We sometimes wonder why Animal Aid even bothers. Every year they push out their so-called Mad Science Awards—to a deafening silence.

In this year’s awards, as always, the emphasis is primarily on primates and dogs. To their credit, they’ve included a few rodents this time round.

What is remarkable is how healthy all the animals look. One can ignore the usual ramblings and rantings in the text—much the same as the usual animal rights stuff. It all looks rather uninspiring.

It is always a disappointment when an attempt to find a replacement method for an animal test does not fulfil expectations. One such case has been highlighted in the newly published annual report of the Animal Procedures Committee 2006. An attempt to find an alternative to the mouse test for detecting botulism toxin in foodstuffs was unfortunately of severely limited use because of false positive results.

Without sufficient detail, it is not easy to tell if this is a minor or a major setback. But it does highlight a wider point about the nature of scientific endeavour. Very few methods of research are perfect.  The sweeping statement by antivivisectionists that ‘alternative’ methods of research are ‘superior’ to animal tests makes no scientific sense. The best test or research method can only be identified on a case-by-case basis.

Another example of a problematic non-animal method of research is the Ames test - used to determine whether chemicals cause mutations in the DNA of cells. This and other in vitro tests are now widely used as pre-screens to partially replace rodent testing for cancer-causing compounds. Unfortunately, the Ames tests is also riddled with false positives. As a result, it tends to be used as way of understanding aspects of mutagenicity and carcinogenicity rather than as replacements for the animal assays themselves.

Scientific research is rarely as straightforward as the antivivisectionists like to make out.

Congratulations to the producers of the documentary Monkeys, Rats and Me: Animal Testing, broadcast on BBC Two just over a year ago. It has just won the best Science Documentary category of the annual Grierson Awards.

The documentary was widely praised in previews and reviews at the time. Many reviewers believed it to be ‘balanced’ but it was clearly too balanced for the antivivisectionists like Europeans for Medical Progress, who subsequently complained to the BBC.

The dawn of the animal rights movement was over 30 years ago with the publication of Animal Liberation by Peter Singer. Whilst two different groups of animal rights supporters shared much the same objectives, they took very different paths to achieve their aims.

The animal rights extremists are best known for their philosophy of direct action and for their high profile campaigns of harassment and intimidation.

The other group sought to use moral, philosophical, intellectual and legal arguments to further the case for animal rights through the courts, constitutions and laws in a variety of countries.

Animal Defenders International (ADI) seem to be riding high. This organisation is the international campaigning wing of the National AntiVivisection Society. Their autumn 2007 newsletter just dropped through our letterbox with the claim that the European parliament has ‘set a historic target to end experiments on primates’. This is described as ‘the single most important breakthrough in over a decade’.

We’ll see about that.

The case for the use of non-human primates in research is well made in a Guardian ‘Comment is Free’ blog article today, and is otherwise well described on the RDS website.

In any case, the claims of ADI do not stand up to scrutiny…

In today’s Chronicle of Higher Education Mary Beth Sweetland – until recently VP and director of research and investigations for PETA and a close Newkirk associate – made a comment that is almost certainly not condoned by Newkirk and other animal rights bigwigs.

My years of experience with whistle-blowers have forced me to realize that I cannot label as monsters all who work in animal laboratories
- Unfortunately you need a subscription to access the full article

It’s a revelation that will come as no surprise to anyone that’s done animal research, or knows people who do.

However, this isn’t meant to be a gloat, and I hope Sweetland’s comment isn’t used against her by other activists.  It’s nice to see that some committed activists do appreciate the nuances of the debate.

All too often we only hear the views of people like Newkirk(1) who persist with the old, tired position of ‘anyone connected with animal research = sadistic torturer’.

Long may sense continue.

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(1) Described by Alex Pacheco, her PETA co-founder, as “a media whore” (USA Today, 19th Nov 2007), other mainstream activists such as Wayne Pacelle, Chief Executive Officer of the Humane Society, feel her ‘neither condemn nor condone’ attitude towards ALF actions is unhelpful – and morally wrong:

‘We’re demanding ethical consistency in the way people live their lives,’ Pacelle says. ‘Once you move into the domain of intimidation or illegal conduct beyond civil disobedience, you’re moving into a dangerous pile of quicksand.’
- PopMatters.com, 19th Nov 2007

Despite the best efforts of antivivisection groups - and they claim some success in the European Parliament - the public debate on difficult issues such as primate research and cloning seems much more grown up than it was a decade ago.

We know from opinion research that, of all research animals, the public are most concerned about primates. But we also know that they can weigh it all up in quite sophisticated ways and make judgments based on potential welfare costs and biomedical benefits of the research. 

The recent news that scientists at Oregon University had cloned macaques was greeted by the UK national media in a largely positive fashion (see for instance BBC News). No particular concerns were expressed about the use of primates, and the twin spectres of Frankenstein monsters and human reproductive cloning, which dogged coverage of Dolly the sheep 10 years ago, were hardly to be seen.

I recently received an email from a journalist, who despite not being routinely involved in this debate could easily see the flaws in recent antiviv claims:

"The Hadwen Trust have said that a new European Commission report puts the UK at the top of the animal research rankings. However, if you look at the notes on the bottom, you’ll see that the figure they use is not even from the Commission report!

… they said they used the UK estimate for animal research because European figures didn’t account for certain types of research. How the UK figure can therefore be used as a comparison is a bit of a mystery to me!"

See Dr Hadwen Trust website, News, New Statistics: Britain still the animal testing capital of Europe, 9th Nov 2007

Unlike the rest of Europe, the UK counts breeding of GM animals as a procedure meaning that when GM animals aren’t counted we aren’t actually in the top spot. That you have to compare like with like – just because France, for instance, doesn’t count GM animals it doesn’t mean it doesn’t have thousands running around the lab – seems to have passed the folk at DrHT by. However, ‘UK is number 2 in Europe’ doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.  It’s sad that one of the supposedly respectable antiviv groups has resorted to these tactics.

The UK collects and publishes the fullest details of animal research undertaken in the world, as well as being acknowledged by the antis as being "at the forefront of cutting edge non-animal research"(1). Add to this that DrHT’s very own Gill Langley recognises that UK animal research is a "very tiny minority of research effort"(2), and the negative comments look very silly indeed!

It would benefit animal welfare more if the DrHT had instead held these facts up as an example to other countries.

I’d actually say that it is a source of pride that the UK is the world leader in conducting top quality animal research that is carefully regulated and fully accounted for.

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(1) National Anti-Vivisection Society & Lord Dowding Fund for Humane Research (Nov 2002) Monkeys & Men
(2) Gill Langley (17th July 2001) Oral evidence to House of Lords Select Committee on Animals in Scientific Procedures

There have been a number of convictions of animal rights extremists recently, and many of those are serving custodial sentences. On the 1st of May 2007 police arrested 32 people. 15 people have been charged and others remain on police bail. Today, an animal rights extremist was convicted of blackmail at a hearing at Bradford Crown Court. Suzanne Jaggers, 35, from North Yorkshire was charged after a nationwide police investigation earlier this year called Operation Achilles This is a further significant result which demonstrates the determination of the law enforcement agencies to tackle animal rights Zealots. Jaggers made repeatedly abusive and threatening phone calls to the owner of a boarding kennels. She also pleaded guilty to making a malicious communication. Detective Chief Inspector Andrew Robbins said; “Improved police response combined with the changes to the criminal justice system is beginning to make a significant difference to the lives of people who are affected by the actions by animal rights extremists which goes way beyond lawful protest.”

The animal rights group SPEAK, campaigning against the new Oxford University biomedical research centre, is currently exercised by lack of support from the local Green party. They wrote recently to the Green party candidate, Chris Goodall, whose reply included the following: 

‘All [members] agree that we should focus strongly on advancing the methods used for testing so that we get rid of the need for animal experimentation soon…. I do stress that some members believe that a good portion of the work to be done in the [Oxford University] Lab is ethically imperative…. The Party feels that the moral and scientific case against the Lab, or some of its experiments, is undermined by the tactics used by some protestors. At certain times, the protests have been intimidatory and frightening, both to scientists and bystanders…. In particular, we understand that Martin [sic] Broughton has refused to rule out violence in the pursuit of the closure of the Lab.’

On a more light-hearted note (perhaps the animal rights groups do have a sense of humour after all?) Wendy the Windy Cow (I kid you not) launched Animal Aid’s Vegan Month on 1 November. Wendy will be:

‘farting her way across the country, stopping in other UK cities to deliver the message that animal farming has a massive impact on global warming. As part of her tour, she will be encouraging local people to take the veggie or vegan challenge.’

So animal rights groups like to colour themselves green, but only when it suits them. In fact, in relation to safety testing of chemicals that can affect the environment, the antivivisection and green agendas are poles apart.

The University of Oxford animal house is nearly completed. Now, animal rights extremists are desperately trying to ‘deploy new tactics’ for the time after the lab’s opening. Mel Broughton told The Oxford Student, ‘there will be a battle that we take to the University and the lab. Our tactics are evolving. We will be there fighting.’

Leading activists like Broughton and his friends from the ALF seem to have realised that they have lost all hope of stopping the Oxford lab. It looks like the extremists are under pressure from their supporters to show some action. The leaders of the animal rights movement have to justify why they are rapidly loosing public support. I could imagine many supporters of the movement are frustrated because the animal house is going to open soon and their (violent) tactics, justified by Broughton and his friends, seem to have clearly failed.

Presumably concern for the environment is not something that bothers Jerry Vlasak, the extremist animal rights advocate from the US. He flew 10,000 miles to speak for 10 minutes in a debate on animal research in Dublin last week.

What was remarkable was the man’s ability to make such a bad impression in such a short space of time. Not only was he the only speaker who refused to take questions, much to the frustration of those present, but he managed to spectacularly misjudge the mood of the audience.

Vlasak, who has advocated violence against researchers who use animals, spent most of his speech likening his movement to the French resistance during the Second World War. Such rhetoric seemed absurd in what was an otherwise genuine debate about a difficult ethical issue. Vlasak clearly lives on a different planet to the rest of us.

It was difficult to take seriously Vlasak’s bizarre vision compared to the reality of well-regulated and carefully conducted humane animal research. It conjured up extraordinary visions of commonly used animals in research, such as fruit flies and fish, being overrun by Nazi stormtroopers!

No wonder the other proposed speakers from the UK backed out at short notice. Sharing a platform with a man locked in a mental mind trap from the last century would surely have been an embarrassment.

At the end of the evening, much like a similar debate at Cork University the month before, the vote was overwhelmingly in favour of animal research. Indeed, it was difficult to find anyone hanging around afterwards at the students bar who thought that animal rights was issue at all in Ireland!

Antivivisection groups continue to churn out pseudoscientific reports at an astonishing rate. One organisation, the National Anti Vivisection Society, must be very confident of its expertise, since it has recently challenged in some depth in a written report a scientific opinion paper produced in 2002 by the European Union’s Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) on the use of non-human primates (NHP) in biomedical research.

But scratch the surface of this report, and it is obvious that it’s just the same old arguments that the antivivisectionists have been using for decades. Sweeping assertions that no animal research can be relevant to humans because of species differences, and broad claims that there are already alternatives for any type of animal research, are the standard fare.

Some time ago we highlighted the nonsense written by the NAVS about ‘quantum pharmacology’ in one of their research papers.

Perhaps an even more bizarre example of the lack of scientific credibility, however, comes from a report exactly 20 years ago entitled ‘Biohazard’. In this document the antivivisectionists claimed that ‘AIDS came out of research on animals’, and was ‘created by people in a laboratory’. The report is still referred to on the NAVS website, where it is described as ‘a two-year investigation into the hazards of the creation of new diseases in animal laboratories, and in particular the story of the simian and human versions of the AIDS viruses’.

NAVS claim that the report ‘shocked MPs and scientists alike’. They are right. Shocked at the sheer absurdity would be a good description. Perhaps not surprisingly, we don’t hear much about that report anymore!

The threat of animal rights extremism to the UK science base has been a defining theme of the debate about animal research in the UK for the last decade. But just as that threat is appearing to subside, new problems appear.

The prospect of a slow death for high-quality animal research in the UK at the hands of excessive regulation, increasing costs and a declining skills base is looming ever closer. By the time our international competitors gain ground on us, it will be already too late.

But the good news is that the problems are at least being recognised, and plans are in place to put things right. A new report has just been published into animal research skills for the future.

It was five years ago, in October 2002, that the Chief Inspector released his report Aspects of Non-human Primate Research at Cambridge University. This had been in response to allegations made following an infiltration by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV).

The sorry story has continued right up to this month. The Home Office has just lodged papers at the High Court appealing against the recent ruling of a judge on one out of four points for which the BUAV took them to court.

What has been lost in this debate is proper publicity for the very high standards of animal care and welfare which are maintained at Cambridge University. It is worth re-visiting the Chief Inspector’s report. He found that: