Sweeping new powers against animal rights activists are being prepared by the Home Office. New legislation would make it an imprisonable offence to intimidate scientists involved in animal research, and prevent large groups gathering outside laboratories. A national police unit dedicated to tackling animal terrorism could be set up.
The decision follows last week's announcement that Cambridge University has abandoned construction of its proposed Primate Research Centre. The laboratory, where scientists would have carried out research on Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other brain diseases, was ditched because of the costs of protecting buildings and staff from people protesting about the use of primates in experiments had begun to spiral out of control. The laboratory's price tag had already risen from £24 million to £32m and was expected to increase even more as security estimates soared.
Now talks are going on between research chiefs and government officials in a attempt to find alternative ways of supporting research on apes, which have brains similar to humans and are considered vital for developing new treatments for neurological disorders. At the same time the Home Office is preparing a specific set of laws to protect UK scientists from attacks.
Most senior scientists and drug company officials believe only a few dozen hardcore activists are responsible for these attacks. 'Britain has the best neuroscience in the world but a handful of activists are driving away companies that want to exploit that expertise. And don't forget, pharmaceuticals made a &pond;3 billion contribution to our balance of trade last year,' said Trevor Jones, head of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry.
Tactics used by activists include throwing rape alarms on the roofs of the homes of lab staff, planting burning crosses in gardens, sending bomb threats to schools of employees' children, pouring acid on cars, smashing homes and daubing on walls claims that staff are rapists and paedophiles. 'Nobody wants to disrupt the right to peaceful protest but this is beyond what any civilised society should be expected to tolerate,' Jones said. 'The law is not strong enough.'
Between November 1999 and September 2002 an estimated 450 demonstrations, many of them violent, took place outside Huntingdon Life Sciences Laboratory, the Cambridge animal research centre that has become a focus for attacks. There were arrests on only 28 occasions.
'Until scientists can carry out a limited number of controlled experiments on animals, including primates, we are not going to find cures for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other diseases,' said Aisling Burnand, chief executive of the Bioindustry Association.
Last year a wave of attacks were directed against UK-based Japanese pharmaceutical companies including Yamanouchi, Esai and Daiichi. Executives were attacked, cars damaged, and homes ransacked. Only the inter vention of Science Minister Lord Sainsbury, who flew to Japan to assure government and company officials that Britain was committed to protecting scientists, prevented firms from leaving the UK.
Some changes to the law have since been introduced but, in the wake of Cambridge University's decision that it still cannot provide protection for animal researchers in the city, drug companies are now demanding a clear signal be sent by government to help the biotechnology industry.
'Specific regulation is needed to tackle this,' said Mark Matfield, executive director of the Research Defence Society.
The new legislation could make it an imprisonable offence to intimidate a person because he or she is involved in animal research. Other ideas before the committee include 50-metre exclusion zones around research centres and targeting extremists in the way the Football Disorder Act allows hooligans to be banned from matches merely because police officers have 'reasonable suspicions' about them.
Other measures would be directed at those who try to intimidate financial backers of laboratories and research centres. The Government had to step in to provide insurance for Huntingdon Life Sciences after its insurers, Marsh & McLellan, backed out after waves of intimidation. At one stage activists disrupted performances by the English National Ballet because Marsh & McLellan's UK chairman, Hamish Ritchie, was a member of its board.
Some scientists had already warned about the abandoned primate centre. Professor Colin Blakemore, head of the Medical Research Council, a leading UK physiologist and himself the tar get of vicious attacks by animal activists, told The Observer he had always feared the centre would be targeted. 'We needed a primate research centre as much as we needed a mouse research centre or a hamster research centre. That is not how biological research works. Research on animals should continue to be integrated into individual science departments.The logic of a centre dedicated to only one type of animal was always suspect and it was risky to put it in an isolated part of Cambridge where it could be portrayed by activists as a windowless temple of animal torture.'
Jan Creamer, chief executive of the National Anti-Vivisection Society, said: 'We don't believe the claim by Cambridge University that they have withdrawn their plans for security reasons. During the public inquiry they convinced the inspector that security was not an issue that would prevent the Cambridge primate lab from being built. Now, a year later, they have changed their minds.'
In addition, ministers are understood to be seriously considering moving part of the abandoned laboratory's work to the government's top-secret chemical weapons establishment at Porton Down, Wiltshire, a move that will infuriate opponents who argue it allow primate experiments to be carried in total secrecy.
Officials at Porton Down have already begun breeding primates there. One of its key partners was the University of Cambridge.
Internal government documents also indicate production of primates has increased at Porton Down's Defence Science & Technology Division for apparent use at the Cambridge centre. Findings by the animal welfare advisory committee reveal that while hopes of building the Cambridge site remained strong, Porton was 'increasing macaque production in the expectation of increased future experimental demand'.
The new primate breeding facility offers 'state-of-the-art accommodation' and is designed to house 250 macaques with around 100 of these earmarked for experiments a year. 'Their quarters are fine. I would not necessarily want to live in them myself, but as far as they go I think we have very high standards,' said Defence Minister Lewis Moonie in a parliamentary answer.
However, the idea of carrying out primate experiments for civil research aimed at creating life-saving drugs is vigoursly opposed by researchers such as Blakemore. Instead they are preparing to set up 'a distributed centre' which would supply animals as and when scientists require them for neurological research.
