UCSD Doctor Cancels Surgery on Dogs After a Death Threat

San Diego police Wednesday were investigating an anonymous death threat that has forced the chief surgeon for the UC San Diego medical school to cancel a seminar involving surgery on anesthetized dogs.

The cancellation was believed to be the first time any experiment or demonstration using laboratory animals was called off in a California state school because of pressure from animal rights advocates, including the secret Animal Liberation Front, which claimed credit for the Jan. 2 bomb scare at The Broadway department store in Fashion Valley.

Dr. A.R. Moossa, chairman of the UCSD surgery department, was scheduled to teach a seminar at the medical school Tuesday and next Thursday to demonstrate to practicing surgeons how using staples instead of sutures saves time during operations, school spokesman Paul West said.

Moossa’s seminar would have required the use of 36 dogs, all unclaimed and scheduled to be killed at the San Diego County animal shelter, West said. Moossa intended to anesthetize the dogs during the seminar, demonstrate the use of staples, then put the animals to sleep by increasing the anesthetic to fatal levels, West said.

The seminar was canceled, however, after Moossa appeared on KGTV (Channel 10) Monday evening to describe the procedure. An unidentified man immediately called Moossa’s office, warned that the seminar should be aborted and threatened to “put a bullet in his head,” said Sharon Gillespie, the surgeon’s assistant who took the call.

Until then, Gillespie said, Moossa had received no “threats to create bodily harm. We have gotten about half a dozen letters protesting using animals in surgery.”

Lt. Ken Moller, commanding officer of the San Diego Police Department criminal intelligence unit, said Wednesday that officers interviewed Moossa Wednesday but there is little they can do about the threat.

The decision by Moossa to cancel the seminar is believed to be the first time any research or demonstration has been halted in California state schools because of threats about animal research, said Sandra Bressler, executive director of the California Biomedical Research Assn. in Berkeley. Association members include California research, medical and veterinary schools that hope to “educate” the public about the need for laboratory animals.

Bressler said that about 1 million animals are destroyed in shelters around the state each year, and about 1%--or 1,000--are first used in medical experiments or demonstrations.

She said animal rights activists have stolen laboratory animals and sent “hoax” bombs to university researchers, who are becoming increasingly intimidated by the growing militancy of the activists.

Bressler also said she hoped that Moossa’s decision “is not encouraging to the people who do this sort of thing.”

“I can’t say that I blame him,” she added. “Researchers don’t want to be martyrs.”

In San Diego, local animal rights advocates said they were pleased with the decision to halt the demonstration, although they did not condone the death threat that prompted the cancellation.

“We’re sorry the reason for cancellation was what it was,” said Susan Mackler, coordinator of the San Diego chapter of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. “We would have preferred it if UCSD would have been more sympathetic to our views” to limit the use of animals in medical research.