directed against UK-based Japanese
pharmaceutical companies including Yamanouchi, Esai and Daiichi. Executives
were attacked, cars damaged, and homes ransacked. Only the inter vention of
Science Minister Lord Sainsbury, who flew to Japan to assure government and
company officials that Britain was committed to protecting scientists,
prevented firms from leaving the UK.
Some changes to the law have since been introduced but, in the wake of
Cambridge University's decision that it still cannot provide protection for
animal researchers in the city, drug companies are now demanding a clear
signal be sent by government to help the biotechnology industry.
'Specific regulation is needed to tackle this,' said Mark Matfield,
executive director of the Research Defence Society.
The new legislation could make it an imprisonable offence to intimidate a
person because he or she is involved in animal research. Other ideas before
the committee include 50-metre exclusion zones around research centres and
targeting extremists in the way the Football Disorder Act allows hooligans
to be banned from matches merely because police officers have 'reasonable
suspicions' about them.
Other measures would be directed at those who try to intimidate financial
backers of laboratories and research centres. The Government had to step in
to provide insurance for Huntingdon Life Sciences after its insurers, Marsh
& McLellan, backed out after waves of intimidation. At one stage activists
disrupted performances by the English National Ballet because Marsh &
McLellan's UK chairman, Hamish Ritchie, was a member of its board.
Some scientists had already warned about the abandoned primate centre.
Professor Colin Blakemore, head of the Medical Research Council, a leading
UK physiologist and himself the tar get of vicious attacks by animal
activists, told The Observer he had always feared the centre would be
targeted. 'We needed a primate research centre as much as we needed a mouse
research centre or a hamster research centre. That is not how biological
research works. Research on animals should continue to be integrated into
individual science departments.The logic of a centre dedicated to only one
type of animal was always suspect and it was risky to put it in an isolated
part of Cambridge where it could be portrayed by activists as a windowless
temple of animal torture.'
Jan Creamer, chief executive of the National Anti-Vivisection Society, said:
'We don't believe the claim by Cambridge University that they have withdrawn
their plans for security reasons. During the public inquiry they convinced
the inspector that security was not an issue that would prevent the
Cambridge primate lab from being built. Now, a year later, they have changed
their minds.'
In addition, ministers are understood to be seriously considering moving
part of the abandoned laboratory's work to the government's top-secret
chemical weapons establishment at Porton Down, Wiltshire, a move that will
infuriate opponents who argue it allow primate experiments to be carried in
total secrecy.
Officials at Porton Down have already begun breeding primates there. One of
its key partners was the University of Cambridge.
Internal government documents also indicate production of primates has
increased at Porton Down's Defence Science & Technology Division for
apparent use at the Cambridge centre. Findings by the animal welfare
advisory committee reveal that while hopes of building the Cambridge site
remained strong, Porton was 'increasing macaque production in the
expectation of increased future experimental demand'.
The new primate breeding facility offers 'state-of-the-art accommodation'
and is designed to house 250 macaques with around 100 of these earmarked for
experiments a year. 'Their quarters are fine. I would not necessarily want
to live in them myself, but as far as they go I think we have very high
standards,' said Defence Minister Lewis Moonie in a parliamentary answer.
However, the idea of carrying out primate experiments for civil research
aimed at creating life-saving drugs is vigoursly opposed by researchers such
as Blakemore. Instead they are preparing to set up 'a distributed centre'
which would supply animals as and when scientists require them for
neurological research.

the wild, cruel beast is not behind the bars of the cage. he is in front of it - axel munthe

"Never doubt that a small group of dedicated citizens can change the world. 
Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."      Margaret Mead
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