(Breaking Story) Raid on City of Hope.

BY: SIEGEL, LEE AP Science Writer
DATELINE: DUARTE, Calif. (AP)
PRIORITY: Urgent
DATE: December 09, 1984 1653PST

"It's an illegal act," Dr. Joseph T. Holden said of the theft that took place sometime between noon Saturday and 6 a.m. Sunday at the City of Hope National Medical Center's animal care facility.

The Animal Liberation Front claimed responsibility for the theft in a statement issued in Los Angeles by Ingrid Newkirk of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The statement called the City of Hope "a concentration camp" where animals were "being used for painful experiments."

The theft disrupted $500,000 worth of cancer, herpes and emphysema research efforts, said Holden, the center's associate director for research. Ms. Newkirk claimed seized budget documents showed the value of the research was much higher. City of Hope spokesman Charlie Mathews said that was possible, adding, "Perhaps they're guilty of a bigger crime than we first thought."

Holden declined comment on the claims of cruelty and said he would have to check on claims that some of the animals were being used in research into AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, tuberculosis, and leprosy.

Ms. Newkirk said about a dozen animal "liberationists" broke into the facility early Sunday, took a restraint device, 21 dogs, 13 cats, 18 rabbits and about 50 mice, then splashed red paint on three operating room tables and scrawled slogans on walls. She said she was unaware of any tar being used.

Holden said the center's count of stolen animals included 36 dogs most with induced cancer 12 cats, 12 rabbits, including two with oral herpes, 28 mice and 18 rats.

The intruder or intruders used red paint and tar to scrawl slogans and cause damage that will require $5,000 in cleanup costs and $2,000 in repair costs, said Mathews. Two of the rabbits had been injected with herpes virus for research purposes. Holden said a person could catch herpes from the animals' urine, but called the threat "minimal" because he believed the rabbits had the oral type of herpes, which causes cold sores and is quite common in the general population.

"It's not a serious infection," he said. "If a person were exposed, it wouldn't be at all serious. You could probably get a little sore out of it."

But Holden said officials are "very much concerned about the welfare of the animals. We're concerned that very important research work may not now be completed. We feel it's very important for human welfare. There are a lot of people suffering from terrible diseases. The work with these animals is part of the effort to solve the problem of cancer."

The cats were being used for muscle physiology research "which could relate to the welfare of people who suffer from emphysema," Holden said. He did not know what the other rabbits were used for.

Los Angeles County sheriff's spokesman Deputy Wes Slider said he did not know what the painted slogans said, and Holden and Mathews declined comment, except to say the slogans objected to the use of animals in medical research.

The theft and damage was discovered early Sunday by a worker at the animal care facility, Holden said.

The incident was one in a series of incidents involving animal rights groups.

Last month, the Animal Liberation Front in Great Britain claimed it injected rat poison into Mars candy bars in London and four other British cities, accusing the manufacturer of funding tooth-decay research in which monkeys allegedly were fed a sugar-rich diet. The poisoning threat turned out to be a hoax. Mars confirmed it provided $30,000 for the research but denied the animals were force-fed sugary foods.

In October, the front claimed responsibility for defacing murals outside the Farmer John pork slaughterhouse in Vernon, Calif.

Last May, the group claimed responsibility for the theft of videotapes from a University of Pennsylvania laboratory in Philadelphia, alleging the tapes showed researchers laughing at baboons injured in head-trauma experiments. The university denied the accusation.

In December 1983, the Animal Liberation Front claimed responsibility for the theft of dogs used in cardiovascular research at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, Calif., and rats used in other research at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

(Breaking Story) News Conference Turns into Shouting Match.

BY: SIEGEL, LEE AP Science Writer
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES (AP)
PRIORITY: Urgent
DATE: December 10, 1984 1744PST

Animal protectionists and medical center officials shouted at each other Monday at a press conference discussing the weekend theft of more than 100 research animals.

"I call this an act of terrorism comparable to the hijacking of planes and the bombing of embassies," said City of Hope National Medical Center director Ben Horowitz, his voice breaking with anger over the Sunday raid at the center's animal care facility in Duarte. Medical center officials held the news conference after an animal rights group held one in the same hotel to defend the thefts. The City of Hope's news conference was interrupted by shouts from Ingrid Newkirk, national director of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

The medical center was raided because their animal care conditions "are indefensible," Newkirk, speaking on behalf of the Animal Liberation Front, which claimed responsibility for the raid, said at her earlier news conference. She displayed photographs of dogs with experimentally induced tumors and of cages she claimed showed "filthy" living conditions for the research animals. Horowitz said the claims of animal cruelty were "lies, untruths, fabrications." City of Hope officials said the raiders took 36 dogs, most with induced cancer; 12 cats; 12 rabbits, including two with oral herpes; 28 mice and 18 rats. Lucy Shelton of PETA said Monday that most of the animals had been taken out of state. She said earlier that they were receiving veterinary medical care and eventually would be turned over as pets to new owners. Dr. Joseph Holden, City of Hope's associate research director, said: "We categorically deny that any procedure that is less than humane is used in our facility." Ms. Newkirk shouted at him that autopsy reports showed one dog suffocated on its own feces, while others died of anesthesia overdoses. She said City of Hope scientists left animals dying in rusty cages without proper care.

"The criminals are now accusing the victims!" Horowitz yelled in reply. City of Hope administrator Tom Galinski said while such animal deaths occur occasionally, "We don't feel a case of one proves anything at all." Ms. Newkirk said animal research is unnecessary to save human lives. But Horowitz said the research is crucial because humans can't be given diseases for research purposes. He called the anti-vivisectionists "reprehensible in their lack of concern for human beings." "The City of Hope is a victim," Galinski said. "I am outraged ... at the loss of the money involved and the setting back of years of valuable research, but even more outraged the criminals have the audacity to call a press conference and pretend to be victims." Holden said the raid interrupted $500,000 in lung cancer research and caused a two-year setback for scientists. 

At California Research Center, Animal Abuse Led to Suspension of Funding.

By John K. Iglehart, The Washington Post
September 11, 1985

The scientific process is the painstaking exercise that medical researchers go through to ferret fact from fiction, to shed light on the unknown. In recent years, the public's faith in that process has been eroded by reports of fabrication of research results and other abuses.

The National Institutes of Health defends the importance of maintaining the integrity of that process. Now, NIH's leadership is concerned that unless the agency demonstrates its commitment to protecting animals used in medical research, public support for research may suffer. The importance of prompt action was underscored by the flagrant disregard of federal guidelines on animal use that were uncovered at the City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, Calif.

The abuses came to light following a break-in at the facility last December by members of the Animal Liberation Front, who stole 100 animals. At the time, an ALF spokesman, Ingrid Newkirk, told a news conference: "Autopsy reports confiscated during the raid show that Hope leaves severely ill or dying animals in their cages completely unattended and without pain relief. No care is given dogs and other animals who lie dying with distended stomachs and bleeding throats that are burning and choking from Croton oil, a cancer-causing, caustic agent, that is poured down their throats."

What disturbed NIH officials so much about abuses at the City of Hope is that the federal agency relies on the word of its grantees, through their signing of an animal welfare assurance statement, that they will abide by federal requirements when conducting research involving animals. Based on the findings of inspection teams from the City of Hope and NIH, researchers there violated that assurance statement.

"This is the first instance where NIH has suspended funding of a large number of projects because of concern over an institution's general approach toward the use of animals in research," said Dr. William F. Raub, deputy director of the federal agency for extramural research and training.

Fight Over Animal Experiments Gains Intensity on Many Fronts.

By Erik Eckholm, The New York Times
May 7, 1985

THE bitter confrontation between medical scientists and the protectors of animals has escalated to new heights of intensity as the two sides battle over the future of biomedical research.

Protests against experiments with animals are mounting and a fast-growing ''animal rights'' movement is pressing for strong controls on such research, which activists say is often cruel and unnecessary. An underground extremist group has begun to sabotage laboratories..

Biomedical researchers, worried by an opposition that is more aggressive than ever before, are mobilizing with new urgency to lobby legislators and influence public opinion. They argue that nearly all animal experiments are conducted humanely and are vital to medical progress, and that the overwhelming majority of people will continue supporting animal research if they know the facts.

''We are in an era, let's hope a brief one, of exceptionally high-intensity activism seeking to redefine man's relationship to animals,'' Larry L. Horton, a Stanford University vice president, warned medical school officials at a recent meeting. ''This is no time to catnap in the back of the bus.''

Behind the debate about the treatment animals receive in laboratories is a more fundamental clash of moral viewpoints. Under the banner of animal rights, many groups have moved beyond their traditional concern for the humane care of laboratory animals to challenging the morality of virtually all uses of animals in research, product testing and education.

''Why allow painful experiments on animals and not on human beings? The vast majority of animals used suffer from fear and terror and hunger and pain just like humans do,'' said Alex Pacheco of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, one of the most aggressive of the new groups.

''Nobody wants to use animals when there are other alternatives,'' countered Dr. Estelle Ramey, professor of physiology at Georgetown University. ''But we have to give priority to human life.'' Each year at least 20 million animals, mostly rats and mice but also dogs, cats, monkeys, pigs and frogs are killed by researchers in the name of science. Huge numbers of animals are fed substances and then dissected in safety tests of everything from industrial chemicals and new drugs to cosmetics. Many are studied to elucidate physiology and behavior while others are models for development of new surgical techniques such as heart transplants.

Animals are probed, infected and drugged to explore the causes and potential cures of unconquered diseases including cancer, Alzheimer's disease and acquired immune deficiency syndrome. In one university project, baboons receive intense blows to the head in an effort to understand human brain injuries and their prevention. Researchers are generally required to anesthetize animals subjected to painful procedures.

Ten hours after their landing yesterday at Edwards Air Force Base, where animal rights advocates held a demonstration, the 24 white rats aboard the space shuttle Challenger were to be dissected in an effort to improve understanding of motion sickness induced by space travel.

Animal-protectionists question the medical benefits of many experiments and charge that guidelines for the humane care and use of animals are erratically enforced. They claim their active supporters now number close to 10 million; activist groups have proliferated and many have doubled their memberships in the last two years.

New Measures to Prevent Abuse

Hoping to head off the kind of animal-protection laws they believe could shackle essential research, scientific associations and Federal agencies have taken new measures to prevent laboratory abuses.

With the broad support of scientists, the United States Public Health Service, which overseas grants accounting for perhaps two-thirds of all the country's animal studies, last week tightened its rules governing the housing of laboratory animals and the minimization of experimental suffering.

Each facility will be required to include a nonscientist, someone not affiliated with the institution and a qualified veterinarian on an upgraded oversight committee that must approve all arrangements for animal care and use. Several provisions for animal protection that in the past were merely recommended will now be required; violators will lose their Federal grants..

The American Psychological Association has developed similar new guidelines for its members on the ethical care and use of animals.

And in a rare alliance, biomedical lobbyists have joined with animal welfare groups in fighting the Reagan Administration's proposal to eliminate financing of the Agriculture Department's inspections of conditions for animal care in certain facilities. Those inspections, which activists charge are inadequate, are mandated by the Animal Welfare Act.

''It's good they're tidying up the housekeeping,'' said Dr. John E. McArdle of the Humane Society of the United States, referring to the new government guidelines. ''But they're not facing the fundamental issue: What are the animals used for?''

Laboratories Are Ransacked

In what many scientists call an ominous attack on scientific inquiry, a clandestine ''Animal Liberation Front'' has begun to harass and disrupt laboratories that it says are engaged in cruel experiments. Since the beginning of 1984 members have raided more than 20 research centers, stealing experimental animals and vandalizing equipment.

In the most recent incident, April 20, saboteurs broke into the University of California at Riverside, took 467 animals involved in 11 different studies, damaged equipment and painted slogans on walls..

As the break-ins and vandalism increase, biomedical laboratories are strengthening security arrangements and have called for legislation to make such acts a Federal offense.

While most animal-protection activists do not advocate illegal attacks, they believe they are riding a historical crest comparable to the movements that abolished slavery and child labor. But biomedical researchers are beginning to fight back.

To offset what they believe has been a misleading portrayal of their methods by critics displaying lurid pictures of abused animals, research interests have created a national foundation for educating the public and have bolstered similar groups in several states. They have also built up their national lobbying association.

Alarmed scientists, who are more accustomed to writing for scholarly journals and speaking before their peers, have begun to write in the popular press and to appear on talk shows in defense of their laboratory practices.

''The public is hearing only one side of the story,'' asserted Frankie L. Trull, director of the Foundation for Biomedical Research and the associated lobbying group, the National Association for Biomedical Research. ''The public hasn't heard the downside risks - the implications for human health.'' The two organizations she heads are financed by biomedical institutes and pharmaceutical, animal-breeding and other related industries.

To shore up public support, the research community has begun making its own impassioned appeals. The Foundation for Biomedical Research has produced a videotape called ''Will I Be All Right, Doctor?'' featuring children whose lives have been saved with techniques developed through animal studies. Heart-transplant survivors and other former patients are being encouraged to speak out on behalf of animal research.

The pressure from animal advocates has helped to reduce unnecessary animal suffering, several researchers acknowledged in interviews. ''It has made any labs that were sloppy in their research techniques pay more attention to what they're doing,'' observed Dr. Laurence Cohn, a heart surgeon at the Harvard Medical School. ''Useless experiments with animals have been stopped, and the standards of animal care and use are improving. But I believe that most of the activists sincerely want to stop all animal experimentation. That would be a disaster.''

In interviews, researchers and physicians expressed confidence that a large majority of the American people will continue to support animal experiments that are medically justified and conducted humanely. What many fear, according to Dr. Donald Kennedy, president of Stanford University and a former Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, is ''the encumbering of research with a viscous coat of unnecessary regulating restrictions - beyond those necessary to assure humane treatment - that will make some kinds of work so costly that they will be effectively eliminated.''

Reliable Data Not Available

Despite decades of debate, reliable data have not been gathered on the number of animals used each year in research. Estimates range from 20 million to 70 million, though recent analyses place the probable total near the low end of that range. Most observers agree that animal experimentation has declined somewhat over the last decade for a combination of economic and technical reasons.

Close to 90 percent of the animals used are rodents especially bred for this purpose. According to Andrew N. Rowan, an assistant dean at Tufts University and the author of the 1984 book ''Of Mice, Models, and Men,'' 200,000 dogs, 75,000 cats and 40,000 primates are experimented on annually; many of the primates are not killed.

The long-splintered humane movement has been energized over the last decade by a new rationale, animal rights. An influential 1975 book by the Australian philosopher Peter Singer, ''Animal Liberation,'' argues that vertebrate animals, which have nervous systems resembling those of humans and some of which are more self-aware than human infants, should be accorded higher moral status. In this view, causing animals to suffer for human benefit is intrinsically wrong.

According to Dr. Rowan, the concept of animal rights has shifted debate away from elusive sentimental issues and toward a more direct question: When can the exploitation of animals can be morally justified?

Alternative Research Methods

Animal rights quickly became a rallying cry of radical activists seeking a quick end to all animal experimentation. Some older, more moderate organizations such as the Humane Society have also embraced the new philosophy. The moderate groups are, however, more willing to compromise and have stressed the need to develop alternative methods for medical research.

Experimental substitutes for higher animals, including cell and tissue cultures, bacteria, invertebrate animals and computer models, are already in limited use. A new study by the National Academy of Sciences found that such emerging techniques can help reduce the need for laboratory animals but that ''totally adequate alternatives to the use of mammals cannot always be found.'' At the request of Congress, the Office of Technology Assessment is also studying experimental alternatives to animals and will report this summer.

Numerous cosmetics, soap and detergent companies are paying for research on new methods as a result of intense protests against their reliance on the Draize test, which involves testing the safety of chemicals in the eyes of live animals, usually rabbits.

Even as research controls are stiffened and alternatives are explored, an irreducible philosophical chasm will divide animal rights proponents from most biomedical scientists.

''Compare it to slavery,'' said Dr. McArdle. ''Would slavery be morally right just because the slaves all had nice houses, nice clothes and gourmet meals, and society benefited from good cotton?''

Dr. Ramey countered: ''If I have to choose, I'd rather have on my tombstone that I was my sisters' and brothers' keeper than that I was kind to animals.''

Animal Rights: A Growing Movement in the U.S.

By William Robbins, Special to the New York Times
June 15, 1984

Out of the darkness, five figures moved quietly down a University of Pennsylvania walk, entered a building, descended to a subbasement and broke into a laboratory.

What the band of intruders found on Memorial Day was an audiovisual record on 32 magnetic tapes of several years of brain-damaging experiments on monkeys and baboons. The discovery has stirred protests here, embroiled university officials in long hours of explanations in defense of their research and focused attention on new currents rippling through a resurgent, centuries-old movement to defend animals against mistreatment.

Since the 18th century, organized efforts have been under way to make more people sensitive to animals' sufferings. Groups such as the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the National Anti-Vivisection Society have grown with differing emphases, ranging from concerns over the treatment of pets to protests over scientific experiments with any animal.

But now, rapidly growing segments within the movement have adopted a new philosophy that began to spread in the late 1970's: that animals have inherent rights to a full life in a natural society and that it is immoral to exploit them, whatever benefits might accrue to humans. ''In the last five years we have seen a real change,'' said Douglas Moss, publisher of Agenda, a magazine published in Westport, Conn., that describes itself as ''the news magazine of the animal rights movement.''

''And in the last couple of years,'' he continued, ''more and more people have focused on that term, 'animal rights,' rather than 'animal welfare.' They've gone beyond, 'Gee, let's be nice to animals,' to address the whole relationship between people and animals.''

''It's a movement that is growing rapidly,'' said George Trapp, the managing director of the National Anti-Vivisection Society. ''The time is ripe. It's a logical outgrowth of the push for rights for all classes of the human animal.''

Older groups devoted to animal welfare have tended to work for legislative goals. But as the new organizations have grown more vocal, many have grown more militant.

Such groups as the Animal Liberation Front, which carried out the Penn break-in, the Band of Mercy and the Urban Gorillas have taken the law into their own hands. Other groups, such as the rapidly growing People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, take public positions supporting the militants' goals, although they also seek legislative gains.

Professional groups supporting animals' rights have also sprung up, ranging from Attorneys for Animal Rights to Psychologists for Ethical Treatment of Animals.

No one has determined how large the movement is, according to Mr. Moss, and even members of the Animal Liberation Front, which operates internationally but in secrecy, generally do not know other members beyond their immediate vicinity.

''In the last five years we have seen a real change,'' Mr. Moss said, reflected in smaller, localized groups that, in addition to national organizations, are springing up across the country.

Debate Over Ethics

The clash of ideas was defined the other day by Barry Cooperman, Penn's vice provost for research.

''The first question,'' he said, ''is whether it is ethical to experiment on animals for the benefit of humans. As scientists, we say that it is. Our opponents say it is not. With them, there is simply no middle ground.

''The second question is, do you take every precaution to minimize suffering, and how far do you go down that road? That is where guidelines are needed.''

A scientist working on strengthening such guidelines is Dr. Charles McCarthy, director of the Office for Protection From Research Risks at the National Institutes of Health. His office has proposed revised guidelines seeking greater assurance of humane treatment of animal subjects of research supported by Federal grants, but he expressed concern the other day over the increasing incidence of extralegal actions against such projects.

''I don't know if you could call it a crime wave,'' he said, ''but the increasing numbers do worry me. I have been in this office for six years, and reports on break-ins in the first five years were zero. In the last year there were 10.''

Comparison to Abolitionists

''We may seem like radicals to you,'' said one of the participants in the Penn break-in the other day, a woman who identified herself only as Lauren. ''But we are like the Abolitionists, who were regarded as radicals, too. And we hope that 100 years from now people will look back on the way animals are treated now with the same horror as we do when we look back on the slave trade.''

She pointed to disclosures on the videotapes that her band seized as justification for the break-in.

One sequence showed a monkey strapped to a table and pulling against its bonds. The animal's head was encased in a steel cylinder attached to a pneumatic machine called an accelerator. Suddenly, a piston drove the cylinder upward, thrusting the animal's head sharply through an arc of about 60 degrees.

In another sequence, as an animal lay in a coma, a researcher's recorded voice was heard saying: ''You'd better have some axonal damage there, monkey,'' and calling him ''sucker.'' Axons link brain cells to one another and link the cells to other parts of the nervous system.

Letters Criticize Penn

Excerpts from one of the tapes, shown on the news program of KYW, a local television station, and other reports generated dozens of calls and letters to the station, to local newspapers and to the university, most of them critical of the experiments.

Lauren and other militants contend that the animals' movements in the first instance show a failure to use anesthetics and that the researcher's remark in the second instance indicates callousness toward animals.

They also contend that any discoveries possible from such operations can be obtained by other means, such as autopsies on accident victims. In any event, they say, experimenters have no right to sacrifice animals for the possible benefit of people.

About 80 primates have been used in head-injury experiments at the university, according to one researcher, who said computer simulations had helped to limit the numbers sacrificed for the work.

Researcher Defends Tests

Dr. Thomas Langfitt, chairman of the University of Pennsylvania Hospital's department of neurosurgery and principal investigator of head injury programs, defended the research project. He said discovery of what happened to the brain at the moment of injury was a vital step toward finding better treatment for head injuries, which are a major cause of death in the United States. Primates, he said, are the only useful subjects.

As a result of the experiments, Dr. Langfitt said, he believes his researchers are on the threshold of major improvements in treatment.

Alhough the animals may have shown movement before the tests, he said, they had been anesthetized to a point where they could not feel pain.

The current conflict here is one of many that have marked a surge over the last few years in an animal welfare movement regarded as beginning in 1776 with a British cleric, Humphrey Primatt, who observed, ''Pain is pain, whether it is inflicted on man or beast.''

Shift Began in 1976

Experts in the field say the new growth and a change of direction began two centuries later with the publication in 1976 of the book ''Animal Liberation'' by Peter Singer, a professor of philosophy at Australian National University, who equated exploitation of animals with slavery.

Now ''animal rights'' is heard almost as often as animal welfare, and it is heard even among members of moderate old-line organizations, such as the Humane Society of the United States.

Even longtime leaders of the animal welfare cause say they have no idea how many people are involved in their movement, but Mr. Trapp of the National Anti-Vivisection Society, which has nearly 50,000 members, said, ''It's got to be many millions.''

Both he and Patricia Forkan, a vice president of the Humane Society, whose membership she estimated at 200,000, said their organizations had doubled in the last five years.

Illegal Actions Disapproved

Mr. Trapp and Miss Forkan look askance at actions of groups such as the Animal Liberation Front, the Band of Mercy and the Urban Gorillas, although she said, ''We can certainly understand how people can grow frustrated enough'' to resort to illegal actions.

Among other actions, the Animal Liberation Front took 12 dogs last year from a medical center research project in Los Angeles, the Band of Mercy ''liberated'' about 40 rabbits from the University of Maryland, and the Urban Gorillas took cats from the University of California at Berkley.

Meanwhile, other groups have sabotaged seal hunts, zoos and commercial fur farms, harassed whalers and interfered with sport hunters.

Among the new groups, one of the fastest growing is People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, which began with 18 members four years ago and now has 23,000 supporters, according to its director, Ingrid Newkirk.

''Things have changed since 1976,'' Mrs. Newkirk said. ''It's not just 'don't beat dogs' anymore. For the first time in the United States, people are realizing that animals are creatures, too, and they have rights.''

Lab break-in stirs animal welfare debate.

By  Jeffrey L. Fox, Science Magazine
June 22, 1984

Over the Memorial Day weekend, five people representing the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), a loosely organized group of animal rights activists, broke into a laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, damaged equipment, and stole 33 videotapes documenting head injury experiments involving baboons. Animal welfare groups have lodged complaints with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) alleging animal mistreatment by the Pennsylvania researchers. From a public relations standpoint, some scenes on the tapes--which were made for documenting the research, not for public viewing, range from embarrassing to disastrous.

This incident could further polarize the debate about the proper use of animals in research, possibly undermining the efforts of more moderate representatives from animal welfare groups to appeal widely to biomedical researchers. A sense of this polarization--and the frustration it is causing--became apparent during the recent meeting of the advisory committee to the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The meeting, which had been scheduled months in advance but followed the incident in Philadelphia by a few days, was devoted to a discussion of the use of animals in research. NIH officials described current efforts to amend guidelines for the care of research animals (Science, 27 April, p. 364). Although an effort was made to avoid focusing on the incident at Penn, it became a recurrent theme during the meeting, with researchers outraged at the theft of data and destruction of valuable equipment, and animal welfare activists angered over the use of animals in experiments that of necessity produce injuries.

The University of Pennsylvania laboratory that was raided is part of a head injury research center, one of four such U.S. centers supported by NIH. The Penn program, which involves human and cellular studies, as well as experiments on baboons and other animals, has been funded continuously for 14 years by NIH and has consistently gotten high ratings by peer review committees. The Penn research group has been "one of the most productive for understanding . . . head injuries and for developing and evaluating improved methods" for treating them, says Murray Goldstein, director of the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke (NINCDS), which oversees the program. He notes that the study of head injury, which is a "big national problem," is explicitly mandated by Congress. The University of Pennsylvania team was built by Thomas Langfitt, who has become vice president for health affairs at the university, and includes as principal scientist Thomas A. Gennarelli, who joined the program about 10 years ago. Their work with baboons began about 4 years ago after experiments on other primates failed to produce comas resembling those that occur in man after accidental head injury. The experiments entail subjecting the animals' heads, which are encased in helmets while the animals are restrained, to a sudden, jerking motion delivered by a specially designed piston. This trauma, which is like the whiplash that occurs in many automobile accidents, causes comas in baboons. The severity of the coma mirrors the force delivered to an animal's head, according to Langfitt. More important, the research is beginning to show that the degree of injury to axons--the long, narrow extensions that are peculiar to nerve cells--is also proportional to the severity of the coma. The group's current hypothesis is that some, and possibly much, of this damage might be reversible--a radical notion that, if borne out, could mean that many more head injury victims eventually could be restored to normal lives. Animal rights groups supporting the break-in have raised three main objections to the research. They allege that there were violations of animal welfare procedures, such as not keeping surgical equipment sterile, smoking by researchers while handling the animals, and not adequately anesthetizing the animals. The also claim that the researchers showed "callousness" and "disdain" toward the animals. And, finally, they argue that public health needs would be better served by preventing head injuries than by conducting such research.

The leading figures for these groups are Holly Jensen of ALF and Ingrid Newkirk of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Both groups have copied and distributed the videotapes taken from the lab, excerpts of which have been shown on many television stations. Jensen, who is a nurse in an intensive care unit in a Florida hospital, has taken a leading role on behalf of ALF explaining why the raid was undertaken. Newkirk and her colleagues at PETA are devoting a considerable effort not only to copying and distributing the videotapes but also to scrutinizing them to document the formal complaint they have filed with HHS alleging misconduct by the researchers.

"It is regrettable that it is only through severe confrontation that . . . you can be informed about violations of NIH assurances by the University of Pennsylvania," PETA said in a letter addressed to HHS Secretary Margaret Heckler, calling for an investigation of the Penn researchers. However, an NIH official notes that no formal complaint about the use of animals in this program had been filed prior to the Memorial Day incident. And University of Pennsylvania officials say that the experiments were reviewed repeatedly and found to conform to NIH guidelines.

Both PETA and ALF representatives also argue that research into head injuries is not productive, and that emphasizing preventive measures would be more beneficial to the public than is research. "Are we willing to put animals through that [procedure] when the American public won't put on seat belts?" Jensen says. Goldstein points out, however, that despite better safeguards, not all accidents causing head injuries can be prevented. And, more important, the extent to which even relatively minor brain injuries are treatable is extremely limited. The brain apparently sends out its own self-destructive message after an injury, he says, and there is no hope for deciphering that message without doing research, Goldstein notes. But Jensen says that science "needs to have a broader sense" and that the idea that "human needs come first" is outdated. Moreover, although she and her colleagues invoke a need for improved ethics among researchers, she is not reluctant to admit that the Philadelphia raid entailed committing a felony and that its purpose was not to free animals but to serve the propaganda needs of the animal welfare movement. She and Newkirk justify these actions as following the tradition of civil disobedience. "I think there's a limit to what can be tolerated as civil disobedience," says NIH director James B. Wyngaarden. "I personally believe this break-in is a crime."

Langfitt estimates the physical damage to equipment and facilities to be as much as $20,000. Estimating the loss of data is more difficult, he told Science, in part because the lab was still in a shambles but also because he was still unsure which tapes were taken (there are no backups). Efforts are being made to increase security at the university, and the university and city police are undertaking a thorough investigation.

NIH officials say that a federally directed investigation of the treatment of animals in the university's head injury center is likely because of the publicity the incident has received. "We won't condone abuse [of the animals]," says Wyngaarden, "but I have to wait on more data before I'd contend there is abuse. We do support this research, [which] is regarded as important. This is [considered] to be one of the best labs in the world."

Regarding the wider debate taking place about the use of animals in research, Wyngaarden says, "Medical scientists in the country need to be more active explaining their research and why animals are necessary." In studying head injuries and many other medical problems, "There's not much you can do with bacteria."

Meet the meatless.

By Richard Behar, Forbes Magazine
March 20, 1989

IT CAME FROM NOWHERE and, by some accounts, it's taking over the planet. In 1980 only a handful of zealots talked about animal liberation--the inherent "right" of animals to share the planet with humans, as distinct from merely being protected from wanton cruelty. Today, news and talk shows give space and time to the movement even as they warn darkly of its activists as being a new breed of terrorist. "Profound questions are being raised, and ignoring them won't make them go away," reports a Newsweek cover story. "A clear and present danger," barks Baron's. "Let's stamp out animal worship before it's too late."   Really? Too late for what? Cut through all the noise, and at the heart of the animal-rights movement lies something we've all seen plenty of already: a feeding frenzy by an issue-starved, headline-hungry media.   Just how big is this movement? Accounts vary from 10 million people (CBS News) to 7,000 groups (Newsweek) to an annual budget that the Fur Retailers' Information Council variously estimates at anywhere from $200 million to $1 billion. But back out all the triple and quadruple counting of names on mailing lists, eliminate all the traditional groups like ASPCAS, voluntary animal shelters and the city dog pounds that Newsweek apparently counted, and the movement is much, much smaller than the scare headlines suggest. 

One recently retired Justice Department official who tracked the rights movement for the Reagan Administration tells FORBES that the angry, attention-getting fringe boils down to fewer than 100 troublemakers. Many belong to radical-sounding groups like Band of Mercy, Irban Gorillas and the Animal Liberation Front. These are the people who sneak up on women and spray-paint their fur coats, or perhaps "liberate" lobsters from holding tanks in seafood restaurants. 

Small their numbers may be, but suddenly their voices are loud, intimidating ... and unceasing--at an animal-rights rock concert in New York last month, at an upcoming "Great American MEat-out"starring Doris Day later this month. Even the conservative Humane Society has caught the fever and now denounces bacon and eggs as "the breakfast of cruelty." 

Such rhetoric echoes the tactics of the movement's few extremists--threatening the lives of animal researchers, pouring acid on the windshields of their cars, even taking credit for the torching of a partially built California research center in 1987. 

Yet even that behavior hardly rates the word "terrorist," which is how the FBI describes one extremist group, the Animal Liberation Front. Indeed, there is not one recorded instance since the inception of the movement in which any animal-rights organization has physically hurt anyone. 

Nonetheless, all this sound and fury is having a predictably unnerving effect on business. That's unfortunate because at least 20 million animals are used annually in research ranging from cosmetics testing to the development of new vaccines and organ transplant techniques. It was in monkeys, for example, that an AIDS-related virus was first isolated in the early 1980s. Nearly 2 million diabetics are treated each year with insulin, most of which is animal-derived. 

Even so, Benetton, the Italian clothing chain, has recently announced that it will no longer perform safety tests for its new toiletries line on animals. Similarly, Noxell Corp., maker of Noxzema skin products and Cover Girl cosmetics, has announced that it will cut down on its use of rabbits. Reports Ms. Frankie Trull, president of the Foundation for Biomedical Research, an industry trade group, "In the last few months, I've received a dozen calls from researchers who say they are bailing out. Two multinational pharmaceutical firms have also called. They're having second thoughts about building new U.S. research facilities because of this. 

The most bizarre reaction of all involved some much-publicized events surrounding Connecticut-based U.S. Surgical Corp., the nation's leading maker of surgical staplers. Out of fear that its chairman, Leon Hirsch, might be assassinated, the company last year infiltrated undercover operatives into an animal rights group. Result: Last autumn an activist tried to plant a pipe bomb at the firm's headquarters. Ironically, the activist may have been entrapped and egged into her action. The company denies this, and the case is now the subject of a federal investigation.   Just who are the people frightening ordinary businessmen this way? For an answer, meet Ingrid Newkirk, 39, the British-born founder and leader of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Newkirk boasts that her group, with 200,000 dues-paying members and a $ 5 million annual budget, is the fastest-growing of any animal-rights group, and no one in the movement disputes her.   How did PETA, established in 1980 and based in a warehouse near Washington, D.C., get so big? Thank its slick public relations machine, run by Newkirk and a staff of 65--most of whom call themselves "vegans," a radical type of vegetarian who disdains the use of all animal products, be it leather, milk or wool. 

To get her message across, Newkirk has become a master at hype, staging well-organized media events like sit-ins and concerts then following them up with direct mail campaigns for funds. Newkirk, it turns out, is also the spokesman for the Animal Liberation Front and often turns up with press releases within a few hours of "raids" or break-ins. Are PETA and the Front actually the same? Newkirk won't comment but does endorse the destruction of property in order to free animals or obtain corporate records. 

Reasonable people everywhere oppose wanton cruelty to animals. But PETA wants more than that--the complete halt to society's use of animals for any purpose whatever. By PETA's light, a diet of broccoli, whole wheat, bananas and tofu could meet the nutritional needs of all humanity, and cotton and Orlon can take care of the world's clothing needs. 

What makes Newkirk such a dedicated defender of the rights of animals as against humans? Answers she, "When it comes to feelings, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. Many people can look at an animal and nothing looks back at them. They don't see a refection of self in that animal's eyes." 

According to Newkirk, this view of man and beast appears, in part at least, to be rooted in her early years as the unhappy only child of a British military engineer in India. To get her out from underfoot, Newkirk's parents put Ingrid in a Catholic convent where she spent nine years of what she recalls now as utter and consuming misery. Says Newkirk of those days, "The nuns would smash us across the face with the full force of their hands for the most trivial of reasons, like talking during meals. 

"It was a desolate, very lonely experience," Newkirk recalls. "It scars you for life. At first, you're desperate to get in touch with your parents, but by the time you do go home you really hate and resent them." 

Eventually the family returned to England, and as a teenager Ingrid joined them. There were obvious emotional strains with her parents, and before long Ingrid had gotten herself romantically entangled with a race-car driver. This simply enraged her parents even more--so much that, as she now bitterly recalls, she was forced at the age of 19 to marry under threat of being disowned and rendered a ward of Britain’s family court. 

Even marriage provided Ingrid no lasting fulfillment, and it was not long before she found herself working in, of all places, animal shelters. One thing led to the next, and by the time she was 30, animals had become the central focus of her life. In 1980 she divorced, started up PETA, and for the following seven years lived out of a sleeping bag on the office floor.   Today PETA is all that any animal-loving misanthrope could hope for. Posters of blood-drenched animals drape the walls. Dogs lie on pillows in offices as humans do the work. Typically, this consists of stuffing envelopes with pamphlets that bring news of lab break-ins or where they can purchase "cruelty-free" soaps and shampoos that have been developed and marketed without first being tested on animals. 

To PETA and Newkirk there can be no legitimate contrary position. To drive this point home, PETA aggressively runs slates of its own people in board elections of rival rights groups. Latest is the successful 1987 "takeover" of the Boston-based New England Anti-Vivisection Society (fund balance, $ 8 million.) The century-old group officially still operates independently, but in reality PETA vegans and allies now control the Society and its spending. 

How much longer will this zealotry go on? For the Newkirks of this world, perhaps forever. But in Europe, where the animal-rights movement hit hard in the early 1980s, signs of ebb tide are appearing.  Fur sales dropped 80% in Holland Between 1980 and 1984, but have risen 130% since. In Switzerland, sales are up compared with last season, despite animal-rights activity and a mild winter. "The public is getting tired of the movement," says Juliette Bailey of the London-based International Fur Trade Federation.   For now at least, Americans--even up to President George Bush himself--will apparently have to endure a bit more of this movement before it burns itself out. Las month an unidentified White House employee wrote to Newkirk complaining that the President's pet spaniel, Millie, was mauling squirrels on the White House lawn. How did the President feel about this transgression of squirrel rights? According to the letter writer, the President dismissed Millie's antics as "good practice" for when the pooch gets taken on hunting trips. Ingrid Newkirk is furious.