A new petition is giving those who support animal testing a louder and more united voice, writes Sophie Petit-Zeman on EducationGuardian.co.uk today.
The People's Petition was the idea of David Taylor, who was fed up that people had no means of expressing support for medical research using animals, while its opponents commanded the headlines. Intimidation of the Hall family, who bred guinea pigs, goaded him into action, especially the desecration of the grave of a relative of one of the farm's owners.
Taylor wanted those who had benefited from animal research to acknowledge it, and to support researchers, and so the Coalition for Medical Progress set up the petition.
As the director of public dialogue at the Association of Medical Research Charities, I got involved as a representative of charities funding medical research. This sometimes means animal work, when it's the best use for the pound you put in the pot towards curing cancer or preventing heart disease. It's utterly pragmatic, given the relative expense of using animals, and the hurdles to get a licence for it in a country widely held to have the strictest rules of any. And given the fear factor.
The government is cracking down, but the Halls' experience was one of many examples of intimidation of those involved in research, from suppliers or funders to scientists. I used to work with one whose car was blown up by extremists 16 years ago, seriously injuring a boy in a pushchair. Call that a result?
On launch evening when I checked progress on the petition, the poll was above 6,000, and the number clicked up every second as I watched.
One comment, from Brian Cass, read: "This is a wonderful initiative which I hope will demonstrate the general public's support and appreciation for the diligent work done by scientists, under very strict regulatory controls, to bring new medicines to patients." Cass, who runs Huntingdon Life Sciences, got a three-inch head wound when attacked in 2001 by three masked people brandishing baseball bats.
Another commentator wrote: "I am so glad that someone has had the courage to lead the rest of us in resisting those who prefer intimidation and violence to reasoned debate."
I've yet to meet anyone who says violence is in their name, and increasingly wonder whether peaceful campaigners against animal research are really convinced. I've heard, in the same sentence, the arguments that using animals is wrong because they're so like us, and that it doesn't work because they're so different.
Let's together focus efforts on ensuring welfare is always excellent, on reducing animal use and replacing it wherever possible, but let's shelve the muddled validity and morality arguments. They can't both be true, and we owe it to everyone to get on with ensuring medical progress not fighting unwinnable battles.
