#672007 - 04/08/08 04:38 PM
He entered Science for better then this.
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Mira Trapper
trapper
Registered: 09/17/07
Posts: 689
Loc: Cape Breton Island Nova Scotia
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Where do these people think Pet Meds & human medical procedures that alleviate suffering in today & tomorrows animal & human hospitals came from?? Biolabs closed, will put us back into the dark ages as new supper bugs and viruses will thrive in an environment where all biolab research is ended.
The Scientist Magazine
The War on Animal Research
What it's like to be hounded by activists who will stop at nothing to
stop your research.
By P. Michael Conn
Volume 22 | Issue 4 | Page 40
http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/54494/
----------------------------
This is an edited excerpt from The Animal Research War by P. Michael
Conn and James V. Parker, to be published by Palgrave Macmillan in May
2008. For more information please visit
http://www.palgrave-usa.com.
----------------------------
"Excuse me," I said, cutting to the front of the line of passengers at
the airport departure gate counter. "I have an emergency and need you
to call the police right now!" Two airline agents stopped checking
seating charts and looked at me. "I am a medical researcher and some
people are protesting my visit to Tampa. They're not passengers," I
explained. (This was in 2001, shortly before 9/11, when security
measures allowed nonpassengers into boarding areas.)
One desk agent examined my boarding pass, and then looked at my
pursuers. I knew what she saw: five people with T-shirts that read:
"KEEP PRIMATE TESTER Dr. P.M. CONN OUT OF U.S.F." She let me through.
Ten minutes later, when the pilot boarded and asked if I was okay, and
I heard the outer doors close, my blood pressure and heart rate slowly
began to sink into normal ranges.
I was en route from Tampa where I had been selected as a final
candidate for the position of vice president for research at the
University of South Florida (USF). The people following me were animal
rights activists, who had learned of my visit on an animal rights
listserv.
I currently don't use animals in my research, but I am associated with
people who do. I was special assistant to the president of Oregon
Health and Science University (OHSU), and associate director of one of
its Institutes, the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC). I
also have a research program that has contributed to the development
of treatments for breast and prostate cancer, endometriosis, and
problems of infertility. 1,2 I believe in the value of animal research
in basic science. I have spoken and written about the importance of
humane animal research and how it benefits both humans and animals.
Because of my position at the OHSU primate center, an animal rights
activist had urged subscribers to an animal rights listserv to write
letters to the University of South Florida administration and to my
academic colleagues, protesting my candidacy. In Tampa, my plane was
met by animal extremists who tried to engage and film me. Exercising
their rights under a state open-meetings law, they were present at
most of my scheduled meetings with university committees. Some stood
outside meeting room doors to berate attendees and distribute fliers
that made outlandish claims. At the end of the first day, I considered
returning home to Portland for my safety, then decided to remain in
this stressful situation for one more day. The university assigned an
armed police officer to look after me. I received threatening calls at
my hotel and knocks on the door in the middle of the night.
As the demonstrators hoped, drawing this much media attention
suggested that I or my research program would be a liability. Needless
to say, I didn't get the job.
What word other than "war" can we employ to describe what is happening
to the enterprise of biomedical research? Attack? Assault? How else to
describe the posting of pictures of researchers and inaccurate,
inflammatory descriptions of their work on the Internet? What do we
call the nighttime "visits" to our homes, the mailing of letters to
scientists in envelopes armed with razor blades, and Internet postings
that reveal an eerie and threatening knowledge of our personal lives
and loved ones?
Some argue that animal extremists are a handful, at most. Scientists
should ignore them, they say, and concentrate on their research. But
consider this: All of the drama surrounding my trip to Tampa was
achieved by, at most, 15 poorly informed and inarticulate people who
successfully stirred up fear among the search committee, which had
been highly supportive of me at first. A small group of extremists are
more successful than their moderate colleagues in drawing public
attention to their cause, and can exercise an influence wholly
disproportionate to their numbers. They are chillingly effective in
causing casualties, whether institutional or personal.
The metaphor of war can be self-defeating. We are confident that in
any open and civilized public-policy debate, scientists, even though
they tend to be poor communicators, would prevail over their
challengers. But what will happen if researchers, convinced that they
are encircled by belligerents, retreat behind barricades and remain
incommunicado? Research and its beneficiaries - that is, all of us -
stand to lose.
I never predicted that I would find myself, at age 50, a target of the
animal rights community. I have been interested in the biological
process of life as long as I can remember. By the time I was 12, I
realized that cures for diseases required understanding how the body
works when it is healthy. Even before that, I was a biology geek,
crawling around on the ground to watch ants, and growing seeds under
different colors of plastic film.
I had read a little bit about animal rights activities when I was in
high school in the late 1960s. It was never front-page news, mostly
distant and abstract grumblings from "antivivisection" groups in the
UK. When I went to college at the University of Michigan, activism was
directed towards ending the Vietnam War. I watched people of
conscience, including a roommate, get arrested for demonstrating their
views.
I never trained to go into primate research and, frankly, knew little
about nonhuman primates until I came to Oregon in 1993. I spent the
first part of my career at Duke University, working on rat-derived
cell cultures. We used white rats and a handful of mice, all of them
raised for the laboratory. We caused them no pain and killed them
humanely to study their tissues. Six years later, when I became a
department head at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, I made
the transition to continuous cell-culture lines.3,4
ONPRC, one of eight federally sponsored primate research centers, is a
fully accredited institution that is responsible for the care of more
than 3,500 monkeys. This is a serious responsibility that involves
frequent, unannounced inspection visits by the United States
Department of Agriculture (USDA). We support our animals with a
veterinary and animal-care staff of 90 people, along with a separate
psychological enrichment program that includes seven more people led
by a doctoral level researcher. We also participate in a voluntary
inspection program by an international professional organization, the
Association for the Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal
Care (AAALAC). We are fully accredited by that program as well.
But that wasn't enough to satisfy the activists who set out to
sabotage my trip to the University of Southern Florida. Several things
struck me about this experience. For one, the communication among
animal extremists was fast, and effective. I was also shocked by the
accusations. These people charged me with "crimes" that I had never
committed: torturing marmosets and obtaining huge quantities of monkey
sperm by a process that they likened to genital electrocution. When I
tried to tell them I didn't use sperm and my studies were all done in
cell cultures, they shouted me down.
Some investigators at our center and elsewhere routinely collect
monkey sperm by a process called electroejaculation. The USDA and the
veterinary community approve this process, which isn't painful
(despite its unfortunate name). A similar process is used for human
paraplegics, otherwise unable to father children. In terms of
torturing marmosets, 16 years ago, I collaborated with a British
colleague in measuring hormone levels in some marmosets. For that
contribution my name was added (as a middle author) to the scientific
publication's author list. I had never seen the animals, since the
serum was shipped to me on dry ice from England. 5
The accusations lacked any basis in fact, and people who should have
known better - the search committee, for example - accepted them as
truth. The president of the university, who had disclosed to me the
ironic detail that she had grown up in a family of meat packers, and
who had been gracious and supportive during the interview process,
refused to speak with me further afterwards. The extremists, of
course, took credit. The university eventually filled the position
with an animal researcher who works on a rat model of hypertension,
but who isn't associated with a primate center and thus wasn't in the
crosshairs.
I moved to Portland in 1993. At the time, I was unaware that the area
is an incubator for the animal rights movement, which I considered
distant and irrelevant, much as I had in high school. On May 3, 1996,
that began to change.
That day, I arrived at work early in the morning to find two cars
blocking the only entrance to our primate center. The drivers had
fastened their necks to the steering column of each car using bicycle
locks, and the keys to the cars and the locks were "lost." After
firefighters sawed off the steering columns, found the keys, liberated
the drivers, and towed the cars, ONPRC officials signed complaints for
second-degree criminal trespass against Craig Rosebraugh and his
associates, who identified themselves as members of the Liberation
Collective.
Ineffective though it was, this event kindled my interest in the
animal rights movement. In 1994, the primate center was approaching
its 35th year of uninterrupted compliance with federal regulations for
animal care. Nevertheless, we were being targeted by activists. I
began monitoring animal rights Web sites, following their listservs,
and gathering information from a handful of proresearch organizations
operating on shoestring budgets, which provided e-mail summaries of
animal rights activities.
One morning in October 1999, I saw a startling message on one of the
listservs: A group calling itself the Justice Department said it had
sent razor blades to about 80 animal researchers. The blades had been
fastened near the top of each envelope so that opening them by
inserting a thumb under the flap would result in a severe cut. The
blades, the letter announced, had been armed with rat poison. The
enclosed letter called on scientists to abandon their research within
12 months or "your violence will be turned back upon you."
I found four primate center investigators on the list of recipients.
Being an early riser, I was able to warn them, and we recovered all
four envelopes, unopened. These were transferred to law enforcement
authorities, but to this day we have heard nothing about them. The
12-month deadline to abandon research programs came and went, without
incident.
In recent years, I personally got to know some of the movement's most
infamous members.
Craig Rosebraugh - I met Rosebraugh for the first time when his neck
was attached to a steering wheel at the entrance to the primate
center. In recent years, Rosebraugh ran the press office of the Earth
Liberation Front (ELF). He told mainstream media when seemingly random
fires or other destructive acts were the result of the movement. He
claimed to be uninvolved, and provided no names: Members of the ELF,
and its sister group, the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), don't carry
identification cards or have meetings. No one knows who all the
members are.
The FBI, armed with search warrants, had seen fit on two occasions to
search Rosebraugh's home. On the first occasion, agents discovered a
purple index card, duly reported in the local newspaper, containing my
name and home address. Why this card was in his house, or what it
might have portended, remains a mystery to this day. You can be
assured that when I learned of the discovery, I felt not just the
threat of violence, but something more: a violation of my person.
When subpoenaed to testify before Congress in February 2002 as part of
an ecoterror investigation led by Senator James Inhofe, Rosebraugh
answered only a portion of questions, but some caught my attention.
Q:Do you know who Michael Conn is?
A:Michael Conn is a researcher at the ONPRC in Beaverton (OR). Conn
wastes hundreds of thousands of federal tax dollars torturing and
killing monkeys, a practice which has in no way benefited human
health.
Q:Why was there an index card with Mr. Conn's name and home address in
your residence? Was either ELF or ALF planning to take 'direct action'
against Mr. Conn or his property? If not, why was Mr. Conn's name and
address in your possession?
A:See all objections, rights, and privileges asserted.
In all, Rosebraugh took the Fifth Amendment more than 50 times.
In October 2003, he announced and promoted his new, self-published
manifesto, The Logic of Political Violence. The cover features an
image of the burning World Trade Center towers, and the book contains
this message: "Attack the financial centers of the country ... This
can be done in a variety of ways from massive property destruction, to
online sabotage, to physical occupation of buildings."
Matt Rossell - Matt Rossell is very good with people. He is clean and
well groomed, and seems honest - in all, the kind of person that you
might like your daughter to marry. All of this led us to hire him as
an animal technician in 1998.
Rossell's subterfuge was so effective that when the local chapter of
the Animal Legal Defense Fund announced a press conference to expose
allegations (including videos) from a whistleblower about animal abuse
at the primate center, we had no idea who the whistleblower might be.
Even after we learned it was Rossell, we did not realize that he had
been working at our facility as an informant.
Dealing with the public relations nightmare created by Rossell's video
images was extremely difficult, to say the least. One of the videos
showed a "hungry and filthy" monkey in an incubator. In reality, the
infant had been given human baby food and had, like human babies,
played with it and smeared the puree on the incubator window. The
video had been made at an opportune moment before daily cleanup. From
this same video clip came a still photo, frozen at the instant when
the infant face looks anguished. This was puzzling until we went back
to the video and noticed a rubber-gloved finger moving over the window
of the incubator and toward the monkey. In expectation of food, the
monkey moves toward the finger, pursing its lips and producing, for
less than a second, the look that Rossell reduced to a still. The
monkey was not upset or in pain, just caught in an unflattering pose.
Other images presented frightened animals living in what looks like
crowded conditions and in the midst of feces covering the floor. The
images were created before morning cleanup, so some of the material is
likely feces, but most is Purina Monkey Chow biscuits photographed
from a distance in the dim light of dawn before morning cleanup. The
photographer, having entered their enclosure, had likely frightened
the monkeys, causing them to huddle together and appear hemmed in.
Another clip showed a room of monkeys banging their cages. But, in
this instance, Rossell's cropping wasn't careful enough: At the bottom
right of the video image we can see the food cart, and any animal
technician will tell you that monkeys bang their cages in excitement
when they see food coming.
The center launched an Internet site to explain the truth behind each
of Rossell's images. None of his allegations were supported by
extensive federal investigations. Five federal investigators, all
veterinarians, worked daily for two weeks but found no merit in
Rossell's claims and found no signs of animal cruelty or federal
noncompliance. Animal abuse would have been impossible to hide in this
investigation or in the 10 unannounced inspections that extended our
continuous USDA certification to over 40 years in a row. The primate
center was cleared of any wrongdoing. But Rossell has used his images
to elicit contributions to the California nonprofit In Defense of
Animals, and Web sites and brochures continue to display the images.
No one could wish for new plagues to bring home to the public the need
for animal research and put animal extremism to rest. Yet, with global
warming, jet travel, avian flu, and AIDS, as well as threats of
bioterrorism, diseases once unknown or thought to be conquered are
arriving on our doorstep. It may be that exotic and resurgent viruses
will swing public opinion in favor of animal research. Medical
schools, scientific societies, physician organizations, and research
institutions must get out and explain the connection between animal
research and human and animal health. We cannot afford to keep it a
dirty little secret.
Have a comment? E-mail us at mail@the-scientist.com
References
1. P.M. Conn, W.F. Crowley, "Gonadotropin-releasing hormone and its
analogues," N Engl J Med, 324:93-103, 1991.
2. C. Castro-Fernandez et al., "Beyond the signal sequence: Protein
routing in health and disease," Endocr Rev, 26:479-503, 2005.
3. P.M. Conn et al., "G protein-coupled receptor trafficking in health
and disease: lessons learned to prepare for mutant rescue in vivo,"
Pharmacol Rev, 59:225-50, 2007.
4. A. Ulloa-Aguirre, P.M. Conn, "G-protein-coupled receptor
trafficking: Understanding the chemical basis of health and disease,"
ACS Chem Biol, 1:631-8, 2006.
5. H.M. Fraser et al., "Gonadotropin-releasing hormone antagonist for
postpartum contraception: outcome for the mother and male offspring in
the marmoset," J Clin Endocrinol Metab, 78:121-5, 1994.
Edited by Mira Trapper (04/08/08 04:40 PM)
_________________________
I now use blue,to define my posts.
Life is a time capsule we strive to fill with precious memories.
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#672029 - 04/08/08 04:51 PM
Re: He entered Science for better then this.
[Re: Mira Trapper]
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shutmytrap
trapper
Registered: 12/26/06
Posts: 186
Loc: Wisconsin
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Well now he and the rest of the medical field knows how us trapper's and hunters feel!
Ignorance is hard to fight when it's supposedly helping defenseless animals.
_________________________
"If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be
a nation gone under."
- Ronald Reagan
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#672778 - 04/09/08 05:56 AM
Re: He entered Science for better then this.
[Re: shutmytrap]
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Mira Trapper
trapper
Registered: 09/17/07
Posts: 689
Loc: Cape Breton Island Nova Scotia
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Well now he and the rest of the medical field knows how us trapper's and hunters feel!
Ignorance is hard to fight when it's supposedly helping defenseless animals.
Hello shutmytrap. I actually have been involved on some debating boards such as the good days on Animalrightsnet before all the spamming took over and there were several biolab techs & medical professionals that debated on that forum. They supported trapping and hunting and Dr Cobie was very upset with the loss of fox hunting hounds in UK. She was from Aussieland but she could see such actions in Britain would effect all animal use people. We do have supporters in the medical fields and they will stand up for our rights. 95% of the people on this planet eat meat and we need to remember that. Thus we need to point out to people who have meat killed for them and it is hypocritical for them to think a fox dead, is worse then a lamb dead. It is much easier to get an intelligent medical professional to do the critical thinking and cognizant reasoning within that 95% ratio then people who only deal in emotions.
_________________________
I now use blue,to define my posts.
Life is a time capsule we strive to fill with precious memories.
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#674840 - 04/10/08 03:31 PM
Re: He entered Science for better then this.
[Re: Mira Trapper]
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Mira Trapper
trapper
Registered: 09/17/07
Posts: 689
Loc: Cape Breton Island Nova Scotia
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NOTE: The article mentioned below is "It Is Time to Take a Stand for
Medical Research and Against Terrorism Targeting Medical Scientists"
by John H. Krystal and 86 other highly respected researchers and
scientists. It appears in Biological Psychiatry, Volume 63, Issue 8 (April 15, 2008), published by Elsevier. The joint statement can be viewed online at:
http://download.journals.elsevierhealth.com/pdfs/journals/0006-3223/PIIS0006322308002953.pdf
The Washington Times
Scientists rip animal protection activists
April 10, 2008
http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20080410/NATION/788515338/1002
By Jennifer Harper - Scientists and physicians concerned about their
own safety challenged animal protection activists yesterday, calling
them "terrorists" and condemning their repeated attacks on researchers
who use live animals in experiments.
"We felt it was important to respond publicly to the attacks that have
been directed at scientists, their families, and their neighbors
because to be silent in the face of the attacks is to condone them,"
said Dr. John Krystal, a Yale University psychiatrist who authored a
joint statement signed by 87 researchers from Yale, the University of
California, Stanford University, the University of Pennsylvania and
other institutions.
"We condemn these misguided attacks," Dr. Krystal said.
At particular issue were two incidents at the home of Dr. Edythe
London, a UCLA psychiatrist who uses monkeys in drug and tobacco
addiction studies. In October, her Beverly Hills home was vandalized
and flooded and in February it was hit by a firebomb. The Animal
Liberation Front (ALF) — an underground group with worldwide
membership — took credit for both acts in an anonymous press release.
The FBI classified the events as "domestic terrorism" and is still
investigating.
"We find it galling that these researchers would call us terrorists
when they are the ones inducing terror in animals in the name of
science," said Dr. Jerry Vlasak, a Los Angeles-based trauma surgeon
who acts as spokesman for ALF, specifying that he is not an active
member of the group, but sympathizes with their cause.
"The vast majority of animal research doesn't produce anything useful
for human beings. Even if it was useful, it isn't justified. It is
still immoral," he added.
To protect UCLA researchers, the Los Angeles County Superior Court has
since issued a restraining order against ALF and two other groups;
UCLA condemned the attacks, though officials acknowledged some of Dr.
London's research was funded by Philip Morris.
Activists, meanwhile, are reflecting on the situation. Dr. Vlasak will
serve on a three-man panel April 26 at "Confronting Cruelty," an
animal rights conference in Salt Lake City, addressing the "strategic
and moral implications of breaking the law to achieve social change,"
according to the event Web site.
Dr. Krystal and his cohorts consider their proclamation — published in
the academic journal Biological Psychiatry — "an urgent public
statement," warning that "terrorist acts affiliated with ALF and other
groups" are increasing and citing other attacks on researchers in
California, Oregon and Utah.
The District-based Society for Neuroscience issued an advisory for its
38,000 members on Feb. 6, clearly outlining security precautions, plus
tips on handling media inquiries, local law enforcement and civic
affairs.
"It is deeply disturbing to see scientists under attack simply for
pursuing research questions whose answers will ultimately benefit
human and animal health. Although polls show Americans overwhelmingly
support medical research and reject the use of terrorism, there has
been surprisingly little outrage over the tactics of these extreme
animal rights activists," said Robert Palazzo, president of the
Maryland-based Federation of American Societies for Experimental
Biology.
"Humane use of animal models has led to all of our greatest advances
in medicine," he added.
_________________________
I now use blue,to define my posts.
Life is a time capsule we strive to fill with precious memories.
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