Mock Funeral Staged at UCSD : Animal Rights Advocates Protest

Concentrating their efforts in Southern California, nearly 800 animal rights advocates established peaceful blockades of university research centers and laboratories across the nation Thursday, demanding an end to experiments on animals that they claim are “cruel, ridiculous and unnecessary.”

At least 162 people--few if any of them students--were arrested, including 48 at UCLA, 8 at USC, 10 at UC Irvine and 5 at UC San Diego.

In San Diego, about 30 protesters held a mock funeral procession at UC San Diego Medical Center to “mourn the suffering and exploitation” of animals used in research experiments.

Five members of the group then tried to enter a research laboratory on the grounds and were arrested for trespassing.

The protesters were demanding that they be allowed unannounced access to university research facilities and that they be allowed to participate on the university’s research review committee.

“We want accountability and accessibility,” said Steve Kowit, a professor of literature at San Diego State University and the spokesman for the group. “Animal studies are notoriously inadequate and give misleading results. We believe billions are wasted in fraudulent research.”

Caroline Bear, a UC San Diego spokeswoman, said that the university had an open-door policy in allowing access to research labs until about a year ago.

“We did allow it but some of the scientists began receiving death threats,” Bear said. “Their families have been threatened. We can’t operate in an open environment when people are being threatened.”

There were no reports of violence or resistance, although demonstrators chained themselves to laboratory doors at UC Irvine and the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

The arrests came just one day after 25 anti-apartheid protesters were arrested and scuffling broke out at UCLA when they occupied an administration building.

Thursday’s demonstrations were organized by the April 24th Coalition, which spokeswoman Margo Tannenbaum said represents 33 animal rights groups with combined memberships of 1 million. Tannenbaum, a longtime animal rights advocate from San Bernardino, took part in, but was not arrested at, the UCLA demonstration.

“I would consider today very successful for the first national attempt. . . . This was the first time almost all animal rights groups have joined forces to demand access to the laboratories and evaluate whether their treatment is humane,” she said.

“All of it (animal experimentation) is unnecessary . . . bad science. There are many viable alternatives that will bring better results at less expense . . . cell cultures, computer models, work on human cells.”

But Albert Barber, vice chancellor for research at UCLA, said the turnout of demonstrators was not very large considering the effort the animal rights groups had put into it. And, he said, “We do not do research on animals that result in a lot of pain.”

“Although I have some sympathy for their concerns,” Barber said, the demand that all animal research be halted “is nonsense. . . . We cannot deliver our mission of medical research unless animals are used for certain kinds of work. There just is no other way.”

At UC Irvine, Joy Yonkman, 32, a nurse from Long Beach, said: “If I got cancer, I would not want my cure to come this way (through experiments on animals). I’d rather die from my cancer.”

Robert C. Benedict, USC’s assistant vice president for health affairs, called the laboratories on his campus models of humane treatment of animals, but he noted that there are some kinds of research that cannot be done except by using animals. The use of animals has dropped substantially in the last five years, he said, but “for the rest of the century, animal models will have to be used. . . . Ninety percent are from the rodent family.”

He said the demonstration at USC “was very peaceful except that it also was thoughtless. . . . It was right near the Kenneth Norris Jr. Cancer Hospital, where there are some very sick patients. I told them that. That’s why they were arrested for disturbing the peace in a hospital zone.”

The underground Animal Liberation Front has raided and vandalized research facilities across the nation.