Animal research – money isn’t everything
Would the UK government need to step in to save Huntingdon Life Sciences, if it had not helped fuel the reaction against it in the first place?
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Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), an organisation that carries out scientific research – including animal research – for some of the world’s biggest drug companies, has received a lifeline from the government, after being abandoned by the banking sector in the face of animal rights protests.
The financial deal, engineered by Lord Sainsbury, will see HLS transactions cleared through department for trade and industry accounts held at the Bank of England.
This move is welcome. But for the government to present itself as the saviour of HLS is a bit rich, considering that it was the government’s defensiveness that gave ground to the reaction against HLS in the first place. New Labour withdrew the small shareholding of its pension fund in HLS after it was contacted by the Political Animal Lobby, which had made a donation to New Labour of £1million.
Read this:
Animal research: extremists are not the main problem, by Helene Guldberg
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