(UK) What Felix the monkey taught me about animal research
AnimalConcerns.org
shirt, greets me at the door. We have met before, but still he is
jumpy and full of suspicion. 'Hi', he says nervously.
He glances over my shoulder, checks that nobody is watching us, then
leads me quickly across the foyer and down a set of stairs. After two
flights, we turn right, down a long corridor and through a series of
card-swiped locked doors.
...
I am the first journalist in 20 years to be allowed in here, one of
the many highly secretive animal-testing programmes at Oxford
University. To gain entry has taken months of negotiation with
scientists, the university's registrar and the heads of the medical
faculty and other departments.
As a condition, I have had to promise not to reveal the location of
the building, the name of my host department or the identity of anyone
working here; such is the level of hostility directed towards those
who experiment on animals.
Nowhere has that hostility been more evident than in Oxford. The
university's most prominent vivisectionist, Professor Colin Blakemore,
and his family have been the targets of a relentless campaign by
animal-rights activists, including letter bombs posted to their home
and many death threats.
And, since 2004, activists have carried out a sustained protest
against the building of a £20million animal-research centre in South
Park Road, even forcing the construction company to pull out after
causing hundreds of thousands of pounds of damage to vehicles and
equipment. Although a new contractor has since been found, security is
tight and builders now work in balaclavas to protect their identities;
a bizarre sight on a British street.
The conflict between science and the animal-rights lobby has never
been more ferocious. But why? In an effort to understand, I have spent
a year studying both sides for a BBC documentary. And as part of my
film I followed the fate of one animal, a monkey called Felix, as he
was prepared for an experiment. I had no axe to grind and entered the
lab in July with an open mind.
A seven-year-old macaque, Felix is one of more than 100 monkeys Oxford
University keeps for research. Although 90 per cent of the experiments
on live animals carried out in the university involve rats, mice or
zebra fish, the monkeys are particularly valuable because their DNA so
closely matches that of humans. There's little more than six per cent
difference between us and macaques. Each one is specially bred by a
top-secret British-based company and costs more than £15,000.
...
Since the new contractors began work on the research centre last
December, demonstrators have stood outside, screaming; accusing the
workers of constructing a concentration camp for animals.
Leader of the campaign is Mel Broughton, a 44-year-old landscape
gardener from Northampton who was jailed for four years in 1997 for
smuggling incendiary bombs into an animal-testing facility.
He is unapologetic: 'If you are going to take the money to build a
place where animal torture goes on, where people are allowed to do
that to sentient, thinking, feeling creatures and expect me to
politely ask them to stop then you can think again,' he said. 'Because
I am going to intimidate you.'
...
Jeanette, who had once been sceptical of the need for animal research,
now has a very different perspective: 'I feel it's a shame it has to
be done on animals,' she says. 'But when you see the difference it can
make to your own kid, it changes your mind.'
Felix is still in the lab in Oxford, progressing with his training.
Aziz thinks he'll be able to insert the electrodes into his brain
early next year. In my heart, I find the idea of Tipu Aziz and his
colleagues in scrubs, hovering over the anaesthetised monkey,
difficult to bear. Felix will spend months living with the electrodes
in his head, performing his touch screen tasks in his tiny cage. And
after that, he will be destroyed.
But the truth is I cannot oppose the experiment on Felix or any of the
other millions of monkeys, rats, mice and fish used in scientific
tests in Britain. I have been convinced of their merit by learning how
the scientists work and also by Sean. The raw emotion on his face, and
that of his mother, as he struggled to stand up is a sight that will
stay with me forever.
And it is a triumph of medicine and of the human spirit that would not
have been possible without Prof Aziz's research. I'm glad I don't have
to stand in the professor's shoes and wield the knife, but I am
profoundly grateful to him that he has the courage to do so.
•Adam Wishart's programme, Animal Testing Monkeys, Rats And Me, will
be shown on BBC2 at 9pm tomorrow. His book, One In Three: A Son's
Journey Into The Science And History Of Cancer, is published by
Profile Books at £15.
--
full story:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23375918-details/What+Felix+the+monkey+taught+me+about+animal+research/article.do
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