Animal activists' terror tactics drive staff out of laboratories

[alp227]

The twin gates, topped with razor wire and spikes, would do justice to a prison. The outer gate opens, you drive in and your car is studied by CCTV cameras. Then the second gate slides aside and you pass into the main site. Coils of barbed wire, piled on top of high metal fences, mark its perimeter. It is striking, formidable security but not unexpected – for this is Harlan Laboratories in Blackthorn, Oxfordshire, home to 52,000 rats and mice destined for use in medical experiments and the target of a sustained campaign of intimidation by animal activists.

Last week campaigner Luke Steele was sentenced to 18 months in jail for harassing staff at Harlan's laboratories. A second activist, Jonathan White, was given a seven-month sentence, suspended for 18 months. The pair, both aged 22, were members of a small group who terrorised staff at Harlan's three UK sites last year, using hailers to chant "shame on you", "blood on your hands" and "puppy killers" at employees queuing up in their cars to enter or leave their workplaces. They also claimed that animals in the centres were subject to "horrific neglect".

One female Harlan worker told the Observer: "When you arrived in the morning, you would have to queue for up to five minutes to get through the gates. Their loudhailers were deafening. They would scream at you that you were a puppy killer and would bang on your car. It was horrible. I was left shaking for hours afterwards."

A male colleague was equally affected: "It is part of their methodology to equate animal work with paedophilia. If they find out your name, you will appear on their website as a paedophile. It is disgusting." Another Harlan worker found out that his neighbours had all been sent notes claiming that he was a rapist.

full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jul/29/animal-activists-terror-tactics-harlan-laboratories-staff

Maybe those "animal rights activists" should volunteer themselves to be the test subjects for new drugs if they are so concerned about those poor little animals.

[pipoman]

1. This is the kind

of terrorism which drives sane animal lovers away from the animal rights groups..how are they different than anti-women's choice protesters?..Same tactics, anti-abortion largely on the right, animal rights activists largely on the left..

[Warpy]

2. The research might be tougher to take if it was 100% self serving

but the arsenal of drugs vets can use is growing by leaps and bounds. My cat would likely be dead of kidney failure now instead of being supported by 3 "human" drugs; in fact, she's have died years ago without "human" antibiotics. She'd have been a lot less comfortable after surgery without that "human" pain killer.

The kittens and puppies also owe a debt to the mostly feral animals used in drug and other research and that is something the fanatics always miss completely.

[lizerdbits]

3. Not just volunteer

but propose alternatives to animal research that are scientifically feasible. That would be a much better use of their energy. Of course, in some cases there isn't. To quote a poster I saw years ago, "Thanks to animal research, they can protest 20.8 years longer."

There's a joke that it's easier to do a clinical study with humans than an animal study due to AALAC, OLAW, etc. You can't just do whatever you want to an animal.