AR-News: (US-CA) Activists denounce research on animals

[Lydia Nichols]

San Francisco Chronicle
April 20, 2004 


Activists denounce research on animals 
Cops stop shovel protest above UC's underground labs 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/0
4/20/BAG8N67MV81.DTL

Police swiftly seized the shovels Monday of animal-rights protesters who
had just begun to plunge the blades into a grassy courtyard above
underground animal-research labs at UC Berkeley. 

The activists from In Defense of Animals did not resist, and their
effort appeared to have been symbolic. Organizers said the lunch-hour
protest was one of several demonstrations internationally for World Week
for Animals in Laboratories. 


"It's pretty disgusting to think about what's happening beneath our feet
-- monkeys having electrodes implanted in their brains, kittens having
their eyes sewed shut," said activist Jennifer Blum. 


Before the attempted dig with four shovels at the Northwest Animal
Facility, 19 protesters held banners and anti-vivisection posters along
nearby Oxford Street. 


Organizer Nora Kramer said experimenting on animals doesn't produce
useful results for humans and such research diverts funds from other
needs, such as feeding starving children. 


Officials at UC Berkeley, long a target of animal-rights activists, say
animal research has a long history of producing life-saving treatments
for humans. They say new lab facilities and reforms in animal care have
produced a high standard of humane treatment, winning the campus
approval from the American Association for Accreditation of Laboratory
Animal Care. 


"The truth is that most researchers would love it if they didn't have to
use animals," said Helen Diggs, head of the campus' Office of Laboratory
Animal Care. 


She said the campus does no research on kittens but acknowledged that
monkeys are used in "neurologic studies related to vision." She declined
to describe the research, saying, "Some of it isn't very pretty. Is it
necessary to get the cure that may save someone's life? Yes, it might
be." 


She said that open-heart surgery on humans isn't "pretty" either but can
be necessary and that it was developed through research on dogs and
pigs. Many drugs, ranging from insulin to Tylenol, were developed
through animal research, she said. 


In Defense of Animals argues that alternative drug-testing methods could
prove equally effective, but researchers disagree. 


E-mail Charles Burress at cburress at sfchronicle.com 

 
Lydia Nichols
National Grassroots Coordinator
In Defense of Animals - DC Office
1629 Columbia Rd NW, Suite 326
Washington, DC 20009
202.328.0736
lydia at idausa.org
 
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