Waging War On The Animal Rights Lobby

Tired of being the defenseless targets of animal rights protestors, scientists are fighting back-and winning. SAN DIEGO--In a laboratory at Stanford University Medical Center in Palo Alto, Calif., Michael J. Campbell conducts experiments on mice in an attempt to develop a vaccine for deadly B-cell lymphoma. But the 28-year-old biologist is also fighting what he regards as another deadly affliction, this one a threat to science itself. Two years ago, Stanford proposed building a new facility to house animals used for research - and found itself under siege by animal rights groups (The Scientist, November 28, 1988, page 1). The activists attacked the building by alleging that the research would be hazardous to the community. They challenged the permits needed to construct the facility and delayed the new building for more than a year - at an estimated cost to the university of between $700,000 and $1.5 million. And Campbell thought it was high time that scientists themselves stepped into the fray. "For a long time, scientists have been fairly apathetic about animal rights activists," Campbell explains. "Scientists have recognized there are vocal groups out there, but they haven't done anything about it. How does the public know that research on animals is important if scientists aren't standing up and saying it is important?" So the biologist joined with a handful of fellow scientists - and with laypeople - to found an organization named Citizens for Life, Education and Research (CLEAR) and dedicated to waging a counter campaign against the well-orchestrated antivivisectionist blitz of misinformation on animal research. Now more than 200 individuals strong, the organization has taken on animal rightists in the trenches of public opinion, debating the antiresearch activists in well-publicized hearings. "I think we played an important role in approval of the new building at Stanford," says Michael B. Endicott, a founder of CLEAR and a former biologist who is now a land-use attorney married to a surgery resident at Stanford. Campbell and CLEAR are part of an important new trend in science's ongoing struggle against animal rights groups. Instead of simply circling the wagons and hoping to weather the protests, more and more people - especially scientists - are forming groups to fight back. Some of these groups, like CLEAR, sprang up because of a specific issue, such as constructing a new, humane animal research facility. Others are the products of the disabled, who are outraged that science is being slowed in its effort to conquer their diseases. But they all are willing to use aggressive tactics - from organizing protests to lobbying strenuously - that were once the exclusive domain of their opponents. "We started out to counter the lies spread by animal rights activists," explains Larry S. Katz, a 34-year-old Berkeley physiologist who helped found the Association (now Coalition) for Animals and Animal Research. "But we found we had to do more than respond to attacks - we had to be activists ourselves." Witness the efforts of a group named Incurably Ill for Animal Research (iiFAR). Organized in Tucson, Ariz., three years ago by Rick Simpson, a victim of multiple sclerosis who was upset at attempts to halt animal research at the University of Arizona, the group now has 10 chapters and more than 2,000 members, 10% to 15% of them scientists. Currently it is fighting battles in three states. In San Diego, for instance, a new iiFAR chapter organized scientists, patients, and groups such as the American Heart Association and American Cancer Society, successfully blocking animal rightists' efforts to halt the county's long-time practice of selling pound animals to the University of California at San Diego for research. And last April, when animal rights groups staged their annual demonstration week, iiFAR countered with its own media blitz, taking out poignant quarter-page ads in the Los Angeles Times with emotional testimonials from patients who had benefited from animal research. "That was the first time we had ever used paid advertising," says Steve Carroll, executive director of iiFAR, which just moved its national headquarters from Arizona to Chicago. "The cost was almost a full year's membership dues, and all solicitation funds from within California, but we felt it was important." These costly campaigns appear to be getting the message across. By holding rallies, lobbying legislators, and talking to community groups, Katz's group at Berkeley, for example, helped convince the state legislature - and the public - that the university's proposed animal research facility would not treat its charges cruelly. "When the public was shown the planned facilities, they understood that our rats were going to live in better conditions than many people in the Bay Area live in," says Katz, who took two days off from his research to work on the campaign. "People don't think our rats will be pining away to be able to frolic in landfills!" The building is now being constructed. CLEAR's educational campaign in support of Stanford's animal research facility was equally effective. When the Palo Alto Planning Commission first debated whether to allow the building - before the scientists' group was formed - the commission received only 17 letters in support of the facility, says Endicott. But when the issue came up again before the planning board, this time after CLEAR began to take action, the number of letters jumped to 80 - and the building was approved. "The purpose of CLEAR was to tell the politicians that this is an issue of public health," explains Endicott. "We said: `If you bar the use of animals in research, you are making a decision against public health.' There was no one to tell them this accurately until we came along." These groups are still Davids hurling stones at the Goliath of the animal rights lobby; iiFAR's annual national budget is $80,000, a mere trickle of cash compared to the $5 million annual budget of just one of the antiresearch groups, People for Ethical Treatment of Animals. And so far, animal rightists profess not to be worried in the slightest about their opponents. "We feel sorry for some of the people in these groups, like iiFAR," says a spokesperson, who identifies herself by the name Carol Burnett. "But I don't think groups like CLEAR and its sister organization in Berkeley have had much impact. What they show is that we have influence; they are worried about us." Certainly, the new groups won't be able to effectively challenge the animal rights lobby on a national level until more people - especially scientists - climb on board. "We would hope that more scientists would join us in this war against the almost religious fervor of the antivivisectionists," says Simpson, a 50-year-old former policeman. "Very few scientists have taken an activist role. They are out there wearing their mortarboards, smoking their pipes, aloof from this very important problem. They still want to deal with it in academia, rather than the real world. We hope to be more of a catalyst to get them involved." But the numbers of scientists who are willing to take time away from their work to fight the animal rights groups seems to be growing. When Katz wrote a letter to Science this summer (July 1, 1988), "the response from the scientific community was overwhelming," he says. And Katz's own example shows that winning battles can be as rewarding as doing experiments. "Initially it was tough to put research aside to do this work," he says. "But if I can combat the false claims of these people and defeat their positions, this may be my contribution to science right now." Adds Stanford's Campbell, "Scientists may not have gotten involved because they thought it was only a minority speaking out against animal research. But animal rights activists are to be reckoned with. We can't sit back and ignore them. I've been involved for a year; I'll be here a second year if necessary - whatever it takes to continue the important medical breakthroughs that come from animal research." Rex Dalton is a science writer at the San Diego Union.

Waging War On The Animal Rights Lobby

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