Over the past seven days, animal rights activists have hit the streets and campuses nationwide, calling for an end to animal experimentation in universities as part of the Week of Action Against University Vivisection organised by SAEAB.
Protests: [ Sheffield | Cambridge | Dublin | Leeds | Bradford | UCL | Liverpool ]
Activists Outside Sheffield University
With one third of the 72 universities conducting vivisection, including the three largest (UCL, Cambridge, Oxford), covered with demo's and actions, this has been the biggest week of action the UK animal rights movement has seen in a number of years and is most certainly a success. Other companies with links to academic animal experimentation were also covered; animal breeders, investors and academic consortiums being subject to noisy demonstrations. The UK's largest biotechnology conference was also covered - BioTrinity 2010, attended by hundreds of companies from breeders to animal couriers, cage manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies and universities.
The actions nationally were most certainly determined and focused. At Sheffield, activists scaled a building gaining much attention, Bradford saw security being breached on two seperate occasions with banner drops from balconies and buildings across campus being swamped with leaflets and Cambridge invaded. Others received demo's outside their labs and student unions, exposing the horrific suffering occuring inside their laboratories. Lives have also been saved, with one university offering to hand over animals to campaigners for re-homing, instead of them being gassed to death at the end of experiments. Lufthansa Airlines have also vowed to never again fly animals destined for laboratories, following involvement with Marshall Farms, Harlan and Charles River.
A week today, thousands are expected to march through Central London as part of World Day for Animals in Laboratories and the university campaigns are set to play a large part in this.
With such a success, the point to be made is that no animal experimentation is deemed acceptable and with over 35%* being conducted inside university labs, they are set to become a major focus for the growing animal rights movement. New campaigns are springing up nationwide with Bradford, Sheffield, Oxford, Cambridge, Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin all being the focus of intense and sustained protest. More are expected to begin over coming months.
It is clear that these campaigns are winnable and win we shall do! Another week of action is going to be announced over the coming weeks.
* Home Office, March 2010
e-mail:
Homepage:
Comments
Hide the following 5 comments
Coverage of that business conference a bit wrong...
20.04.2010 09:38
Jack
Sorry Jack...
21.04.2010 09:30
- AstraZeneca (Pharma & largest breeder of rodents for research in the UK)
- Charles River Laboratories (Breeder of rodents guineapigs, chickens and importer of primates for vivisection)
- Covance Laboratories (CRO & Breeder of rodents, ferrets, beagles and primates_
- Fisher Scientific (Manufacturer of, amongst other things, scalpels, restrain equipment and cages. Their parent company, Thermo Fisher, are also involved in doing the same)
- GSK (Pharma & breeder of rodents and beagles)
- Health Protection Agency (Importer of primates via their partially owned site, alongside DSTL, Porton Down)
- Institute for Animal Health (Not exactly involved in vivisection are they? Testing on, and breeding, farm animals, beagles and rodents for vivisection)
- IP Group (Breeder of GM lab animals through their subsidiary TechTran Group)
- Medical Research Council (Breeder of GM rodents, they even have a specialist site for it! and also breed primates from their Leicester Uni site)
- Merck, Sharpe Dohm, Novartis, Pfizer (All breeders alongside Pharma companies)
- School of Pharmacy, London (Breeders of rodents)
- Summit plc (Part of the Sumitomo Corporation, who breed. Summit Plc, however, have a specialist division who deal entirely with importing primates into the UK from China)
- Takeda (Pharma who breed beagles)
- The Conservative Party (Could be said to breed animals!)
- Thornhill Research, Inc (Breeders of rodents)
- VWR International (Part of pharma & breeder, Merck. However, VWR manufacture animal feed and cages)
- Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics (Breed GM rodents)
- World Courier (Transport laboratory animals, alongside 'dangerous goods')
So Jack, do you retract your statement? Or is it just that we know your industry better than you do?
Firey Jack
Protests Continue at Liverpool
21.04.2010 10:42
We tried to visit the Dean of the Physiology Faculty, however he was out to lunch so we begun our peaceful demo. The security wouldn’t allow this on campus, so moved onto the busy main road where we were greeted with support. Over 500 leaflets were given out, which lots of people wishing us luck. Apparently we are the top subject currently being talked about amongst staff and students, so are most certainly acheiving what we set out to do.
Merseyside Animal Rights
SAEAB
e-mail:
saeab@hushmail.com
Homepage:
http://www.academicabuse.wordpress.com
page 3 illustrates the scale of the primate problem in the US
21.04.2010 19:13
Rogue Primatologist
Homepage:
http://brown.edu/Research/Primate/LPN49-2.pdf
Bristol?
29.04.2010 13:32
no plans to hit Bristol? They do a lot of this work and never get 'reminded'.....
m
Lucy
e-mail:
lucybristol@gmail.com