INTIMIDATING RESEARCH
U.S. scientists may grouse about the influence of the religious right on issues like stem-cell research, but that's just a matter of government funding. Real fanatics get stuff shut down altogether--and a large portion of British society has long made a religion of animal rights. Now, according to this article in The Scientist, animal rights activists have intimidated a construction company into backing out of its contract to build a lab at Oxford:
The UK government has been urged to take emergency action to combat animal rights extremists after Walter Lilly, a subsidiary of the Montpellier Group, pulled out of an £18 million (USD $33.3 million) contract to build a new center for animal research at Oxford University. The decision was widely attributed to intimidation by animal rights extremists, although Montpellier would only say that the decision was reached by mutual consent with Oxford University.
Scientists were in little doubt that the decision has brought to a head the long-standing battle between the research community and the antivivisection campaign, with Oxford taking over from the Cambridge area as the focus of activity. The move by Montpellier comes 6 months after Cambridge University decided to abandon plans to build a primate research center.
Researchers consider the Oxford case to be more serious because it involves a large, broad-based animal laboratory where 98% of the work would be on rodents, rather than a specialist primate center, where antivivisectionists are more likely to gain public support. "Unlike Cambridge, where it was just a relatively small laboratory, this is the center for all animal research at Oxford," noted Mark Matfield, director of the pro-animal research Research Defence Society, in a statement.
The Montpellier decision should at last get the government to wake up and enact emergency legislation, according to Ian Gibson, chairman of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. "We want action now, but I've no confidence it will be taken at the moment," Gibson said. "I don't think the government realizes the severity of the situation even now." Gibson wanted action along the lines taken to combat soccer hooliganism. "If you can stop football thugs from going across to Europe, why can't they pick these people up? I can't believe they don't know who they are."
The threat posed by such extremists was not just to animal research, but to the whole UK science base, according to Simon Festing of the Association of Medical Research Charities. "Unless we see urgent action from the government, the prize of the UK staying a world leader in developing new medicines could slip through its fingers," he said in a statement.
For the rest of the link-rich article, go here. I'd like to hear what Andrew Sullivan has to say on this matter.
UPDATE: Brian L. O'Connor has been all over this story, and related issues, at Animal Crackers.