Animal Liberation Front Press Office become desperate

In a pathetic attempt to be noticed, North American Animal Liberation Press Officer (NAALPO), Jason S. Miller, decided to send an email to a group of researchers, research institutions and pro-research groups (including SR).

In an email containing links to typical AR pseudo-science, misinformation and misanthropic philosophy, Jason kindly explained our future:

Your newly formed “vivisector resistance movement,” as exemplified by Speaking of Research and other whoring shills for your cozy little industry, will quickly sink into the moral cesspool over which it is constructed. Your blatant speciesism, torture, murder, and anachronistic scientific practices are doomed to extinction.

Charming. I must confess I almost feel honored that Speaking of Research gets a mention – could it be we’ve hit a nerve? With animal research helping develop the medicines of tomorrow (fighting swine flu, combating HIV and offering hope for DMD patients) it would seem that such methods are far from anachronistic. I also wonder if Miller has ever seen the inside of a lab? Animal welfare is of the highest priority as you can read in our “Why Animal Welfare Matters” blog post. Oh, and what on earth is a “vivisector resistance movement”?

So who is this Jason Miller? Other than a member of NAALPO, an organization which reports on the violent actions of the Animal Liberation Front and the Animal Rights Militia, Miller is the founder of the “anarcho-veganist” website, Thomas Paine’s Corner (TPC):

[TPC] approaches anti-capitalism and total liberation from an essentially anarcho-veganist position, as portrayed in the graphic above by the juxtaposition of the Boy Scout–a victim of one of the indoctrinating mechanisms for our imperialist, patriarchal, faux Christian, corporatist, statist, speciesist society–against the anarchist symbol.

It’s only missing “military industrial complex” and “marxism” to complete the hand (no, wait, there’s sections on the website for both of those…). Miller’s email might also have something to do with us ignoring his last hissy-fit written on TPC. Talking about the UCLA Pro-Test rally:

In that nauseating spectacle the unapologetic monkey-torturer, David Jentsch, and industry shill Tom Holder, the “founder” of Speaking of Research and a “founding member” of Pro-Test in the UK, whipped a crowd of adoring sycophants into a frenzy with a chant calling for animal testing.

Having seen some of Prof. Jentsch’s vervet monkeys I was impressed at the high standards of welfare – as well as the personal care and responsibility that Jentsch felt towards his animals. A far cry from Miller’s claims of “monkey torture”. However Miller falls into the mistaken belief that we could switch to “alternatives” tomorrow:

We have multiple other means by which we can advance our medical and scientific knowledge, including epidemiology, clinical testing, autopsies, biopsies, genetics, post-marketing drug research, computer modeling, tissue cultures, microdosing on human animals, personalized medicine, and nanotechnology

Check the “alternatives” page for scientific a deconstruction of this argument. A few intersting choices in his list – much genetics are  studied in animals, particularly mice, where you can “knock out” a certain gene to see its effect on the animal and thus the phenotype of the gene. Such work offers hope to sufferers of genetic conditions such as Cystic Fibrosis and Duchennes Muscular Dystropy. Biopsies are done on animals except the animal rights movement tends to rebrand it “vivisection”. Personalized medicine is an ideal which will certainly require animal research in its creation. The fact is these methods are complementary on animal research, not alternatives.

Well Jason, I hope you’ve learnt something – and please stop emailing large groups of people to make spurious and misanthropic claims about the research you appear to know so little about.

Regards

Tom Holder