One of the Editorials in last week’s issue of Nature (457, 636; 2009, free to access online) calls for vigorous pursuit and prosecution of “activists” who break the law, often violently, in their personal stances against the use of animals in experimental research. According to the Editorial, “US federal, state and university authorities need to go beyond enforcement and take an unequivocal, public stand that emphasizes the importance of animal research for drug testing and basic science — as did former UK prime minister Tony Blair. It would be especially helpful if President Barack Obama were to make such a statement.”

Scientists should ensure that they are complying with the appropriate regulations, “and run their labs as if members of the public could walk in at any time to take a look. If they are seen to be committed to high-quality animal care, it can only improve their credibility among the public.”

The Editorial also calls for a streamlining of the US regulatory network, calling on the US federal government to “conduct a thorough review of the regulations concerning animal research to eliminate gaps, ensure compliance and strengthen penalties. Ideally, the oversight powers would be consolidated within a single organization. But, in any case, such measures might boost public confidence in animal research.

Over the long term, this multipronged approach should not only protect the safety of researchers, but should open up space for a constructive dialogue about issues in animal research — especially the pursuit of reduction, replacement and refinement of such experiments — that concern both public and researchers alike.”

See also a recent Nature Correspondence exchange between Roberto Caminiti (Nature 457, 147; 2009) and Bill Crum (Nature 457, 657; 2009). This exchange of views arose from a previous Nature Editorial (Nature 456, 281-282; 2008) about neuroscience research on non-human primates, calling scientists who work in this field to action over a proposed EU directive.

The Nature journals’ polices on publication of work describing experiments performed on animals and other living organisms.

Archive of articles and debate on this blog about research involving human and other animal experiments.

Doctors used to try out their surgical skills on animals before being allowed to work on patients. Now just a handful of US medical schools still have animal labs. A Nature News report (453, 140-141; 8 May 2008) asks if they’ve lost a vital tool.

This month sees the shutdown of the live-animal laboratory at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio. The lab is currently used to train medical students, allowing them to practise on anaesthetized pigs before attempting their first incision into humans. But the school, which has used live cats, dogs and ferrets in its surgery programme in the past, intends to stop using live animals at the end of this semester in favour of technologies such as virtual simulations.

It is the latest closure in a phase-out of animal labs across the United States: in 1994, live-animal experiments were on the curriculum in 77 of 125 medical schools; now it is thought that just eight use them.

In the context of a global trend to reduce the use of live non-human animals for surgical training, the News story reports a range of opinions from medical scientists, physicians, directors, students and others on the value of training using simulation or real animals.

See here for previous Nautilus posts and discussion on animal experimentation.

The editorial in this month’s Nature Immunology describes how some scientists are working proactively to prevent the harassment and harm of researchers who work on non-human animals. A letter in last week’s Correspondence section of Nature (452, 934; 2008) suggests that more researchers need to take on this task. The text of the Correspondence:

Your News story ‘Animal-rights activists invade Europe (Nature 451, 1034–1035; 2008) highlights the need for medical researchers to do more to communicate to the public the reasons why they need to use animals in their research and what this involves. All too often, there is a tendency to wait until extremism becomes intolerable before taking steps to counter it (see Nature 452, 282; 2008). The little information about animal research available to the public is frequently oversimplified and tends to be over-reliant on the perceived authority of the author. The scientific literature usually requires subscription to access it and scientific training to understand it. This leaves information gaps through which antivivisectionist groups can push their propaganda.

Organizations such as the Research Defence Society do much to address this deficit, but have limited resources and cannot be expected to counter the animal-rights campaigners alone. Anyone who is wondering why somebody doesn’t debunk misleading claims made about them or their colleagues should consider the possibility that they are that ‘somebody’. Even those who are not prepared to go public can always provide detailed explanations of their work and that of others in the field to scientific advocacy campaigns.

A fact your report didn’t mention is that the new biomedical laboratory in Oxford — which, by the way, will house mostly rodents and very few monkeys — has been built. In a campaign that complemented the efforts of the police and government, Pro-Test were able to counter the animal-rights group Speak (‘The voice for the animals’) by capitalizing on the overwhelming support for the new laboratory among Oxford students and local politicians.

Extremism can be defeated, but only if scientists stand up and expose the myths and distortions that fuel it.

Further Nautilus discussion on the topic of animal experimentation can be found here.

The Editorial in this month’s (May) issue of Nature Immunology (9, 445; 2008) describes how academics are responding to escalating violence by extremist animal-rights groups by working proactively to prevent the harassment and harm of scientists. Some of these violent incidents, and the scientific community’s reactions, have been previously discussed at Nautilus.

The Nature Immunology Editorial points out that measures passed by the UK Home Office in July 2004 and the US Congress in late 2006 classify as a criminal offence the use of force, violence and harassment against people and institutions engaging in animal testing. Unfortunately, the Editorial continues, “these measures have apparently done little to dissuade fringe animal-rights activists groups….. Perhaps not understood by extremist organizations is the fact that the creation of suitable alternatives to animal testing would be welcomed by many academics, most of whom are frustrated with the enormous financial and administrative burdens associated with animal research.” A few encouraging efforts are under way (see Nature Correspondence from 20 March 2008 issue, for example), but “for the foreseeable future and until technological advances provide suitable alternatives, animal research remains essential to biomedical research into understanding and combating human disease.”

From Nature’s Correspondence page (Nature 452, 282; 20 March 2008)

Animal-welfare extremism is spreading, as reported in your News Story ‘Animal-rights activists invade Europe’ (Nature 451, 1034–1035; 2008). For example, they blocked plans to build new laboratory facilities in Venray, the Netherlands, with a campaign that included painting threats on the lab directors’ houses.

Although many people are concerned about animal experimentation, most do not understand the rationale behind these illegal activities, which cause considerable fear in the research community. Researchers respond by wanting to reduce transparency and asking the government to increase repression of activists — following the UK example of stricter legislation.

Today’s understanding of animal welfare and of the motivation underlying both normal and abnormal behaviour indicate that this response could be counterproductive. A better solution would be to channel people’s frustrations into more constructive activities. The animal-rights extremists have now received positive reinforcement from their success in blocking the Venray plans. Reduced transparency will only increase societal concern, and repression risks exporting the problem (as it did from the United Kingdom to the Netherlands). Worse, as the extremists are motivated by frustration, repression may amplify the problem.

More constructive solutions include the provision of some form of democratic control, and perceived justice, to people concerned about laboratory-animal welfare. Membership of animal-protection organizations and voting for animal-friendly parties have not proved adequate. As with farm-animal welfare, society could opt for alternative routes. For example, people could request information from medical charities on their funding of animal experiments. Medical treatments developed through animal experimentation could be labelled, as food products are labelled with information about animal welfare. Increased transparency and transfer of at least part of the responsibility from the researcher back to society are key to resolving the wider problem underlying animal extremism.

From Nature (News in Brief), 451, 1041 (2008):

The University of California, Los Angeles, (UCLA) succeeded last week in getting a temporary restraining order against five vociferous animal-rights activists, as well as organizations such as the Animal Liberation Front, who have claimed responsibility for various property crimes and threats against researchers.

The ruling stipulates that the activists must stay farther than 15 metres from researchers and remove the scientists’ addresses from their websites. UCLA spokesman Phil Hampton called the ruling “a clear victory in the continuing process of UCLA protecting its researchers”. The university will seek permanent restraining orders in a hearing on 12 March.

“They are trying to mix above-ground protestors that never do anything illegal in with the Animal Liberation Front and the underground organizations that have flooded homes and broken windows,” says Jerry Vlasak, press officer for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office. “The two groups are completely separate; they don’t know who each other are.”

There is also a News story in the same issue of Nature, 451; 1034-1035 (2008) ‘Animal rights activists invade Europe’, which reports that a “rash of vandalism, intimidation and arson across continental Europe in 2008 is evidence of a worrying new wave of animal-rights extremism being exported from Britain”, as more stringent law-enforcement is making it harder for these people to carry out their activities there. Several examples are provided in the News story, and there are predictably heated exchanges in the online comments to the article – for a reasoned view on animal experimentation in general, see the UK Research Defence Society.

From the February issue of Nature Medicine 14, 112 (2008):

Attacks against researchers by animal rights extremists have steadily increased in recent years. More than 70 such attacks occured in 2006 alone, according to data collected by the Foundation for Biomedical Research, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit organization that aims to serve as the voice of scientific reason in the ongoing debate that surrounds animal research. Frankie Trull currently heads the foundation, which she established in 1981. She explains to Nature Medicine why she has devoted her career to improving the public understanding of the essential role of lab animals in medical research and discovery.

The question-and-answer interview that follows covers various issues, including the reasons for the recent increase in extremist actions in the United States, how to safely increase the transparency of animal experimentation, protection measures, approaches to replace animals, and the diseases that are most likely to benefit from the use of live animals in research.

The full article is available at Nature Medicine’s website.

December’s editorial in Nature Neuroscience (10, 1501; 2007) describes how law-enforcement agencies in the United Kingdom are acting before trouble develops to protect researchers from threats and harassment by animal rights extremists. Other countries should consider adopting similar policies and tactics.

There has been “a sudden and very marked decline in targeting individual researchers around the country in a personal way,” the director of the UK Research Defence Society (RDS, an organization that monitors such campaigns and receives police briefings) told The Guardian. The RDS website points to an article on Comment is Free, the Guardian blog, about the benefits of animal experiments for medicine.

According to the Nature Neuroscience editorial: “In contrast, Dario Ringach and Michael Podell received little support from law enforcement or their universities in the United States in dealing with sustained campaigns of threats and intimidation, which ultimately led each of them to stop studying animals. The passage of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act raised hopes that the United States might adopt a tougher approach, but one scientist in Los Angeles said that the situation has not improved. In October, the Animal Liberation Front took responsibility for flooding the house of a local researcher, causing $20,000–40,000 in damage. Because the new federal law applies only to crimes committed across state lines, it has not been effective against extremists who act within a state. To crack down on intimidation of researchers, legislatures will need to pass stronger state laws and the police will need to respond proactively to threats.”