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:
• The Cambridge facility is generally well managed and provides appropriate standards of accommodation and care for the animals.
• The staff and management have a good ‘culture of care’.
• The standard of record keeping is good.
• The facility seems adequately staffed, both in terms of quantity and quality of staff.
• The veterinary input is exemplary.
The BUAV made dozens of allegations against the University. So many in fact, that the Chief Inspector devoted 55 pages of his report to investigating them all. Many of the allegations made by BUAV were trivial, false or deeply misrepresentative.
In one case, the BUAV suggested that exposure to an unfamiliar cage causes stress in marmosets, measured by a 4-5 fold increase in blood pressure. Anyone with an ounce of medical knowledge would recognise this to be absurd.
In typically mean-spirited fashion, the BUAV accused Cambridge University of causing dental abscesses in monkeys by overfeeding marshmallows. These are used to reward animals in behavioural and cognitive tests. No evidence was given to support this claim. Although it may seem trivial, it demonstrates that the BUAV will make pretty much any allegation they think they can get away with, regardless of the evidence required for the public or politicians to evaluate their claims.
One of the leading vets in the country, with considerable experience in the welfare of non-human primates, has pointed out that this claim is almost impossible to evaluate without further information. For example, what sort of diet was used routinely, and whether there was a regular dental maintenance programme, would have been highly significant in assessing the impact of marshmallows on the dental health of the colony. In fact the Chief Inspector’s report found a ‘complete absence of dental caries in the animals’, and concluded that these occasional problems were age-related and occurred no more frequently at Cambridge University than in other marmoset units.
BUAV got considerable publicity for its infiltration at Cambridge University. Isn’t it time somebody exposed BUAV?
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