Opponents Set 1993 Tactics For Animal Rights Showdown

Organizations supporting and opposing use of lab animals will make major efforts to win the hearts of U.S. schoolchildren As a new year dawns, the fierce duel over whether animals should be used for laboratory experiments and medical education enters a new phase. Both camps--on one side, groups that defend animal rights; on the other, those who want to uphold the use of animals in biomedical researchsay they will intensify the fight for the allegiance of future generations by targeting the nation's elementary and high school classrooms. Organizations dedicated to both causes plan to advance their particular viewpoints in the new year by creating and distributing to American schoolchildren materials ranging from simple coloring books to complex curriculum supplements. Both factions in this ideological battle over the use of animals are well funded and show long-term commitment to their respective causes. Raw statistics indicate that the army of animal protection groups has larger battalions of contributing members and deeper funding coffers. However, these numbers can be deceptive. Animal protection organizations are generally supported by private individuals, giving the groups an impressive number of backers; whereas many of the sizable biomedical research groups have close ties to industry, giving them a lower number of benefactors, but more stable and wealthy funding sources. Organized animal protection agencies have been around for more than 100 years. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) and the American Anti-Vivisection Society (AAVS), for example, were founded in 1866 and 1883, respectively. Today, around 10 million Americans are connected with more than 400 animal protection groups. However, the highly visible activism that has evolved during the past decade has resulted from the emergence of such high-profile associations as the 400,000-member People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the vocal In Defense of Animals (IDA), and the militant Animal Liberation Front (ALF) in the early 1980s. And there is no sign that the proliferation of these activist groups is going to abate: The Pittsburgh-based Mobilization for Animals, for example, has been around for eight years; this year it plans to start five new chapters scattered throughout Pennsylvania. "A group like mine is a mini, local PETA," says Mobilization for Animals director Joe Taksel, whose organization currently boasts 1,600 supporters. "We are an all-volunteer organization and have a prime directive that we are activists first." Animal rights groups plan not only to increase their ranks in 1993, but also to bring their message into the classrooms. "This year we're going to work with the educational system," says PETA spokesman Steven Simmons. "Getting into the schools and making young people a real target for our message is becoming an increasing goal of ours." PETA, whose annual budget is around $8.5 million, plans to double its expenditures on classroom educational efforts to more than $1 million in 1993. Meanwhile, groups defending the use of 17 million to 22 million animals annually in biomedical research have their own history and goals. "Our first formal committee against the animal rights movement was in 1884," says Roy Schwarz, vice president for science and education of the American Medical Association in Chicago, the largest private organization in the United States that promotes animal research. "We fought them again at the turn of the century, again in the '20s, again in the '40s, again in the '60s, and now in the '80s we started to fight them again. It's a movement that never dies. In 30 years, they will probably come back and we'll fight them again." New, aggressive groups, such as Americans for Medical Progress (AMP) and a 40,000-member, Washington, D.C.-based lobbying organization called Putting People First, have arrived in the last few years to aid the pro-animal research campaign. Last year, the U.S. Public Health Service's National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) joined the fray. Some biomedical research groups have strong corporate ties. For example, the former chairman of the board for the National Association for Biomedical Research (NABR), founded in 1979 under the name Research Animal Alliance, is the vice president for external affairs at the Sandoz Corp., a pharmaceutical manufacturer based in East Hanover, N.J. The newly established AMP was incorporated by four employees of the $850 million U.S. Surgical Corp. in Norwalk, Conn. "Now, the scientific community is frightened by the animal rightists," says Mary Brennan, vice president of the 2,000-member Foundation for Biomedical Research (FBR), the largest national group whose primary mission is to defend animal research. "Biomedical scientists are starting to realize they have to get involved in this debate. The sleeping giant is finally waking up." Some of these groups also plan to expand. The Lansing, Mich.- based Incurably Ill for Animal Research (iiFAR), for example, hopes to add between five and 10 new chapters this year. Among animal rights groups, at least two claim a principally scientific membership: the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) in Washington, D.C., consisting of 3,000 M.D.'s, and the Medical Research Modernization Committee (MRMC) in New York, including 1,200 scientists of various disciplines. PCRM runs newspaper ads and television commercials, while MRMC publishes an annual monograph about animal research issues exclusively for physicians and researchers. According to a Gallup Youth Survey, the animal rights activists may already have an advantage in the classroom. The poll, published in November 1991, found that two out of three teenagers say they support the movement. "Kids seem to have a natural sensitivity to animals and the environment," says Susan Roy, spokes- woman for the San Rafael, Calif.-based IDA. Her 50,000-member animal rights organization has 10 full-time staff members, including one who concentrates only on educational issues. Similarly, AAVS, based in Jenkintown, Pa., has an annual budget of nearly $900,000 and a full-time staffer who goes from school to school giving lectures and distributing buttons and brochures promoting the replacement of laboratory animals with computer simulations and in vitro experiments. The Washington, D.C.-based Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has taken its focus on education a step further. The group says it is concerned not with "animal rights" but instead with "animal welfare," and has established a satellite in East Haddam, Conn., called the National Association for Humane and Environmental Education (NAHEE). Acting as HSUS's youth education division, NAHEE does not send any of its 14 full-time employees into classrooms, but develops materials for students and teachers addressing the welfare and protection of animals. NAHEE, along with the Center for Respect of Life and Environment, HSUS's higher education division, receives about $650,000 of HSUS's total $19 million annual budget. In the new year, one of NAHEE's plans is to publish a "Student Action Guide," which will give interested students step- by-step instructions on how to start their own after-school environmental or animal rights club. In addition, HSUS, with a full-time staff of 160, plans to continue its fight to strengthen the U.S. Department of Agriculture's administration of the Animal Welfare Act as well as continue its Russell and Burch award program to support the development of animal research alternatives (see People, page 22). Last July, the 400,000-member ASPCA created the Lasker Center for Humane Alternatives to the Use of Animals in Research, Education, and Testing. Center director Amelia Tarzi says that in 1993, the new division will primarily fill student information requests in a purely informative manner. "We don't want to indoctrinate a student into a particular way of thinking," she says, "but give them a general sense of respect for all living beings." Like animal welfare groups, a large part of the scientific com- munity's involvement will also be directed at students. "More scientists are becoming aware of how the animal rights groups have infiltrated the school system," says Patrick Cleveland, president of the Coalition for Animals and Animal Research (CFAAR) in San Diego. "It's difficult to get a scientist away from his lab and go to a school to talk to fourth- and fifth- graders. But I think more will become involved in the coming year." Since its inception in 1986, CFAAR has expanded to 40 chapters nationwide. Most of the chapters are based on college campuses, made up entirely of part-time volunteers, and have annual budgets of between $10,000 and $20,000. Grass-roots efforts such as CFAAR and iiFAR are often reactive rather than activist, tending to express themselves primarily by monitoring the activities of animal rights groups and issuing newsletters. "Unfortunately, we don't have the money or resources that animal rights groups do to advertise our cause or Jane Fonda to speak out on our behalf," says Buel D. Rodgers, a biology graduate student and member of the University of California, Berkeley, chapter of CFAAR. Some other pro-animal research bodies for example, the Massachusetts Society for Medical Research (MSMR) in Walthamare moving forward in the development of educational supplements. The group, with a $200,000 annual budget and three full-time staff members, has written a 250-page curriculum for secondary school science teachers called "People and Animals: United for Health." It features 159 slides, a teacher discussion guide, and a time line poster. In 1993, MSMR plans to develop a newsletter called "Science Beat" to raise awareness among teens about biomedical research; an "Animal Health Calendar" for grades K-6; and a booklet about the history of biomedical research for grades 2-6. "Teachers say animal use is a hot topic in the classroom," says Karen Hoffman, executive director of the North Carolina Association for Biomedical Research (NCABR), based in Raleigh. Along with distributing brochures, NCABR puts out a coloring book called The Lucky Puppy, the story of a sick dog that regains its health by taking medicines first tested in lab rats. NCABRwhich was started three years ago by a conglomeration of 13 organizations, including major biomedical research companies and state universitieshas an annual budget of $225,000. Young children can also follow The Adventures of Larry the Lab Mouse, a coloring book designed by the 2,500-member iiFAR. Three Washington, D.C.-based pro-animal research groupsFBR and its sister organization, NABR, along with Putting People Firsthave aggressive plans for the new year: Putting People First, with a $225,000 annual budget, plans to develop its own K-12 curriculum in 1993 that will cover the history of the relationship of humans, animals, and biomedical research. FBR and NABR, with a combined annual budget of about $1.6 million, are concerned with education, as well: FBR intends to educate students, teachers, and the general public about the value of animal research, while NABR will concentrate on educating legislators. "With the 103rd Congress, we will have a real all-out education effort to introduce ourselves and our point of view to the new members of Congress," says Barbara Rich, executive vice president of NABR. In stressing the urgency of the NABR mission, Rich says: "In 1993, we are going to campaign hard against groups that oppose animal research We need to find ways to educate at the grass- roots level ... because right now, the animal rights groups are outspending us by at least a factor of 10." The one-year-old AMP in Arlington, Va., plans to recruit college `students to form campus groups called "Students for Medical Progress" and to publish a weekly newspaper cartoon strip called "Heroes of Medicine," featuring animal-using researchers like Ivan Pavlov. The U.S. government is by no means removed from the animal rights debate: In July 1991, NIMH hired University of Pennsylvania veterinary school professor Adrian Morrison as the first director of the Office of Animal Research Issues. Since then, pamphlets and posters have been flowing out of the agency. "The Public Health Service is concerned about protecting and advancing the health of the nation. Anything that in our view works against that is something we have to educate people about," says Morrison, who in January 1990 had his office at Penn trashed by activists claiming to be from ALF. The six brochures and one poster published by his office at NIMH, at a combined cost of around $181,000, address the possible questions of elementary and high school students and teachers. Morrison says the pamphlets are a direct retaliation for what he calls the "misinformation" provided to classrooms by animal rights groups. "Animal rightists misrepresent the status of research in the United States and get a lot of compassionate people to send in money," he says. "They've now collected millionsmy hat is off to their cleverness. But now they are attacking at all levels, on fur and education, so we must respond."

Opponents Set 1993 Tactics For Animal Rights Showdown

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