The new organisation intends to debunk scientific misinformation wherever it exists. This includes issues surrounding vaccinations (and the myth that it causes Autism), stem cell research and of course the use of animals in biomedical research.

The group provided Speaking of Research with the following message:

“Italy United against Scientific Disinformation” is a mega-project. A very ambitious grass-roots initiative, it is the brain child of two young members of Pro-Test Italia , who worked together to reach out to the community, and found that there are many good people who share their ideals and were willing to join them.

Starting with a budget of zero, and in record time, the project already involves events in several Italian cities and volunteers from all over Italy, with more joining every day.

At the heart of this movement are young science enthusiasts, who are fed up with the way that the Italian public are being manipulated.

Are you fed up with how science is condemned by ordinary people, who prefer to be carried away by phantasmagorical conspiracy theories, despite all the contrary evidence?

If the problem was limited to merely erroneous beliefs it would be tolerable, but in Italy legislative measures are often taken based on mistaken beliefs, so research also suffers many limitations (funding cuts, incorrect regulations and so on). As a result of this we witness daily the phenomenon of brain drain, which afflicts our country severely.

Science is our future. Everything starts with the correct scientific information, but in Italy this is sadly absent from public discourse.

Young people have thus decided to involve their universities and their teachers, to involve associations, to call on the experts, who together will expose the most common misconceptions in this country!

On June 8 we will all unite against misinformation, unite for science, and above all unite for the future of our country.

Giulia and Federico

Contacts: italiaxlascienza@live.com

Events are planned all over Italy

So stand up and be counted in support of science. Such events will no doubt play an important part in the developing public dialogue about how Italian politics and media interact with important scientific issues.

Speaking of Research

A donor egg moments after injection of the skin cell nucleus. Image courtesy OHSU photos

An article on the ONPRC News highlights the importance of research in monkeys to overcoming the barriers that had foiled previous attempts to clone primate cells.

The Mitalipov team’s success in reprogramming human skin cells came through a series of studies in both human and monkey cells. Previous unsuccessful attempts by several labs showed that human egg cells appear to be more fragile than eggs from other species. Therefore, known reprogramming methods stalled before stem cells were produced.

To solve this problem, the OHSU group studied various alternative approaches first developed in monkey cells and then applied to human cells. Through moving findings between monkey cells and human cells, the researchers were able to develop a successful method.

The key to this success was finding a way to prompt egg cells to stay in a state called “metaphase” during the nuclear transfer process. Metaphase is a stage in the cell’s natural division process (meiosis) when genetic material aligns in the middle of the cell before the cell divides. The research team found that chemically maintaining metaphase throughout the transfer process prevented the process from stalling and allowed the cells to develop and produce stem cells.”

While this announcement, coinciding with publication of a scientific paper reporting their work that is published in the prestigious journal Cell (1), was a surprise, the fact that the team was led by Professor Mitalipov was not. Professor Mitalipov is one of the leading experts in reproductive biology, cloning and stem cell biology, and it was only back in March that we discussed how the technique of spindle-chromosomal transfer that he developed to prevent mitochondrial disease had been approved for human trails by the UK’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.

The key publication by Professor Mitalipov and his colleagues was in 2007 (2) when they reported that they has successfully produced two rhesus macaque embryonic stem cell lines through SCNT.  In their 2010 commentary “Cloning of non-human primate: the “road less travelled by” “ Professor Mitalipov and his co-authors describe this study and  subsequent modifications that they made to the SCNT technique to further improve its efficiency in primates. Their many modifications covered changes to the way in which the nuclei of the cells were visualised and manipulated, changes in the conditions under which the donor nucleus and enucleated egg are fused, and precise regulation of the reactivation of the fused cell. One key innovation was the use of the coat protein from the Sendai (HVJ-E) virus to improve the efficiency of cell membrane fusion between the skin cell nucleus and egg cytoplasm while prolonging the activity of a protein called  maturation-promoting factor (MPF) that keeps the egg in the correct cell cycle stage to allow the introduced nucleus to integrate. Avoiding premature activation of cell division in the egg turned out to be even more difficult  in human cells. Initially the technique they had used successfully in macaques failed to yield stable stem cell lines from cloned human cells, and the problem appeared to be that the eggs were still activating too quickly following fusion, but as Professor Robin Lovell-Badge of the MRC National Institute for Medical Research explained to the Science Media Centre earlier today, they were able to make an additional tweak to their method, by adding a shot of caffeine to the mix.

The idea of using caffeine came from previous experiments they had performed with monkey eggs. Caffeine inhibits certain protein phosphatase enzymes that are involved in the degradation of “maturation promoting factor (MPF)”, a factor that is essential for controlling the cell cycle machinery in the egg.”

It is worth noting that they found that while they could produce embryonic stem cell lines using this technique, macaque embryos created using it failed to develop normally when implanted into female macaques, indicating that while this technique is viable for therapeutic cloning it cannot be used for reproductive cloning.

Professor Mitalipov discusses the first macaque stem cells produced through cloning in 2007.

The potential uses for stem cells produced through this therapeutic cloning technique are myriad; the fact that you can take a person’s own adult cells and convert then into pluripotent cells that can differentiate into any cell type makes them ideal for many transplant purposes, ranging from bioengineered replacement tissues to genetically engineered cell transplants to cure inherited disorders, and of course stem cells created from cloned adult cells from people with a wide range of diseases can be used to create a huge range of in vitro disease models to improve our understanding of the biological process at work and hasten the development of new therapies.

Of course there is already another technology that allows scientists to reprogram cells to a pluripotent state, in 2006 induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell technology burst onto the scene and quickly became the methodology of choice for many stem cell researchers, with the first clinical trial in human patients expected to start later this year. Has human therapeutic cloning missed the boat?  In an excellent commentary in Nature News on today’s announcement David Cyranoski points out that there is evidence (from studies comparing  SCNT with iPS cells in mice) that cells produced through SCNT are more completely reprogrammed to an embryonic state than iPS cells. So, it is likely that each technique will have its advantages and disadvantages depending on the goal of the research…and in scientific research it is always a good idea to have more than one horse in the race.

We congratulate Professor Mitalipov and his colleagues at OHSU on another stunning scientific achievement, one that will advance medicine, and no doubt be read about by students for many years to come!

Speaking of Research

(1) Tachibana M. et al. “Human Embryonic Stem Cells Derived by Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer” Cell, published online 15 May 2013 DOI:10.1016/j.cell.2013.05.006

2) Byrne J.A. et al. “Producing primate embryonic stem cells by somatic cell nuclear transfer.” Nature. 2007 Nov 22;450(7169):497-502. PubMed:18004281

Despite many Nobel prizes being awarded to vivisectors, only 45% agree that animal experiments are crucial.

This claim, which is supposed to give the impression that 55% of Nobel Laureates don’t agree with vivisection, is probably the most petty of many misleading claims. However to get to the bottom of this claim we must see the source.

The source for this is the anti-vivisection newsletter VIN (issue 2):
“Andrew Blake of Seriously Ill for Medical Research … wrote to all living Nobel prizewinners [sic] [in Physiology and Medicine]. Of these 71 winners, 39 replied. Of the 39 who replied, 31 (80%) agreed that animal experiments were crucial to their work. This was 45% of total living prizewinners.” [See screenshot of poll]

82% who partook in the questionnaire agreed (or strongly agreed) that animal experimentation was crucial to their work (indeed 32 out of 39). It should be further mentioned that 100% agreed that “animal experiments have been vital to the discovery and development of many advances in physiology and medicine” and 100% agreed that “Animal experiments are still crucial to the investigation and development of many medical treatments”.

SIMR (since closed) is a small group that campaigns in support of medical research. The fact that over half of the Nobel Laureates responded to the questionnaire sent by a small group that almost none had previously heard of is itself testimony to the value they place on animal research.
The methodology of the anti-vivisection analysis suggests that if you walk around a high street and ask 100 people if they prefer Winston Churchill or Adolph Hitler and 0 say Hitler, and 30 say Churchill, and 70 ignore you altogether, then we should assume that only 30% of people prefer Churchill to Hitler. You only ever include those who partake in your survey in your statistics.

We have also spoken about the attempts by activists to suggest that alternatives could fully replace animal research. We have long said that the word “alternatives” is itself misleading, and the phrase “complementary methods” would give a better understanding. Just as hammers, chisels and screwdrivers might complement each other, so too do in vitro methods, computer modelling and animal models. Nonetheless, we have written more detailed explanations on the limits of fMRI and computer simulations in order for people to see that all these methods are used in conjunction, so as to bypass the limitations of any one of them.

Debunking the misinformed bits of science can be difficult. Apparently simple claims often need quite complex answers. Prof. Lovell-Badge wrote a great reply (one of our most popular articles, and well worth reading) to the claim that animal testing is useless because 92% of drugs still fail during clinical trials. On other occasions we have found that apparently complex arguments contain simple errors, such as a claim made by animal rights activist Michael Budkie when he accused scientists of pointlessly duplicating publically funded research – and once again SR debunked the claims (as did the National Institutes of Health days later). Sometimes the claims suffer not from complexity but from oversimplification as with the New York Times piece entitled “Mice Fall Short as Test Subjects for Humans’ Deadly Ills”. This was put through the skeptic looking glass in a guest post by Mark Wanner. Sometimes we also need to deal with more prevalent misunderstandings, perpetuated by animal rights groups, such as when we explained the difference in the terms “animal research” and “animal testing”.

We also regularly investigate the animal rights groups and individuals who involve themselves in spreading these myths – looking at their claims and connections. Most recently we deconstructed the website of a new pseudoscience group – For Life on Earth. In 2012, we debunked the claims made by Stop UBC Animal Research (SUBCAR) about scientists at the University of British Colombia. Occasionally we hit a very raw nerve. After exposing Prof. Stephen Best as a hypocritical animal rights extremist we received legal threats by email. To counter this, we wrote another article backed up with further evidence that showed he was helping to fund the animal rights extremist group, Negotiation is Over.

Of course sometimes we just simplify everything and turn it into a game of bingo. Much more fun.

We are always keen to debunk the claims of the animal rights crank, so make sure you contact us with any new claims you read and we’ll do our best to get to the bottom of the sources. You should also check out the Science Action Network, which aims to combat the misrepresentation of animal research in the media. Follow @ARnonsenseRT on Twitter to get alerts. Together we’ll get over the STORM.

Speaking of Research

There is a new British animal rights group on the scene called “For Life on Earth” or FLOE for short. Founded by Louise Owen, who has worked with both Medical Research Modernisation Committee and Seriously Ill Against Vivisection (both now defunct), the website seems almost an advertising tool for the various writings of Ray Greek and Niall Shanks (There are no shortage of Amazon links on the site and recommendations that you “buy it now”), with typical pseudoscience about how animal research is no longer necessary.

A professionally finished video on the front page (above) informs us that since we don’t take ourselves down the vet, or our pets to a hospital, that “common sense” would suggest research cannot cross species lines. It is worth noting that veterinarians deal with a variety of different species (so much for not crossing species lines), furthermore, the One Health Initiative DOES aim to get greater collaboration between veterinary and human medicine due to their overwhelming similarity. The Zoobiquity website discusses many aspects of the similarity between human and animal treatments.

The video goes on to suggest that personalised medicine offers opportunities for “treatments [that] are tailor made for you and you alone, for your unique genetic makeup”. Again, they negate to note the huge influence  and growing role of animals in personalized medicine (such as the creation of mouse avatars which are injected with a person’s tumour cells so as to find the specific treatments that will work for that person). I also recommend reading our earlier post “When Personalised Medicine and Animal Research Meet”.

The video finishes with the curious phrase:

“We at For Life on Earth present science illustrated by “Animal models in light of evolution””

This makes me wonder if the whole website is not simply a straight marketing tool by Greek and Shanks’ publishers.

Much of the website revolves around Ray Greek’s regular writings (often on “Opposing Views”) that assert that animal models are not predictive. In reply, you should read a great post by Dario Ringach, an excerpt of which can be found below:

Researchers create models of disease in animals by trying to replicate what they believe are the essential components at play. These animal models can then be used to generate predictions for therapeutic interventions, which can then be tested in human clinical trials. If a prediction is falsified, so is that specific animal model of the disease.

When this happens, scientists seek to understand how the data depart from the prediction, what factors were ignored that might play a role, and use prior knowledge and intuition to develop a better, improved model. In the course of developing and refining such a model, scientists will go through many such cycles. A model is expected to be valid if and only if it captures all the key ingredients of the human condition.

The fact that one can postulate inaccurate animal models of human disease does not invalidate the whole methodology of animal research, it merely shows the work is difficult. But animal models can in fact be successful.

So what are the aims of FLOE?

“For Life on Earth is committed to making this level of science debate happen. Our objective is to ensure that such debates are broadcast live on television, via a platform such as BBC’s Newsnight or Question Time, both being suitable for the seriousness of such an important topic, and able to incorporate audience participation.“

It is a common claim among animal rights groups that there is no debate. In Britain, over the last 11 years, there have been four independent enquiries about animal research: House of Lords Select Committee (2002), Animal Procedures Committee (2003), Nuffield Council on Bioethics (2005) and the Weatherall Report (2006). On television there has been one Newsnight debate (below) on the scientific merits of animal research between Michelle Thew (BUAV) and Professor Tipu Aziz. Perhaps Ray Greek is simply frustrated that his fellow anti-viv organisation chose not to put up a scientist, but rather their own CEO. Question Time would not fit FLOE’s vision of a scientific debate; as it is a current issues discussion programme dominated by the 3 partisan political panellists (of 5 total) that rarely discusses scientific issues. An animal research debate would be held in short sound bites, with political panellists trying to get the biggest applause. In terms of other opportunities for debate, Dr Greek himself has debated against scientists like Dr Michael Conn on CNN (contrary to the website’s assertion that such debates have never happened).

“For Life on Earth will focus on the most efficient routes by which to advertise the fact that veterinary principles must not be applied to ill, or critically ill humans. An effective pressure campaign, coordinated with the help of the international community, can then help to ensure that legislative decisions made by governments implement current scientific knowledge.”

This straw man argument suggests that current biomedical methods are based on veterinary principles. While there are some similarities between veterinary and clinical medicine (they both try to make ‘animals’ better), there are also clear differences. Given the overwhelming majority of scientists are in support of animal-based research, perhaps FLOE should not be so confident about explaining what “current scientific knowledge” entails. Modern animal research remains at the cutting edge of scientific discovery.

Wait, who are FLOE again?

Well this is where things get interesting. FLOE is registered to a virtual London address through the company British Monomarks. This is not remarkable in itself, until you discover the host of other animal rights organisations that also use this same company for a virtual mailing address.

FLOE are in the company of the Animal Liberation Front Press Office and Supporters Group (offering support to jailed animal rights extremists). They also share their address with the Gateway to Hell campaigns and SHAC – who have a long history of animal rights extremists in their ranks. One wonders what individual connections draw these same organisations to use the same virtual address company.

Overall, For Life on Earth shows all the signs of being another antivivisection, pseudoscientific organisation. I guess it’s another excuse to get out the Animal Rights Bingo.

Speaking of Research

Addenum 13th May 2013

FLOE have removed the address from their website since this article was posted. Click the image below to see a cached version of the website for evidence.

Sign Now

After the terrible break in at the University of Milan by animal rights extremists, the Basel Declaration sent out an email where they said:

In discussion with Prof. Francesco Clementi, a signatory of the Basel Declaration and renowned pharmacologist whose research was devastated by the attack,  we have decided to ask you to join us in an international call for solidarity to strongly condemn these violent and extremist acts against researchers and their animals.

Therefore, we now ask you to show your solidarity with the Italian colleagues, whose research has been so badly hurt at this time. What happened in Milan, can happen anywhere anytime if we do not stop it! In democratic societies, we can no longer accept extremist acts against researchers devoted to basic and medical research, which is key to finding cures and/or better treatments for the many still devastating and deadly diseases.  We need to send a very strong message to the extremists, but also to politicians, lawmakers and law enforcement officials that unfortunately do not always act forceful enough to prevent and/or interfere with such extremist acts.

So, we urge everyone to share this petition on Facebook and Twitter:

Facebook share: https://www.facebook.com/SpeakingofResearch/posts/527048730671317

Twitter retweet: https://twitter.com/SpeakofResearch/status/328835598737633280

This news comes as Pro-Test Italia announce that they will be holding a demonstration in support of medical research using animals, and against animal rights extremism, on Saturday 1st June 2013. It will start at 3pm by Via Mercanti in Milan (more details on Facebook).

They’re Pro-Test. Are you?

We urge all scientists and members of the public in and around Milan to join this rally. We hope it may mark a turning point in the way that animal research is explained in the Italian media after a string of bad publicity.

Speaking of Research

Earlier this week Lyxumia (generic name Lixisenatide), a new drug that helps to control type II diabetes, was launched in the UK. In addition to being an effective and saft therapy for type II diabeted, including in some patients that do not respond to current first-line therapies, Lyxumia is relatively inexpensive when compared to current therapies for type II diabetes, which will help to save the health services money that can be invested in other therapies.

Lyxumia belongs to a new class of drugs known as the glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists that work by increasing the secretion of insulin in response to consumption of food, and is administered by a once daily injection.That animal research played a key role in the development of the glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists for treating diabetes should not be a surprise, but when I took a quick look at the paper (1) reporting the preclinical development of Lyxumia (them called ZP10A)  I got a surprise.

The low half-life of native GLP-1 (90-120 s) (Deacon et al., 1995; Egan et al., 2003) has led to extensive research to find new compounds with pharmakokinetic properties suitable for development of a drug candidate. Exendin-4 was first isolated from the salivary gland of the Gila monster (Heloderma suspectum), and characterization showed that the peptide was structurally related to, but distinct from GLP-1 with a sequence homology of only 52%. Further characterization of exendin-4 showed that the peptide is a potent agonist for the mammalian GLP-1 receptor  with a longer in vivo half-life and prolonged duration of action compared with GLP-1 (Raufman et al., 1992; Young et al., 1999). Recent studies have shown that administration of exendin-4 induces pancreatic endocrine differentiation, islet proliferation and an increase in β-cell mass (Edvell and Lindström, 1999; Xu et al., 1999), indicating that exendin-4 may exert insulinotropic effects on the β-cells (Greig et al., 1999; Parkes et al., 2001).

Yes, you read it correctly, the development of effective GLP-1 receptor agonists started with a discovery made by a scientist studying venom peptides found in the the saliva of a large lizard!

The Gila monster – an unlikely ally in the fight against diabetes. Image courtesy of Jeff Servoss

This should actually not come as so much of a surprise, venom is an incredibly rich source of bioactive molecules, and scientists around the world are studying the venom of a bewildering array of animals in order to identify everything from better painkillers to therapies for Parkinson’s disease. Recently EU recognized the value of such research by setting up the VENOMICS project to provide tools and resources to the scientists engaged in it.

On the basis of these very promising results ZP10A underwent further preclinical evaluation in collaboration with Sanofi-Aventis before entering into successful clinical trials.

The availability of a new and cost effective therapy to help people to manage type-2 diabetes is very welcome, but the story of the development of the Glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists reminds us that new therapies can lurk in the most unlikely – and indeed most unpleasant – places!

Paul Browne

Dear friends, colleagues and everybody in support of biomedical and basic research,

on Saturday April  20, 2013, a research animal facility of  the University of Milano and the National Institute of Neurosciences got devastated by animal rights extremists. Mice requiring special care were abducted and a large number of invaluable and long-term experiments to study neurological diseases for which no cures exist such as Autism, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and others were destroyed due to these senseless acts.

In discussion with Prof. Francesco Clementi, a signatory of the Basel Declaration and renowned pharmacologist whose research was devastated by the attack,  we have decided to ask you to join us in an international call for solidarity to strongly condemn these violent and extremist acts against researchers and their animals.

Therefore, we now ask you to show your solidarity with the Italian colleagues, whose research has been so badly hurt at this time. What happened in Milan, can happen anywhere anytime if we do not stop it! In democratic societies, we can no longer accept extremist acts against researchers devoted to basic and medical research, which is key to finding cures and/or better treatments for the many still devastating and deadly diseases.  We need to send a very strong message to the extremists, but also to politicians, lawmakers and law enforcement officials that unfortunately do not always act forceful enough to prevent and/or interfere with such extremist acts.

Our colleagues in Milano deserve your support as they are part of the large academic researcher community that devotes enormous efforts and time, often at personal expense, to gain an understanding of the disease mechanisms and find ways to interfere with or even cure them. Their research is key to continue to improve health care for us, our children and the generations to come.

As we are a 100% grass-root organization, we critically depend on your forwarding this email to your friends and colleagues and asking them to pledge their support as well.  Simply ask them to go to  http://www.basel-declaration.org/call-for-solidarity/  and sign!

I would like to thank you for your support and forwarding this email to others!

Very best regards,

ROLF ZELLER
Prof. Rolf Zeller
President of the Basel Declaration Society

SIGN THE BASEL DECLARATION AND JOIN ITS SOCIETY TO ENDORSE ETHICALLY RESPONSIBLE ANIMAL RESEARCH: http://www.basel-declaration.org

Speaking of Research is saddened to learn about Harvard’s decision to wind down operations at the New England Primate Research Center (NEPRC) within the next two years.

Over the years the Primate Center has contributed important discoveries in many fields, including AIDS, Parkinson’s disease, primate retroviruses, addiction, cardiology and stem cells.

The University cited difficult financial times and shifting long-term strategic plans as the reason for the closing.  Meanwhile animal right activists groups fought among themselves to take credit for Harvard’s decision.

Perhaps a combination of both, the planned closure is a reflection of decreasing Federal support for medical research and a growing anti-scientific movement in the United States and elsewhere.

In Harvard’s decision one can find many lessons for the scientific community, NIH and the public at large, which are likely to be the subject of debate and discussion in the near future. The wider research community will need work together with faculty and staff at NEPRC to ensure that Harvard Medical school keeps to its commitment to provide full support to them during this transition, so that vital research programs and gifted personnel are not lost to science.

For now Speaking of Research join others in expressing our surprise and disappointment at these developments, and offer our support for the scientists, staff and others affected by these events.

Speaking of Research

While the UK has locked up the worst extremists (and those who have since been released have been under strict control orders (ASBOs) to prevent them from causing further trouble), the rest of Europe has not been as effective at tackling these problems. Furthermore, scientists in the UK have worked hard to explain the importance of the research they do to the British public, resulting in regular mentions of animal research within science-based stories (e.g. on potential medical breakthroughs). The Pro-Test movement in Oxford, UK, also did much to push the important contribution of biomedical research into the media spotlight.

In February activists began to campaign against AstraZeneca to release dogs being moved from a Swedish facility to a British one. The pharmaceutical agreed to rehome 80 dogs after approval from the veterinarian, however the remainder were considered important to continued medical research efforts. If AZ were to release the remaining animals, it would only require them to breed more later, negating any possible welfare benefit. Nonetheless activists tracked the shipment, protesting at both the departing flight and arrival hours later. This shows signs of increasing international cooperation between animal rights groups.

Elsewhere, five activists broke into a breeding facility in the Netherlands and stole six of their dogs. The activists promptly turned themselves into the police, but we must be concerned by this new found confidence in breaking the law by European activists.

The pressure on airlines also continues, with Vietnam Airlines joining the large number of airlines that publicly refuse to transport animals for research. This pressure has tended to be a mix of “mass communication” (emails, tweets, FB messages, letters) and office protests – activists were at the London office of Vietnam airlines only days before they caved.

However, it is in Italy where there is most concern.

In April 2012, activists stormed the Marshall Green Hill beagle breeding facility and “liberated” dozens of beagles – handing them over the fence as the police did little more than watch.

In March 2013, activists blockaded the transport of 8 beagles to an Italian pharmaceutical, Menarini. Menarini caved and decided to give away the eight beagles in hope of placating the activists. Clearly all this does is show the activists that if they keep pushing the boundaries of legal activism, they will get what they want.

In April 2013, during World Week for Animals in Laboratories, activists broke into the University of Milan’s animal labs (hundreds more protested outside). They purposely mixed up the records of the animals, effectively destroying much of the research being done on psychiatric diseases. Activists chained themselves to emergency exit doors, and demanded the release of the animals, occupying the facility for 12 hours. Incredibly, the University caved – they agreed to give almost 100 of the animals over (mice and rabbits) then and there, and promised to negotiate the release of hundreds more (though the Rector of the University has since released a public statement saying that there is no agreement with the extremists, that no more animals will be handed over, and that the University will be taking the extremists to court and seeking damages).

All of this comes under a backdrop of poor policing of protests, and a legal system and media which seems hell bent at turning its back on science.

A Silver Lining?

There are glimmers of hope. Our previous post mentioned the scientists and researchers who are standing up against extremism in Italy. Around 60 people rallied under the banner of Pro-Test Italia, the third such movement to appear around the world (after the original Pro-Test in Oxford, and Pro-Test for Science in California. Pro-Test Italia stood in defence of important research using animals. As Italian researchers say enough is enough, there is a real chance that the balance of the animal research debate can be redressed. Hopefully more people will now begin to speak up about why animals are used – without this, there is little hope of changing the mind of the Italian public.

Speaking of Research

Scientists take to the streets of Milan!

On Saturday the 20th of April, a national rally against “vivisection” took place in Milan, with about 200 people participating. Just before the rally’s beginning, 5 animal rights activists posted on the “Coordinamento Fermare Green Hill” (Coordination to stop Green Hill) Facebook page announcing that they had forced entry inside the Pharmacology Department of Milan’s University. Those activists barricaded themselves inside the animal facilities, tying chains both around their necks and around the doors’ handles to prevent police from breaking in.

They demanded that every animal in the facilities should be released in their hands – about a thousand rats and seventeen rabbits; meanwhile they removed the animals’ tags, rendering them effectively useless and throwing away years of research about Parkinson’s, Multiple sclerosis, autism and such. In an effort to prevent injuries to the people involved, the director of the department started negotiations that ended with the release of the activists from the department. The activists got to take away with them about a hundred mice and rats and a rabbit, with the promise that even more animals released into their hands in the following days. Of course at that point the animals were already useless for research.

Meanwhile, the “anti-vivisection” rally reached the building, and started throwing names at the researchers, calling them “Killers” and “Monsters”.

CNR Researchers in an open letter speak of serious damages. “It’s hard to quantify the damage, but it will be in the order of hundreds of thousands of euros, and goes far beyond the removal of some animals because the activists removed tags from all of the cages: we cannot identify the animals any more, which means years of research have been thrown away, along with the funding.”

Bice Chini, researcher at the CNR Institute of Neuroscience, explained during an interview with La Repubblica why the damage isn’t only monetary.

Everyone expecting new remedies and cures for serious, deadly diseases, has been damaged. Years of studies have been lost, we are unable to determine the consequences this will have on research, namely how much it will be slowed down.”

Some of the animals that activists took away are genetically modified, and are precious models for some degenerative genetic diseases; researchers were hoping to observe these animals and understand the causes and workings of these pathologies, in order to create new treatments. “Sometimes years are needed to select the right animals to observe a specific disease’s development” says Francesco Scaglione, Pharmacology professor in Milan State University, during an interview with TV news La7 Cronache “When animals are studied, there is no useless suffering, and when they have to be euthanised, we always use anesthesia.”

This time the Italian scientific community raised its head. On Saturday afternoon our association, Pro-Test Italia, with help from the organization Federfauna - which supports the interests of people who work with animals - and the Facebook page “A Favore Della Sperimentazione Animale“, managed to get authority’s permission for a peaceful rally on Sunday morning in Milan. About 60 people, mostly students and young researchers, took part in the rally, wearing white coats and carrying banners in support of science and against bullying, ignorance and misinformation..

The first objective of the rally was information: participants were good mannered, never stooping down to insults, and explained to passers by why animal research is important and what makes this latest action by animal rights activists so despicable. A small group of said activists tried to disturb the peaceful rally, but with no success.

Our friends from OMG! Science, took part in the rally with us: they interviewed passers by many of whom did understand the gravity of Saturday’s actions by animal rights activists.

Our rally was reported both on a local (TG3 Regione) and national TV News (Tg1, La7 Cronache), and many leading Italian newspapers and press agencies also spoke of these events, including Corriere della Sera,  La Repubblica, ANSA, La Stampa, Il Giornale and  Il Giorno. What has also been striking over the past few days is the volume of messages of support that we have received, and the many new likes on our FaceBook page, all of which shows how many Italians were waiting for somebody to stand up to animal rights extremism.

The biggest animal rights associations in Italy (such as LAV, ENPA, LeIDA) said nothing about Saturday’s activists crimes, and it’s not the first time they avoid condemning such acts. We can only wonder why.

Sunday was something of a milestone: for the first time members of the Italian scientific community took action against animal rights activists’ violence and criminal behavior, and we took part in our very first rally. We look at these brave young scientists and students with trust and expectation, hoping that things will now really start to change.

Pro-Test Italia

Update 13.55 BST, 23 April 2013- The Rector of the University of Milan has stated that there is no agreement between the University and the animal rights extremists, and that no more animals will be handed over to them by the depatement. This is welcome but not entirely surprising as to do so would violate animal welfare regulations – especially those governing the care of genetically modified animals.

Addendum: Pro-Test Italia have informed us that they will be holding another rally in Milan on Saturday June 1st, you can find the details on FaceBook!