Ethics of Research involving animals
Developments in policy and public opinion - continuation II
Organised unlawful protests against animal research since the 1970s
2.22 A very small fraction of those opposing research involving animals employ unlawful or extreme means of protest. They adopt violent or intimidating action towards researchers and their families, and also against those who are associated with organisations conducting such research, for example customers, shareholders, suppliers and other customers of suppliers.
2.23 Criminal activities began in the UK with arson attacks on pharmaceutical laboratories in the 1970s. During this decade, the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) was formed in the UK, and started a campaign of ‘freeing’ or ‘liberating’27 animals from laboratories, causing unlawful damage in the process. Their tactics became increasingly violent, and in 1982 the ALF sent letter bombs to the leaders of the four main political parties in the UK, injuring a civil servant.28 In 1985, petrolbomb attacks on the homes of a small number of medical researchers were carried out. Later that year, the Animal Rights Militia claimed responsibility for two bombs planted under the cars of scientists. During the next ten years, protesters frequently targeted researchers whose work involved animals, as well as company sites linked with research or food testing.29
2.24 In the 1990s, a campaign against the CRO HLS was launched. Staff of the company, as well its shareholders, banks, stockbrokers and clients, were harassed in different ways and many employees received hate mail and death threats, or had damage caused to their houses and cars. Senior staff of HLS were attacked physically, and on a few occasions hoax bombs were sent.30 A group of animal-rights activists launched an initiative under the name Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC). Although SHAC states on its website that it does not encourage illegal activities, some of its leading members have been convicted of criminal offences.31 The protests have led some companies to withdraw their financial and auditing services from HLS, including its major creditors, the Royal Bank of Scotland. The UK Government, which also supported the company during the early phases of SHAC’s protest, has agreed to provide banking and insurance facilities for the company.32 Protestors have also mounted a continuing campaign against the owners of a facility for guinea pigs used in research, based in Staffordshire. Some of these protests are lawful, although there have also been a number of unlawful activities carried out by unidentified campaigners. These include desecration of the grave and stealing of the body of a relation of the Hall family, who operate the breeding facility, in October 2004.33 We return to the issue of animal-rightsrelated violence and its implications in Chapters 14 and 15 (Chapters 14 and 15 (paragraphs 14.63 and 15.47–15.50).
The origins of the UK Animal (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986
2.25 In the early 1970s, the Council of Europe set up an ad hoc committee of experts to draft a convention to establish guidance for animal research. This body developed a framework for legislation and guidelines for laboratory animal housing, which was transposed with very few additions into Directive EEC 86/609 of the European Economic Community (the predecessor of the EU) in 1985. The Directive required Member States to adopt national legislation, or similar controls, on animal research in the light of its provisions (see paragraph 13.3).34
2.26 Meanwhile, pressure for new legislation had been growing in the UK.35 The combination of the impending Directive EEC 86/609 and the willingness of the Home Office Minister at the time to respond to concerns about the age of the 1876 Act led to the drafting of a bill in 1985. CRAE formed an alliance with the BVA and the scientific charity FRAME (see Box 2.4). Working together, these organisations had a strong influence on the drafting of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act (A(SP)A), which was passed in 1986.36 The cornerstone of the Act, which is described in more detail in Chapter 13, is the cost-benefit assessment,37 which focuses on an evaluation of the likely scientific benefits to be gained from a research proposal against the likely adverse effects to the animals, although these are not the only factors that are taken into account (see paragraph 3.58–3.60 and 13.16).
2.27 In 2001, the European Commission decided to revise Directive EEC 86/609, and a Technical Expert Working Group was subsequently convened. It has recommended a number of ways in which the Directive should be revised.38 These revisions, which are currently under discussion, would be binding for all EU Member States (see paragraph 13.47). They include a formalisation of the cost-benefit assessment, which would encapsulate in European law the approach that underlies the 1986 UK legislation.
Footnotes27 In many cases, animals that are taken from laboratories and placed in their natural environment subsequently die because they are insufficiently adapted to the new environment. In some cases where farmed mink have been released into the British countryside there was a subsequent marked decline in the numbers of native voles. Hence, there has been debate as to whether the act of ‘freeing’ the animals is beneficial. Some organisations assert that they have placed liberated animals in good homes.
28 Henshaw D (1989) Animal Warfare (London: Fontana Press).
29 Matfield M (1996) The animal liberation front: terrorist attacks on animal research Scand J Lab Anim Sci 23: 31–5.
30 For victims’ accounts see the Victims of Animal Rights Extremism website, available at: http://www.vare.org.uk/vctms.html
Accessed on: 14 Apr 2005.
31 See Huntingdon v SHAC judgement (2004) Neutral Citation Number EWHC 1231 (QB), available at: http://www.bailii.org/cgibin/
markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2004/1231.html&query=1231&method=all. Accessed on 11 Mar 2005.
32 Clark A (2001) Bank of last resort The Guardian July 2, available at:
http://education.guardian.co.uk/businessofresearch/story/0,9860,515646,00.html. Accessed on: 14 Apr 2005.
33 In early 2005 the owners and some of their neighbours applied for an exclusion zone around the farm, which was subsequently not granted by a judge. Instead, orders to regulate protests were imposed. The ruling judge said protesters had conducted a ‘guerrilla campaign of terrorism’, referring to actions taken against both staff and associates of staff. For example, it was reported that a petrol bomb and death threats had been delivered to staff and to the owners’ family in March 2005. See BBC News (2005) Activists branded as ‘terrorists’, available at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staffordshire/4184753.stm; BBC News (2005) Activists ‘no-go’ zone rejected, available at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staffordshire/4356713.stm; BBC News (2005) Guinea pig farm’s family targeted, available
at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staffordshire/4342183.stm. All accessed on: 14 Apr 2005. 34 Directives of the EU are binding law for the EU Member States. This is not the case for Conventions of the Council of Europe, which usually have the status of multilateral treaties (see paragraph 13.39).
35 In 1979, two Private Member’s Bills were introduced. The Fry Bill was drafted by the RSPCA and had the support of many other animal protection groups. In contrast, the Halsbury Bill was drafted by the RDS and supported by a great number of scientific organisations. Both bills went through to the committee stage, and the Halsbury Bill stimulated the Lords to have a Select Committee examine the issue in detail. When the Conservative Government was elected in 1979, it agreed to update the 1876 legislation, which, it was widely acknowledged, was not well suited to regulating research a full century after it had been passed. 36 For a more detailed discussion of the background to the A(SP)A see Ryder RD (2000) Animal Revolution: Changing Attitudes Towards Speciesism (New York: Berg Publishers); Radford M (2001) Animal Welfare Law in Britain: Regulation and responsibility (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
37 Although the A(SP)A does not mention the term cost-benefit analysis, the term is commonly used to refer to Section 5(4), which states that: ‘In determining whether and on what terms to grant a project licence the Secretary of State shall weigh the likely adverse effects on the animals concerned against the benefit likely to accrue as a result of the programme to be specified in the licence’. 38 European Commission Directorate General for the Environment Laboratory Animals, available at:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/chemicals/lab_animals/revision_en.htm. Accessed on: 14 Apr 2005.