96 Arrested at Cedars-Sinai Center in Protest of Animal Experiments

Ninety-six anti-vivisection protesters were arrested for trespassing Monday after an estimated 250 people demonstrated against what they called inhumane and unscientific animal experiments at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

A spokesman for the medical center said the protesters’ chanting and blocking of employees’ access was somewhat disruptive to normal operations. He also said that demands that Cedars-Sinai stop using animals in its research were rejected.

The arrests were carried out smoothly, with demonstrators cooperating with police as fellow protesters cheered them on with calls of “God bless you!” Those arrested were expected to be released on their own recognizance or bailed out shortly after booking. Each carried $100 cash to pay for his bond, a spokesman said. There were two minor scuffles reported between protesters and workers in Cedars-Sinai’s Halper Research Laboratory in the 8700 block of Beverly Boulevard.

No one was injured, although a volunteer lab worker said she was “backhanded in the eye” when she tried to cross the picket line.

“I work in there,” said the young woman, who declined to give her name. “I know that cruelty to animals goes on in some places, but not here--they are barking up the wrong tree.” The protest, the second this year at the medical center, was sponsored by Last Chance for Animals and SUPRESS--Students United Protesting Research on Sentient Subjects.

The founder-director of SUPRESS, Javier Burgos, claimed that the use of animals in medical research “is killing people” because animals are “totally different” from humans and therefore results of vivisection are not only unscientific but harmful.

A director of Last Chance for Animals, Mary McDonald Lewis, said that about 400 to 500 dogs are purchased annually by Cedars-Sinai from the San Bernardino City Animal Shelter.

The two groups made three demands of Cedars-Sinai:

- A series of televised debates on the subject of vivisection.

- Immediate access to the laboratory to film and photograph conditions there.

- An immediate end to the use of pets purchased from animal shelters or private dealers for research or teaching purposes.

“We listened to their demands,” said Ron Wise, spokesman for Cedars-Sinai. “But their basic demand that no animals be used in research we reject. . . . For them to say it has no scientific value just defies reality. . . . The claim that it is entirely without benefit to humans is patently untrue.”

Wilshire Division Police Capt. Martin Pomeroy praised the demonstrators for the orderly manner in which they submitted to arrest, but said that because of the number of police officers needed at the protest there were longer than usual delays on responses to non-emergency calls from citizens.