The Battle of the Lab

Sacrificial mouse?

Bindu Shajan Perappadan

It was a miserable wet Thursday afternoon in December when I joined a handful of animal rights protestors on their weekly vigil outside the site of Oxford University’s new animal research laboratory.

The £18 million construction, which is swathed in the builders’ plastic covering, has been the epicentre of an extraordinary pitched battle between scientists and animal rights activists that has even drawn in the courts and the general public.

The university first ran into trouble with its plans for an ambitious animal research laboratory two and a half years ago, when animal rights activists began protesting against the project.

The demonstrators were full of confidence, buoyed by their success in Cambridge — where the university, on January 27, 2004, had withdrawn its proposal for a new primate brain research centre after a violent campaign against it.

Now they turned their attention to Oxford. Every day hundreds of protesters with megaphones gathered outside the building site in South Parks Road, and began threatening and intimidating workers associated with the planned laboratory. The scale of the protest forced the university authorities to suspend work on the structure in 2004.

Demonstration strictures

Work only resumed recently after the university won an injunction to restrict the protesters’ activities. The injunction states that they may demonstrate only on a Thursday, at a stipulated time, and in a specially marked zone. Megaphones are strictly forbidden. Protestors are also not allowed to demonstrate or picket close to the home of any protected person or to try to identify a vehicle in the zone. The High Court also widened an order to protect staff, students and contractors from harassment by some protesters.

This explains why, on the day that I joined the demonstration, police officers (four) nearly outnumbered the activists (five) whom they were busy video recording.

Mel Broughton, spokesperson for Speak, the organisation spearheading the anti-animal testing group, was one of the people on the rota to demonstrate that day. “The university is one of the major educational research centres in the world and will be used as an example and excuse to replicate the same model the world over. The trend is dangerous and must be stopped,” he explained to me.

Michelle Thew, who runs the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (a group campaigning to end animal experiments), said that they opposed animal testing on moral grounds. “In the 21st century institutes of academic excellence should be looking at cutting edge technology to help prevent the abuse of animals for testing.

We should not support the pain that these animals have to go through in the name of research. We call on world class universities to adopt a visionary and modern approach to testing that is morally appealing to people all over the world.”

Although he welcomes “the other point of view”, Tipu Aziz, the Oxford professor of neurosurgery who has been at the forefront of the argument in favour of the lab, told me: “I don’t see an alternative to animal testing in the near future. Scientists have been debating the issue for over two decades now and come to the conclusion that we cannot replace all animal work right away. In general only about 10 per cent of medical research in this country involves the use of animals. Also regulations are in place to ensure animal research in the United Kingdom that is one of the tightest controlled in the world.”

John Stein, professor of physiology, is also fully committed to the new research facility. “We expect work to be completed by early next year and we hope the public understand that the structure will contribute to the advancement of our knowledge and is important for research,” he told me.

“Kidney transplants, polio vaccine, replacement of heart valves, hip replacement surgery, drugs for high blood pressure, meningitis vaccine, and combined drug therapies for AIDS, drugs for breast and prostrate cancer have all been made possible because of allowing use of animals for research,” he added. “In the 21st century scientists are continuing to work on treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, gene therapy for inherited disease and a vaccine for malaria, which right now are not possible without animal research.”

Oxford’s poster boy

But it is not only scientists who have made the case for animal testing. Last year Laurie Pycroft, a 16-year-old schoolboy from Swindon, was on a shopping trip to Oxford with friends when he came across the huge animal rights demonstration in South Parks Road.

“I realised that the public was hearing only one side of the story,” he told me when I telephoned him at home last week. “I believe that medical research needs the use of animals, but understand that it should be done only when it is a necessity. There are strict rules in the country that restrict the number of small and large animals used for any given research work.
I decided then that I had to oppose the campaign.”

Today Laurie, who hopes to study medicine at the university, is Oxford’s virtual “poster boy” having managed to make headlines by organising large counter-demonstrations in support of the laboratory. “We have students from Europe, America and Australia supporting our campaign. We are also trying to reach out to other countries to educate them about the need for animals in research,” he said.

Professor Stein is full of praise for his work. “Laurie made this a people’s movement,” he said. “It was no longer the scientific community versus animal lovers. People, I guess, understood that animals were being used in an effort to promote high quality research.”

But life has not been easy for either Laurie or his parents after he opted to spearhead the campaign. “Yes there were threats, but my parents supported me throughout and I was doing something that I believed in and felt for. I will continue to raise my voice on this issue for as long as it takes,” he said. “We will not allow a repeat of Cambridge at Oxford.”

A spokesperson for the university agreed: “We are committed to finishing work at the animal research facility. Completing the project will be good for animal welfare, good for medical research and good for treatment of life threatening conditions all over the world.”

The official, however, said that the university could not publicise when the lab would open.  “For security reasons we cannot pinpoint an exact date when the facility will be open and cannot discuss any details concerning the companies or individuals associated with the project. We can, however, assure you that the work is progressing at a steady pace.”

For the animal rights activists, this is not good news. According to Mel Broughton, of Speak, they no have no other option but “to appeal to the world community for help and approach politicians to look into the issue again.”