Oxford animal rights protest

There is an ongoing battle between animals rights groups and the University of Oxford over a new building being built in the heart of town. It’s been going on since the plans were announced in 2004 and has got increasingly ill-tempered.

The animal rights people managed to end construction a similar building in Cambridge and so, smelling victory, have gone all out to pressure Oxford into abandoning its plans as well.

It has led to some tough protests, court orders, dozens of claims, counter-claims and articles and some heavy duty intimidation and threatening of Oxford University staff and the contractors on the building. One of the consistent points has been regular protests and marches in town – of which there was another one on Saturday.

I actually guessed it while walking into town when I saw no less than 10 police officers on one stretch of road. Anyway, I had my camera with me and so decided to check it out. You can see the pics I took here. But I’ve stuck a few on this post.

Whose right?

I’ve given the animal rights question some thought – admittedly sparked by the protests that started in Oxford nearly two years ago – and have come to the conclusion that it’s pretty much a dead issue.

The fact is that, in a similar way to militant feminism, the battle has been won. There are now very strict laws and rules regulating animal experimentation in this country. The animal rights protests of the past did that, and it’s a good thing.

All the arguments, pros and cons have been delved into, torn apart and patched together again and it is still the case the animal experimentation is incredibly useful for certain types of scientific work. We don’t have smoking beagles any more. Instead we have serious and important research into debilitating disease.

Not that the situation is ideal. It is still dreadful that we need to experiment on animals, that we haven’t found better and cheaper methods that don’t require living creatures. But that’s life. There will always be people that feel much more strongly than most on the issue – and good, because they will be motivated enough to keep an eye on the situation and make sure it doesn’t give way to past problems.

Likewise, I’m a big fan of protests, even if they can be a royal pain if you’re disrupted (which I was – I was over an hour late for my brother’s birthday party in part thanks to the delay getting out of Oxford). Protests mean people learn how to organise, and they learn how intricate and bureaucratic systems of government work. And they educate people, bring issues to the forefront, and they show the general public that not everyone is being complacent, that you *can* stand up and be counted if something bothers you enough.

But what concerns me about the animal rights people at the moment is that for many, it isn’t animal rights at all that they are fighting for. It’s the fact that they enjoying breaking rules and creating tension. There simply is no justification for hounding and threatening people – and that is exactly what the militant edges do – and enjoy doing.

They have no right to make building workers fear for their own safety. They are only building concrete offices. There is a nasty streak running through the animal rights protest and their actions are drawing the sort of people that only want to create trouble.

It is this that is creating a vicious circle between protestors and police. Protestors are frustrated and seek to find someone to blame. The police are often at the end of it. The police are also invariably less than charming, which gets protestors backs up.

But those protestors complaining and fussing about police harassment are living in fairyland. They have been given the right by the courts to hold regular protests in an extremely busy city centre, and the police, while not exactly chatty, aren’t threatening them. They’d know about it if they were.

They want freedom of speech, they have freedom of speech. The police are obliged to make sure things don’t get out of hand, and if they fear they will, they are curt and sometimes aggressive. It’s crowd control and it works.

What struck me was how disorganised and relatively unintelligent the protestors were in making their protest. If they feel the police are being overly controlling, why not change tactics?

Why all gather in one spot where they can be shunted around? Why not post your plans and then change them at the last minute. Why not pick out three leader types and get them to lead three different marches – appearing behind the police where they thought they’d blocked off a road. And where are the inspiring speakers? Where are community leaders? Where’s the leaflet handing out the day before? Where are the media-savvy opportunities?

The fact that they weren’t there demonstrates to me at least that the fire is out on the animal rights issue and all that remain are well-meaning people that would probably achieve more by lobbying individuals in power; and pseudo-rebels who only want to live the fantasy of being on the run.

I think it should be pointed out as well that we *know* of human beings being arrested, jailed, tortured and abused in recent years – in this country and outside, our citizens and other countries’ citizens. Where are the human rights marches?

The issues

But that aside, what of the story and the facts?

On the front of the leaflet handed out by “Speak” at the protest is a cat with God-knows-what attached to its head. It grabs the attention, but what’s important is to find out how credible Speak is.

Protest groups will always complain bitterly that their perspective is misrepresented, especially in the media, and that whoever they are criticising is getting away with hiding things. The sad truth though is that the protestors are invariably more guilty of misrepresenting what people say and do to their own ends.

As such, it is very easy to check out a group’s credibility by investigating their claims and reviewing their materials.

Underneath the cat picture is a single quote. It comes from a pretty significant source: Professor Sir Michael Rawlins, chairman of the National Institute of Clinical Excellence.

He is quoted as saying: “The animal testing regime… is utterly futile.”

NICE is an important organisation. It effectively decides on what people are allowed to do and not to do with drugs in the UK. That’s not to say it isn’t occasionally mired in controversy, with health professionals sometimesaccusing it of having got it all wrong and misunderstood the situation.

But what of the quote? It’s the ellipsis you have to be worried about. There can be a whole world of qualification removed with those three little dots. So I did a bit of research. This quote has become a stock one used by the animal rights movement. But where does it come from?

Well, from a meeting at Chatham House in September 2003. Chatham is famous for its “Chatham House rules” where the meeting can be reported but who said what cannot be. The philosophy is that it encourages free debate. Mr Rawlins was there to talk to the pharmaceutical industry, as well as regulators, patient groups and so on about the challenges of drug creation in the future.

His main point was that a rethink was needed as drug were becoming too expensive. And he did say the animal study regime was “utterly futile”. Unfortunately I have been able to find only one contemporary source though – The Daily Telegraph. And it leaves mention of this quote until the very last sentence. It is also not as equivocal as it sounds:

“Patients must be more involved in regulatory decisions, he said. ‘The population is going to have to realise there is a trade-off between absolute safety and the development of new drugs.’ The animal study regime, which could take up to six years, was ‘utterly futile’. The industry must do more research on how to conduct efficient clinical trials.”

There isn’t a full transcript on the Chatham House website unfortunately, so this is all we have to go on. It is weak.

Allegations

The Speak leaflet makes its allegations on the back of the leaflet. It claims that Oxford University “hides a nasty secret”. And that is: “Behind the beautiful architecture and dreaming spires lies suffering and death in the university labs. Countless thousands of animals are destined to be the latest victims of arrogance and scientific fraud inside the walls of this new facility.”

Emotive language aside – what is this “scientific fraud”? The leaflet has seven points.

1. That the university originally said there would be no experiments at the new lab being built
2. That it then contradicted this statement by saying it would
3. That in the labs, kittens had one eye sewn up and part of their brains removed, and that three monkeys with artificially produced brain damage were experimented on
4. That one professor said the monkeys led “the life of Riley” but in one experiment had required “intensive nursing” to keep them alive
5. That the university sought an injunction to prevent a “legal and peaceful campaign” against the new lab
6. That the university failed to attend a public meeting at the town hall, despite being invited
7. That a leading professor was investigated for cruelty for refusing to allow a monkey to be put down because it was an “asset”

Having read these seven points, I’m pretty sure they’re all true, albeit heavily angled. Dates are given for each point and in two cases, specific publications referred to.

And, having done some digging, I’ve discovered that strictly speaking they are all true. But they have been bent, and elements purposefully missed out. Point by point:

1. I can’t find the exact quote listed by Speak in which the university said “no experiments would be carried out”. But it is true that the original planning application (02/02371/FUL) said it was to be only an “animal holding centre”. You can see the bare bones of that application here – but unfortunately a pdf of the application itself has been removed.
2. Speak says on 16 March, the university said the facility would be used to experiment on animals. Again, I can’t find an official source. But it seems perfectly feasible. The university does continue to stress that the facility fundamental purpose is for housing animals, and not for tests on them.
3. I can’t find the article quoted in Nature, but the monkey experiments are true, and were written up in Brain Research Bulletin 61 (2003). You can read the abstract and buy it if you want. The point though is that Oxford University did not damage the monkeys themselves, merely did experiments on them. It should also be noted that the university pointed out that a major part of the protestors’ ads around this time were incorrect. They stated that two monkeys were being held, when in fact they had been put down years before.
4. The professor was John Stein, and an interview with him appeared in the Oxford Mail in August 2004. He said: “We can record from the brain absolutely painlessly. It causes them no pain or stress… They have a life of Riley compared to animals in the wild.” His counter-argument was: “For the sacrifice of a very small number of animals there’s a huge benefit to humanity. We all worry about the ethics, but as long as our experiments are done with no pain, they are justifiable.”As for his research, there is no indication which paper it was, and I’m not going to search all of Prof Stein’s papers to find it either. But presumably Speak has been through each one with a fine-toothed comb. I suspect the quote is true, but, again, angled and bent.
5. The “Draconia” injunction. This is perfectly true and you can read the whole thing at http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/po/order10-11-04.pdf [pdf]. Again though, the situation has been mispainted. The contractors building the facility had pulled out after being threatened personally and as a business. Oxford University sought a 100-yard ban on protestors. This was rejected. Instead, the size of the protests were limited to 50 people and any more would have to apply to the police. I think the court made a good decision, balancing the interests of both sides.
6. The university didn’t really fail to turn up to the Town Hall meeting. It never said it was going to go. It was set up by the protestors and the university declined. It said: “We will participate in any event if we receive a reasonable invitation.” That has yet to be put to the test.
7. You can read The Times story in question (Oxford inquiry on abuse of monkey). The case was dropped, the delay in the vet’s recommendation and the monkey being put down was 90 minutes, and the explanation was: “Staff had detected illness in an animal being used in biomedical research. Vets diagnosed an infection and the animal was treated with antibiotics but did not respond quickly, so euthanasia was recommended.”

If you want to know more, the BBC and Guardian both have sub-sites set up to cover the thorny question of animal experiments. There is also a publication called LabAnimal that should be reviewed.

More useful links here:

Oxford University site explaining its side
Speak’s website