In the Labs

One only has to read the story of James, the monkey looked after by Michelle Rokke when she worked undercover in Huntingdon Life Sciences, to read a singularly horrific story of the life of a lab animal. That poor creature lived out his life in suffering and died at the hands of barbarians. His story was far from unique.

To a vivisection lab, animals are just assets (in the words of one Oxford University professor), and treated like any other bit of furniture. They exist to be used and abused before being put down when their usefulness is over. Their needs and suffering never come into the equation.

This does not mean that these animals come cheap. They cost a lot of money and this is reflected in the amount of money pharmaceutical companies pay out to have their poisons tested or university researchers apply for in grants. This is further affected by the fact that there is currently a strong demand for these animals, especially in primates where there has been an acknowledged shortage for some time.

The closure of Shamrock monkey farm and Hillgrove cat farm both put strain on those experiments requiring cats and primates.

Now we plan the biggest coup to date - to remove the primates and other species from the labs altogether, or to push the cost of obtaining them so prohibitively high many research institutions will not longer be able to afford them.

Knocking out the export of animals from Nepal and Mauritius will affect the primate experiments worldwide. Places like Oxford University, GSK Bio, Huntingdon Life Sciences, BPRC, Covance, Inveresk and Sequani will also suffer.

Places such as the now aborted laboratory in Cambridge would never have got off the ground. Pharmaceutical companies with their own labs will not be able to carry out their experiments and be left with scientists unable to do their jobs on primates and other animals.

It is not just those companies or institutions currently being targeted that will feel the effect, but every single one of them as the ripples are felt. Without access to these animals, all these organizations will be left twiddling their thumbs or having to look into alternatives to using animals.
How will Covance in Harrogate or Huntingdon Life Sciences attract business if they cannot even get the animals to experiment on?

How will Oxford University be able to put in grant applications to abuse animals if the animals are too expensive, if they can be obtained at all.

If no animals are imported then primates such as James cannot be tortured in the same way he was. Alternatives to animals will have to be found and the industry will have been struck a devastating blow.

Watch the suffering of the innocent monkeys here