Animal rights and wrongs

pharmafile | November 14, 2005 | Feature | |   

With the recent cessation of guinea pig breeding at Darley Oaks Farm, after a protracted and sometimes violent campaign by animal rights protesters, what measures should pharma and biotech companies, their suppliers and employees be taking to ensure their safety and peace of mind?

The headline-grabbing tactics sometimes adopted by animal rights activists carry a heavy emotional cost for their victims, but there is a significant economic threat as well.

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry reported in April that capital spending by the pharma industry fell 20% in 2003, while global spending increased an estimated 11%, according to the US-based Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. Spending on UK research also fell by 100 million – the first drop since 1990.

ABPI president Vincent Lawton told The Times: "It is clear that the continuing threat posed by animal extremists is a contributory factor…I hope that these figures indicate just a temporary blip, but the dangers of the UK losing out to other countries are very real."

What tactics (legal and illegal) are used by protesters and who do they target? The animal rights movement espouses a range of philosophies from peaceful to terrifying. Some groups reject using violence against persons, intimidation, threats, or the destruction of property: for example, the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) and Animal Aid concentrate on education and research, including carrying out undercover investigations of animal testing facilities.

Other groups – for example, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) -support the destruction of property or intimidation of those involved, however remotely, in what they perceive as animal abuse, but do not themselves engage in those activities, concentrating instead on education, research, and media campaigns.

A third category uses the leaderless resistance model, working in cells consisting of small numbers of trusted friends, or even an individual acting alone. These cells engage in direct action, for example by carrying out raids to release animals from laboratories and farms (the Animal Liberation Front), or by otherwise engaging in the destruction of property and intimidation of people, like Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC). However, these groups say they do not engage in or support violence against persons.

"Their tactics range from legal ones such as demonstrations outside labs, pharma company offices and universities, expressing their point of view, to a legion of illegal tactics. These include so-called 'home visits' at the dead of night to people connected with animal testing, banging drums, setting off firecrackers, intimidating neighbours, or sending threatening letters including death threats. They have written to neighbours telling them that the person concerned was a paedophile, damaging cars with paint stripper or throwing bricks through windows," an ABPI spokesman says.

Obviously, organisations in the leaderless resistance category are of most concern, although it is important not to over-emphasise the threat they pose. "There is a hard core of 50 to 100 extremists, who put time and effort into recruiting people with 'clean skins', meaning no criminal record, to take part in minor acts," explains the ABPI spokesman.

Three recent campaigns – Darley Oaks Farm, Huntingdon Life Sciences and now the Gateway to Hell action – illustrate the range of tactics.

Darley Oaks

In August the Staffordshire laboratory guinea pig breeder Darley Oaks Farm, run by brothers Chris and John Hall, ceased supplying laboratories after six years of harassment and abuse of family, friends, suppliers, and employees by animal rights activists.

Targets included the local golf club, tennis club, and pub as well as suppliers and contractors to the small family business. The Halls were forced to destroy their dairy herd because they could not get anyone to collect the milk, and obtaining fuel supplies for farm machinery was a constant struggle.

While protests at the farm were controlled by an injunction, the wider community continued to suffer. In an unprecedented case earlier this year, seven local villages represented by a parish councillor applied for an extension of the injunction. While the judge was sympathetic, he refused the application.

The last straw for the Hall family came last year when the remains of Chris Hall's mother in-law, Gladys Hammond, who died in 1997, were stolen from the churchyard in Yoxall. Blackmail letters to the Hall family said that the remains would not be returned until they stopped breeding guinea pigs.

Police arrested and subsequently bailed several animal rights activists, but no charges were brought and the remains have never been found. The Halls hope that now the remains can be returned to them.

Huntingdon

SHAC (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty) says  that Huntingdon Life Sciences "must be shut down for good". British Animal Liberation Front (ALF) leader Robin Webb told protesters at a December 2002 SHAC rally in New Jersey: "It doesn't matter if it's closed through economic pressure…It doesn't matter if it's closed because the employees are too scared to work there…And it doesn't matter if it goes out with a bang either!"

The theory is that, eventually, HLS will find that it can't do business without cafeteria food, or someone to mop the floors, provide insurance coverage for employees, trade its stock, make business loans, tend to its landscaping, or even cash its cheques. Providers of all of these kinds of services – and more – are considered fair game for SHAC. In early September, activists claimed another victory against HLS Huntingdon Life after the company's planned NYSE listing was pulled at the last moment.

The exchange would give no explanation for its decision, but NYSE president, Catherine Kinney, reportedly said that the NYSE received calls from New York financial community members saying the exchange's security could be threatened by the animal rights activists.

A US activist group Win Animal Rights (WAR) had sent out an e-mail alert to 10,000 people saying that the exchange was now a primary focal point for this campaign.

Gateway to Hell

A campaign against the transportation of animals for medical research, called Gateway to Hell, started at the end of last year. As well as using covert intimidation and criminal damage, protesters mount more public protests at airports, travel agencies and courier companies, using megaphones, distributing leaflets and invading offices.

They are targeting all modes of transport that they believe are involved in carrying live animals for laboratory research. A spokesman for the National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit, the police body that monitors animal rights activists, says that the Gateway to Hell campaign is closely linked to the long-running SHAC campaign against HLS.

The campaign is currently targeting travel agents selling holidays to Mauritius, because Air Mauritius transports primates vital to medical research into the UK and Europe. So how has the threat changed over the last year?

Number of attacks falling

ABPI statistics show a decline in the number of attacks by animal extremists in the first six months of the year but a worrying increase in the severity of some of them.

The figures show a sharp drop in animal extremist activity for the first half of 2005, with 35 cases of damage to private property, compared with 56 in the same period last year and 52 in the second half of 2004.

Damage to company property also declined, with just two cases from January to June, compared with 29 in the same period last year and a further 15 in the second half of the year. Home visits have fallen from 110 in the first half of last year, with a further 70 in the second half, to 34 in the first half of 2005.

"While the reduction in the number of incidents is welcome, it is disturbing that, in some cases we are seeing more aggressive attacks taking place," said Dr Philip Wright, director of science and technology at the ABPI.

"In particular, we are seeing cases where incendiary devices have been attached to cars, which is a very worrying change of tactics.

"However, the figures indicate that the government's commitment to tackling the problem of extremism is starting to pay off, and we hope that both the commitment and the drop in incidents continue. At the same time, the number of legal demonstrations has remained at the same level, so the right of people to protest in normal, democratic ways has not been compromised.

"They have moved away from targeting companies themselves to people associated with those companies, such as cleaners, secretaries and organisations that work with them, including clinical research organisations, suppliers, catering companies and even other customers of those suppliers, warning them that worse will follow unless they sever links with the animal testers," adds the ABPI spokesman.

"Pharma companies have increased security at plants and labs, particularly CCTV, and they have taken steps to protect staff, such as removing directors' addresses from Companies House documents, so the protesters are moving towards softer targets, including companies that are not as well prepared."

Dealing with the threat

Do the UK's largest companies have policies in place for staff to follow and how have they responded to the situation?

For obvious reasons, companies are unwilling to comment on precise security measures. A spokesperson for the Research Defence Society, the UK organisation representing medical researchers in the public debate about the use of animals in medical research and testing, says: "I would like to stress that simply working for a pharma company and publishing animal research or talking to the media about it does not make one a target. There needs to be much more realistic risk assessment. Sometimes security staff and consultants exaggerate the threat.

"Currently, you are more likely to be targeted by activists if you/your employer have links with a primary target, like HLS or Oxford University (and Darley Oaks for a little while longer).

"Anyone who is concerned can take reasonable and simple precautions to keep their personal details private. Being targeted at home can be very distressing, so prevention is best.

"If the activists can't easily find your home address, they will go after someone else instead. So details at Companies House, in professional directories, on databases based on the electoral roll, in the phone directory, at DVLA, etc, should be examined and home addresses/phone numbers removed. In most cases it is possible to register a company address or accommodation address rather than one's home address."

The new Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCA) came into force on 1 July this year and it includes several measures to tackle the problem of animal rights extremism.

The legislation creates a new offence of causing economic loss by organised campaigns that target any scientist or member of their family, research facility or company in the supply chain using tactics such as intimidation, criminal damage, trespass, blackmail and libel.

The new law should enable police forces and the justice system to clamp down more effectively on animal rights extremism: they now have a clearer legal framework and can act more quickly. The Act may have already helped to reduce the number of attacks significantly.

On 3 August, the Metropolitan Police confirmed that seven animal rights activists were arrested for the first time under the SOCA Act. In recent years, there have been a growing number of police and prosecution successes against offenders who target companies and their staff.

In addition, many research institutions successfully protected themselves by gaining injunctions against harassment by groups and individuals – this has reduced illegal activity in a very effective way. The injunctions have been successful, both in controlling overt protests at research premises and outside private homes.

"There have been two tranches of legislation aimed at protecting people from animal rights activists," says the ABPI spokesman.

"In 2004, the law on trespass was tightened up, and then in 2005, the SOCA legislation tightened the laws on protest. The laws are there, so what is needed now is a commitment to enforce them. We are very pleased that the government has taken note of the problem."

What effect has the new legislation had? "There are some encouraging signs, says the ABPI spokesman. "There has been an apparent decline in offences, although there have been two worrying incidents involving firebombs under cars. There have been some key arrests recently, which may have led to a decline in incidents. It's really too early to say because the legislation has only been in place for a few months."