UK animal lab scrapped
Cambridge decision leaves scientists worried and activists contemplating what next | By Philip Hunter
Cambridge University's decision this week to abandon a high-profile project to build a neuroscience laboratory involving research on primates has been hailed as a victory by animal rights groups and condemned as a devastating blow for British science by senior researchers and decision makers.
“It's an appalling decision for science and British science in particular,” said Ian Gibson, head of the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology. It will almost certainly lead to the research going to another country, probably the United States, according to Mark Matfield, executive director of the UK's Research Defence Society, which promotes the benefits of animal research. However, Matfield sympathized with the university's decision in the light of a concerted campaign by animal rights campaigners, including, he said, intimidation and threats against anyone who would be involved in the project. “Every carpenter and bricklayer involved in the construction would be a potential target,” he told The Scientist. The University of Cambridge denied that the decision was a direct result of harassment. “Senior decision makers were intimidated, but there was a resolute view that academic freedom should be defended,” said Tony Minson, the university's pro-vice-chancellor in charge of planning and resources. But Minson admitted that the animal rights campaign had an important indirect effect by ramping up the costs of obtaining planning permission and subsequent construction. “And it made the costs going forward difficult to assess,” Minson told The Scientist, referring to future security of the building and people working there. With hindsight, Minson conceded that it might have been a mistake to attempt such a high-profile project on primates within the United Kingdom, which has the world's most active antivivisection lobby. He pointed out that research on primates is still going on within the United Kingdom, albeit at a lower level than it would have been at the proposed Cambridge laboratory, and dispersed among various sites. This point appeared to be conceded by one of the animal rights groups, Uncaged Campaigns. The group's director, Dan Lyons, agreed that the animal rights movement should follow-up its campaign on other laboratories where primate research is conducted. Significantly, the animal rights lobby is divided over whether to intensify its campaign against laboratories where research against smaller mammals, such as mice and rats, is conducted. “We have to be realistic and take account of public opinion,” said Lyons—admitting that at present the focus of the campaign should be against primate research. But Wendy Higgins, campaigns director for the British Union for Abolition of Vivisection, strongly disagreed. “In our recent survey, we found there was almost equal concern among the public over harm done to smaller animals, like mice, as to larger animals, such as dogs and primates,” she told The Scientist. Both Higgins and Lyons denied that intimidation played a part in the Cambridge decision, contending that it was a reflection of public opinion and of winning the argument against the need for primate research. But few scientists agree. “This research [on primates] is not only legal, but of great benefit to the future of mankind,” said Frankie Trull, president of the Foundation for Biomedical Research in Washington, DC. Trull admitted that in the shorter term, the UK's loss may be the US's gain, but worried that the United States could be afflicted in future by similar campaigns and in turn lose out to other parts of the world, such as the Far East. “The precedent set [by the Cambridge decision] sent a chill down the backs of US research,” said Trull. “I think this country [the US] has underestimated the tenacity of the animal rights lobby.” Meanwhile, in the UK the government is under increasing pressure to enact specific legislation to combat violence and intimidation from animal rights extremists, rather than relying on general laws against harassment. “In combination with new home office bills, we need to jack up the war against this form of terrorism,” said Gibson.
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