Medical Research Vs. Animal Rights : Vivisection Foes Set for Major Push

There’s probably more chance that cats will someday empathize with dogs than there is that Judy Stricker, Bill Ferguson and Bob Barker will ever understand the people they have come to view as a heartless and contemptible enemy.

A Costa Mesa housewife, a truck driver from Anaheim and a Hollywood game show host, Stricker, Ferguson and Barker are animal rights activists. For months now they have been gearing up for this week’s spring offensive, which they say may prove to be the biggest battle yet in the increasingly heated guerrilla war between those who are out to protect what they see as the inherent rights of animals and those who defend the rights of scientists to use non-human species for what they consider the greater good of mankind.

As “abolitionists,” Stricker, Ferguson and Barker believe that all animal experimentation must be stopped. Where that viewpoint fits into the enormous spectrum of animal welfare ideology was hinted at during a recent fund-raising brunch for the Society Against Vivisection (SAV), an Orange County organization that has received wide attention in animal rights circles for the aggressiveness of its campaigns.

The 80 or so people attending the brunch represented a cross section of Southern California’s middle class. But the tone of the discussions and the dark, chalet decor of the Costa Mesa restaurant (several hunting trophies had discreetly been removed from the walls), evoked images of the French underground.

As the neatly dressed group polished off the last morsels of a lavish vegetarian spread, a folk singer set the mood. With a Joan Baez-like tremolo so full of passion that one woman fled the room in tears, she sang:

Somewhere in a laboratory, behind locked doors

An innocent one dies, he feels the knife once more

... We can no longer turn away and shut our eyes,

It’s time to hear the animals cry.

We’ve got to free the animals, free them, set them free

The slaughter of the innocent can no longer be ...

While some abolitionists want vivisection stopped because it is, they contend, unethical and inhumane, Stricker and others accept what is known as “the scientific argument” for stopping animal research.

Perhaps the most thorough exploration of this controversial theory is Swiss author Hans Ruesch’s 1978 book “Slaughter of the Innocent,” which many consider the bible of the anti-vivisection movement.

Ruesch argues that the medical community knows full well that most disease and illness can be eliminated simply by changing the way we live--by eliminating smoking, drinking, stress and various environmental factors. But there’s no money to be made in good health, which is one reason why researchers must concoct “fraudulent” research projects Ruesch contends, arguing that ultimately humans are also victims because animal experimentation provides what he believes is fallacious medical information.

Citing articles in various scientific journals, Ruesch documents dozens of projects he feels are worthless and sadistic. “Millions of animals--mainly mice, rats, guinea pigs, hamsters, dogs, cats, rabbits, monkeys, pigs, turtles but also horses, donkeys, goats, birds and fishes--are slowly blinded by acids, submitted to repeated shocks or intermittent submersion, poisoned, inoculated with deadly diseases, disemboweled, frozen to be revived and refrozen, starved or left to die of thirst, in many cases after various glands have been entirely or partially extirpated or the spinal cord has been cut,” he writes.

In February, the congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) released a major report on “Alternatives to Animal Use in Research, Testing, and Education.” About the size of a small phone book, the report states that “an estimated 17 million to 22 million animals (are) used in laboratories annually in the United States,” (animal rights groups put the figure as high as 70 million) and discusses the issues of animal experimentation from every conceivable angle.

One full chapter of the report, for instance, focuses on the complex ethical arguments over animal use. Starting with the the Old Testament viewpoint, which gave man “dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth,” the report examines the issue from a variety of philosophical perspectives, including those of the modern animal rights movement. In the end, however, the OTA report concludes that “. . . when the suffering inflicted on animals is not necessary to satisfy a desirable human objective, the animal interest will prevail. And when the suffering is unavoidable, the human interest will be controlling. Animals are morally entitled to be treated humanely; whether they are entitled to more than that is unclear.”

‘Reformist’ Groups Attacked

The issue is not at all unclear to abolitionists, however.

At the SAV brunch, for instance, Stricker railed against “reformist” groups such as the North Hollywood-based Actors and Others for Animals because, she charged, they have allowed a pending animal welfare bill (AB 3626) by Assemblyman Bill Bradley (R-Escondido) to be “gutted.” (“We’re trying to get reform for animals now--which doesn’t mean we don’t look forward to the day when animal research won’t happen,” a spokesman for Actors and Others for Animals said.)

Even as a girl growing up in Chicago and then Seattle, Stricker, 53, recalls that “animals were the center of my life. . . . I believe that certain human beings are put on this earth just to love and protect animals, just like there are certain human beings put on this earth to protect children . . . ,” she said.

Stricker’s involvement with animals began to grow soon after she moved to Orange County in 1970, she said. She had found a stray dog, and put an ad in the lost-and-found section. A woman called to warn Stricker that people who supply animals to researchers might try to claim the dog. Stricker and the woman became fast friends.

“My life’s been a nightmare ever since,” Stricker said. “I came here to retire and enjoy life. But she introduced me to the world of animal cruelty . . . and my life’s been nothing but a nightmare morning, noon and night. I go to bed with it and wake up with it. I think that all the people who are involved in this work should get together and start a class-action suit against the researchers for ruining our lives.”

‘There’s No Peace’

“I’m dead serious,” Stricker continued, citing broken marriages and nightmares and suicides among animal rights activists she has known. “They can’t have a happy moment no matter what they’re doing. . . . All they can think about is getting back to try and help these animals. There’s no peace. None. . . . It totally ruins your life. It’s worse than having a heroin habit. It just consumes you.”

Stricker created the Society Against Vivisection in 1977. Although she remains vague about the number of active members in the group, its mailing list has grown to about 6,500, she said. Answering a 24-hour hot line, SAV volunteers give advice on low-cost spaying and neutering and respond to reports of injured or abused pets.

But the group’s obvious forte is activism. In 1978 SAV members began demonstrating against the Orange County pound’s policy of supplying animals to research laboratories. When the Board of Supervisors refused to hear their case, Stricker and other volunteers began contacting each of the 26 cities in the county that have contracts with the shelter.

Confronted with Stricker’s relentlessness, first Santa Ana, then Westminster, Anaheim and Costa Mesa drafted statements asking the county shelter not to supply animals picked up in their city to researchers. In 1980, the county Board of Supervisors gave in to the pressure and voted 3 to 2 to adopt a landmark policy against “pound seizure.” The City of Los Angeles followed suit, and now SAV is working with a coalition to end the practice in San Bernardino County, Stricker said.

But such activities are simply not enough anymore, Stricker added. Which is why, she continued, many, if not most, abolitionists openly support the activities of the extraordinarily secretive Animal Liberation Front, a small, militant group which, in the past two years, has broken into laboratories at the University of Pennsylvania, UC Riverside and the City of Hope in Duarte, to “liberate” dogs, cats, monkeys, mice, birds and other animals being used in experiments.

Discusses New ‘Atrocities’

When Stricker identified a large, red-haired woman who had just arrived at the brunch as a member of the Animal Liberation Front, most of the people attending broke into applause. Later, that woman--who said she works with the Animal Liberation Front but has not participated in the actual break-ins--discussed new “atrocities” with a middle-aged animal rights activist from Bellflower.

As they talked about alleged scald research--”They’re throwing dogs into hot boiling water”--about dogs being “drowned and brought back to life,” and about doctors “who sewed up cats’ eyes,” the alleged Liberation Front member’s face began to twitch. “It makes me so mad, I just want to kill them! I want to kill them!” she muttered.

The level of outrage among animal rights activists seems to bear some connection to the exposure they’ve had to the more gruesome material that circulates freely through the convoluted network of animal rights groups. In fact, some of the most effective organizing material, activists say, is the grisly video footage the ALF shot or stole during its break-ins.

In his role as “outreach coordinator” for World Week for Laboratory Animals, Bill Ferguson has been showing those and other videotapes to various animal rights groups.

At 6-foot-5 and 230 pounds, Ferguson, 34, stands out among animal rights activists. On one arm Ferguson sports a tattoo of a dagger dripping blood, on the other, the words “All Power to the People.” In his younger days, Ferguson, a former Marine, hung out with “outlaw biker types” and did a stint bouncing rowdies from a country-Western bar. None of which would seem to offer many clues as to why, just before last Christmas, Ferguson sprayed his hair and beard white, rented a Santa Claus costume and walked through the fur department at Bullocks Wilshire in downtown Los Angeles, advising people that the coats they coveted represented the suffering of animals.

Bothered by Shooting

These days Ferguson exudes pure gentleness. He has a hard time explaining exactly why or when his commitment to animals came about. But he does recall the time when, as a 12-year-old boy, he picked off a rabbit with his grandfather’s .22-caliber rifle.

“I still agonize over that,” he said. “ . . . Maybe that little rabbit had a family back in a hole, and maybe that family died because of my stupid act.”

For a long time, Ferguson’s activism was limited to “the so-called dog-and-kitty thing”--taking pets to the vet for old people and the like, he said. Then, about four years ago, he heard on the radio about a rally in Los Angeles. He attended, was inspired, and began working with several organizations--notably Last Chance for Animals, which he describes as “a nonviolent, civil disobedience, direct-action group.” Before long, Ferguson’s circle of friends began changing. “A lot of my ex-friends are still hunters and fishermen. . . . I just have different values,” he said.

Ferguson lately has been spending his evenings and weekends working out the details of the protests and civil disobedience that will take place this week during World Week for Laboratory Animals--including a “direct action” against a facility at UC Irvine today.

Ferguson expects that he will probably be arrested again, having already gone to jail for his Santa Claus routine and for the time last September when he and cohorts chained themselves to the roof of Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

City of Hope Fined

In the small Anaheim apartment he shares with his activist girlfriend, two rats and five birds, Ferguson has a collection of ALF videotapes. (“I can’t say where I got them,” he said.) One, taken at the City of Hope, shows cages that are clearly unsanitary, dead dogs and puppies that allegedly died in their own feces or froze to death, and animals with tumors induced by researchers. (The U.S. Department of Agriculture later fined the City of Hope $11,000 for various Animal Welfare Act violations.)

In the tape of the UC Riverside break-in, men wearing ski masks pry hinges off doors with crowbars, spray-paint slogans on walls and systematically remove cage after cage of research animals, then toss dozens of “liberated” birds into the air.

The most gruesome tape, however, contains footage shot by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s head injury clinic, which ALF members stole during an October, 1984, raid. Much of this video consists of footage of conscious baboons whose heads are clamped into a machine that suddenly snaps forward to create the sort of brain damage that occurs to humans in automobile accidents. In one sequence, a man, apparently a researcher at the clinic, chuckles as a primate writhes in obvious pain. Edited for maximum impact by the ALF, the video ends with a freeze frame of a young primate being held in the hands of a researcher, its childlike eyes seemingly imploring the viewer to help.

Much less wrenching, but instructive in its way, is a videotape featuring splices of all the news coverage of Ferguson’s arrest as Santa Claus. “We made all the local news stations and ran nationally on CNN,” he said. “It’s the quickest, most effective way of getting our point of view to the people.”

Bob Barker in Movement

The animal rights movement scored a coup on the communications front the day Bob Barker, 62, came aboard. The emcee of “The Price Is Right” and host of the “Miss Universe” pageants, Barker said he became an abolitionist mainly by reading and “thinking it through for myself”--although a videotape in which “a researcher was holding a blowtorch on a live pig” did affect him rather strongly, he said.

Since then, “it’s been said that I’ve become a part-time television host and a full-time animal activist,” Barker added. “I work in the morning on it, I have meetings, interviews and make calls between shows, and I work into the evening on it.”

Despite his wealth of media connections, Barker has found that getting out the anti-vivisection message isn’t easy. For a while he was making regular Saturday morning appearances on KABC radio’s Ken and Bob show to discuss animals. He got canned. Why? “In my opinion, it was pressure from the biomedical community,” he said.

Then, beginning last June, Barker had a regular spot on George Putnam’s show on radio station KIEV. But Barker is currently serving as spokesman for a coalition of 32 animal rights groups that is demanding that the University of Southern California provide better accommodations for the primates they maintain for experimental purposes. Barker contends that after being told by station management of pressure from USC, his on-the-air references to that university were “bleeped out.” “Then I received a letter of dismissal,” he said.

KABC and KIEV each contend that Barker was hired to do a general interest pet show but quickly turned it into an anti-vivisection forum. “He got quite visual about what goes on,” a spokeswoman for KABC said. KIEV’s owner said Barker turned his slot into a “personal crusade,” forcing the station to give equal time to the people at USC and thrusting Putnam’s show much deeper into the animal rights controversy than anyone had intended.

Rescues Bees

A vegetarian who will not even kill insects--”I get bees out of the swimming pool that probably come back and sting me”--Barker said that by no stretch of his imagination could he understand the thinking of researchers. “. . . How a man can sit down at breakfast with his family and say, well, I have to go. I’m going to blind some cats this morning. . . . I think the first thing they must do is completely destroy the sensitivity of anyone who is going into vivisection. They must believe that animals are nothing more than tools. I think they feel about them just as they do the paper clips on their desks. . . .”

His familiar game show voice resonating from the open-beamed ceiling of his mission style Hollywood home, Barker said that he is extremely optimistic about the movement. Dismissing a December, 1985, poll sponsored by the Foundation for Biomedical Research--which showed that 65% of Americans oppose organizations attempting to stop the use of animals in research and testing--he said: “The floodgates are open, and (the abolitionist movement) is just roaring across this nation. We are getting more and more voters all the time, and beyond that we are accumulating more and more money all the time. And we are willing to spend our money.”

He acknowledged, though, that there are more setbacks than successes at this point and said he isn’t surprised that animal rights activists are becoming more militant.

Judy Stricker spoke with even more frankness about what she perceives as a growing impatience within the movement. “. . . Eventually, if we don’t get some strict laws in this country to prohibit all this violence against animals and humans, there’s going to be a hell of a revolution.

“The frustration of it is so overwhelming that we’re all to the point of being driven insane by all of this. And the human mind can only take so much of a beating before it snaps. . . . I’m surprised that (researchers) haven’t been attacked yet. It’s gotten to the point with an awful lot of us throughout this nation where we feel that nothing is going to change unless there is violence.”