Anti-Vivisectionists Chain Themselves to UCI Door; 10 Cited

UC Irvine police arrested 10 animal rights activists who chained themselves to a door of the university’s medical sciences complex Thursday to protest the use of animals in research.

The protest was in conjunction with demonstrations against animal research nationwide, and about 160 people, including those at UC Irvine, were arrested on college campuses in the county. The California demonstrations resulted in 48 arrests at UCLA, 8 at USC, and 5 at UC San Diego. No violence was reported at any campus.

At UCI, about 40 animal-research protesters waved placards and chanted, “Open up the lab doors, what are you trying to hide?” Ten of the demonstrators were chained to a door until police snapped the chain with bolt cutters and took the protesters into custody on misdemeanor trespassing charges. They were issued citations and ordered not to return to the Irvine campus for 72 hours.

The demonstration by members of the April 24 Coalition was one of 22 today on campuses across the country, said Gary Crandall, a group spokesman. About 800 people took part in the protests.

At UCI, protesters with bullhorns called out four demands they said they had presented to school administrators, including an agreement by the university to negotiate for the eventual phase-out of all animal experimentation.

Inspections Sought

The protesters also demanded unannounced inspections of laboratories by professionals of their choosing, an end to the use of pound animals for research and an agreement that students be allowed to refuse to dissect animals in class.

Bill Ferguson, 34, an Anaheim truck driver who led those who chained themselves to a building door, said, “One of the vivariums, where they keep the animals (for research), is in this building, and they do a lot senseless animal experiments here.”

About 21,000 animals--predominantly rodents--are kept at UCI for use in a variety of medical research experiments, said Kathy Jones, a spokeswoman for the university. Animal experimentation at UCI is done by researchers searching for cures or treatments for cancer, diabetes, heart disease and multiple sclerosis, among other diseases, she said.

The use of animals at UCI is overseen by internal review boards and the National Institutes of Health. The U.S. Department of Agriculture was also on campus Wednesday making one of its required biannual inspections, Jones said, adding that UCI has never been fined or had funding revoked for violations of animal care guidelines.

Many demonstrators said they believe that animal research is not only unnecessary but also responsible for a wide variety of human ailments because, they contend, the experiments provide fallacious results.

“Animal research has had a widespread and negative effect on human health,” said Beau Palmer, 22, a music student from Costa Mesa who was arrested for chaining himself to a building door. “Just look at the facts, the cancer rate is up, diabetes is up, heart disease is up. . . . “

As police, reporters, and university officials milled about, protesters taunted several medical and biology students peering out a window with shouts of “Butchers,” “Quacks,” and “Sadists.”

Researchers Observe

Across a small quad, a handful of researchers watched quietly.

“It’s ludicrous,” said Chuck Lambert, referring to the protesters’ charge that animal research is “scientific fraud,” and can’t be applied to human ailments.

Lambert, who is a graduate student in environmental toxicology, said he uses rats in experiments to test potential carcinogens. “The animal research we do is easily extrapolated (to humans),” he said. “But in our type of research, we need to sacrifice the animal, so it’s not something we can do on a person.” Echoing the remarks of other researchers on campus, Lambert said that the incidence of many diseases has increased simply because people live longer.

“I have animals, and I understand being interested in their welfare,” said Harley Kornblum, a UCI medical student. “No one in this field enjoys doing anything bad to animals . . . But we’ve made a decision in this society that we’re interested in the study of disease, and you can’t do that without animal research.”

Times staff writer Jerry Belcher in Los Angeles contributed to this story.