spiked-science | Article | Animal research: extremists are not the main problem

The future of Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) - which carries out scientific research, including animal research, for some of the world's biggest drug companies - could be in jeopardy after being the target of animal rights protesters.

UK science minister Lord Sainsbury has warned that if HLS is closed, pharmaceutical firms will move their research facilities abroad - seriously damaging the future of pharmaceutical and biotechnology research in Britain.

Many major medical advances - insulin to treat diabetes, polio vaccines, antibiotics, safe anaesthetics, open heart surgery, organ transplantation, drug treatments for ulcers, asthma, high blood pressure and more - would not have been won, or would have been introduced at great human cost, if it was not for animal experimentation.

The repercussion of the closure of HLS would be far-reaching. But are animal rights extremists solely to blame for the current state of affairs? Leading scientist Professor Colin Blakemore - who has found himself on many animal rights protesters' death lists - points the finger of blame at the government. New Labour withdrew the small shareholding of its pension fund in HLS only days after it were contacted by the Political Animal Lobby, who had given them �1million.

Other investors, financiers and shareholders have also got cold feet. As Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee put it: 'At the first whiff of gunpowder the captains of industry, the big banks, stockbrokers, financiers, pharmaceutical companies and even cancer research charities turned tail and fled'. (1) Protesters are continuing to target the Royal Bank of Scotland whose �22million loan to HLS is in the balance.

In November 2000 Tony Blair warned the European Bioscience Conference in London that 'anti-science' fears could rob Britain of huge benefits of cutting-edge research and technology. He promised that 'blackmail and intimidation' would not be tolerated despite the fact that 'some times it is controversial, as with GM crops or animal testing'.

But it does not take a lot for the government to lose its political nerve. Watching the consequences of the current debate New Labour is now trying to limit the damage done to animal research, and is even presenting itself as the saviour of HLS by encouraging private funding - a bit rich considering it gave ground in this debate in the first place. Not that government capitulation to public pressure generated by antivivisection campaigns is anything particularly new. In recent decades British governments have introduced some of the most stringent controls in the world to safeguard laboratory animal welfare. Researchers who propose animal experiments have to jump through regulatory hoops and hurdles - including getting a licence from the Home Office. Every experiment has to undergo ethical assessment. The current government is particularly spineless in the face of public criticism - more concerned to cover its own back than to front a defence of scientific research. Whether it be GM food, stem-cell research or animal experimentation, the government would rather set up committees, commission reports and procrastinate than take a lead and make a decision. The end result is that a tiny minority is allowed to lay claim to public opinion.

This is something that Professor Blakemore finds particularly disturbing. As he told me, 'because no one will talk out on these issues it is the voice of the animal rights extremists that ends up representing the grassroots view. Should you conduct government based on these grassroots views? Do you still listen to the views if they are based on distortion or ignorance?'.

The UK government is too sensitive to public hysteria. UK home secretary Jack Straw has now signalled that he intends to drive through legislation to prevent animal rights activists from intimidating staff at research laboratories. Trust Straw to find any opportunity to curtail our civil rights further - as if there were not enough laws to criminalise harassment, protests, industrial action and anything that does not fit in with what New Labour deems appropriate behaviour.

It is not the extremists that are the problem here. Anti-science arguments are given credence and credibility - and a disproportionate influence - precisely because of the defensive climate today that the government epitomises perfectly.

(1) Guardian, 17 January 2001