LIANE HANSEN, host:
Scientific testing on animals is a sensitive issue. Is it worth subjecting them to suffering in the laboratory to find cures for human diseases? In Britain, animal rights groups have been very vocal and sometimes violent in their response. No.
One of their targets has been a new biomedical research lab in Oxford. Now a group has emerged that has emerged that is just as vocal in support of animal testing. Rob Gifford visited Oxford and sent this report.
ROBERT GIFFORD reporting:
It's not often that you hear chants favoring lab tests on furry animals, but that's exactly what you'd have heard if you'd have been at Oxford University last weekend.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: Human beings come first. Save the Oxford lab. One, two, three, four. Animal research, we need more.
Nearly 1,00 people turned up for a demonstration organized by a newly formed group called Pro-Test, that's Pro Test, in favor of testing. So this is a group that has been formed in response to what it calls the growing extremism of animal rights activists.
Professor JOHN STEIN (Neurophysiology, Oxford University): First I'd like to thank the organizers and all you wonderful people. We must not be intimidated.
GIFFORD: One of the people addressing the crowds was John Stein, Professor of Neurophysiology at Oxford, a man whose research to find a cure for Parkinson's disease involves experimenting on monkeys. He says this is the silent majority finally speaking out.
Professor STEIN: It's a silent majority because it's so obvious to most people that there are benefits from animal experiments, and those who might speak out, that is people who actually do work in animal research, have, quite rightly, been very worried about whether they were putting themselves and their families at risk. I receive horrible threats. Horrible threats have gone onto web sites, and we've been told that we are fair targets, etc., etc. So of course I'm worried.
GIFFORD: But Stein says despite that, he and others have finally decided they must speak out. He points out that penicillin was first isolated at Oxford, tested on 20 mice in a lab just near his. Vaccines have been developed here too that have saved millions of lives, he says. Oxford scientists are now working on a cure for malaria. All have involved testing on animals.
(Soundbite of protesters)
GIFFORD: But Pro-Test was not the only group demonstrating last week. The anti-animal experiments crowd was here too, focusing their anger on the university's new $30 million research lab. Intimidation by animal rights groups brought the building of the lab to a halt for more than a year, until last December, when construction began again. Mel Broughton is spokesman for one of groups demonstrating, known as SPEAK. He rejects accusations that they're extremists.
Mr. MEL BROUGHTON (Spokesman, SPEAK campaign): I don't think there's anything extreme at all in saying that on the one hand, animal experimentation causes suffering to millions of animals; it undoubtedly does. And secondly, I think there is every reason to question the scientific validity of using animals in medical research.
GIFFORD: But some animal rights activists clearly are taking their protest to extremes. The head of one animal research company was badly beaten up by three men with ax handles. The manager of a farm that supplies guinea pigs to labs found that his dead mother-in-law's body had been dug up and stolen from a graveyard and has not yet been recovered.
One of the remarkable things about Pro-Test is that it's the brainchild of a 16-year-old schoolboy called Lauri Pycroft.
Mr. LAURI PYCROFT (Pro-Test Leader): Up until now, animal rights protesters have had a monopoly on this issue.
GIFFORD: Pycroft formed Pro-Test only a few weeks ago, after he says animal right protesters refused to engage him in debate on the streets of Oxford. He went home, wrote about it on his blog and received so much support on the Internet that he organized last week's march.
Mr. PYCROFT: (Unintelligible) sometimes does indeed cause pain to the animals, which is regrettable. I believe it's entirely justified because, in my opinion, a human life is worth considerably more than an animal's life.
GIFFORD: Pycroft concedes there are many moderate, rational people within the animal rights movement, but the ability of the extremist to grab the headlines has created a wave of support for his group protest that could continue to grow.
Rob Gifford, NPR News, Oxford.
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