AMA Beefs Up S.D. Security Against Animal-Rights Forces

The American Medical Assn. is planning unprecedented security at its workshop in San Diego next week designed to recruit physicians to counter animal-rights groups, coordinators said Wednesday.

The workshop, one of 15 to be held across the nation, is the first one in California and the first one to have drawn the ire of animal-rights activists who are circulating flyers announcing a demonstration.

Earlier this year, the AMA launched the workshops as a counterattack on the activists who have bombed labs and harassed researchers. In these workshops, researchers learn how to protect themselves from angry anti-vivisectionists and fight against strategies used by animal-rights groups.

The first three one-day workshops in New York, Atlanta and Seattle came off without any hitch. But AMA officials say they have been alerted that the one being held Tuesday at a downtown hotel may draw as many as 200 protesters.

“It’s an indication to us that maybe we are making some inroads--that they recognize that the AMA is perhaps a threat,” said Jerod M. Loeb, assistant vice president of science and technology with the AMA and coordinator of the workshops.

Loeb, in fact, is named on a current flyer being circulated by the San Diego Animal Advocates that announces the demonstration planned to take place Tuesday outside the AMA meeting, which is also sponsored by UC San Diego, and the state and county medical organizations.

“Jerod Loeb and the AMA are bringing their deceptions to San Diego. Let’s not return to McCarthyism. The truth must be heard--but we must speak out,” the flyer says.

Sally Mackler, director of the San Diego Animal Advocates, denounced the group’s meeting, saying it was “engaged in a smear campaign to discredit animal activists and the validity of their position.”

Mackler said she found it particularly irksome that doctors who attend the seminar will receive a continuing education credit for what she views as a “strictly political event.”

In the current climate of harassment, the AMA takes all threats of protest quite seriously, especially because the group believes the workshops are attracting more and more attention, said Dr. M. Roy Schwarz, AMA senior vice president.

In fact, security concerns have prompted the AMA to hold off informing participants until one week before the actual event, Schwarz said.

After the group’s first workshop was held in New York, one of the speakers--Sharon L. Juliano--flew to her Washington home and discovered picketers on her lawn who referred to her AMA speech given earlier in the day, Schwarz said.

“In San Diego, we are planning for the worst,” said Schwarz, who declined to elaborate. “We don’t take any of this lightly.” Indeed, the workshop--for both sides--seems to signal an escalating battle that’s drawing increasing numbers and attention to proponents and opponents of animal research. And, to wage the war, both sides have stepped up their defenses in recent months.

At UCSD medical school, the academic senate adopted a resolution earlier this month to support scientists conducting animal research, formed a high-level advisory committee to address the issue and established a speaker’s bureau of faculty and graduate students.

“There’s enough of us who have become alarmed about what they (animal rights groups) are doing and the long-term consequences of their agenda,” said Pat Cleveland, an associate adjunct professor of ophthalmology and president of the San Diego chapter of Coalition for Animals and Animal Research.

If scientists cease using animals for research, he maintains, “people are going to suffer and people are going to die. We are a tolerant society, but enough is enough--we can no longer tolerate raids destroying equipment and data, and frightening scientists.”

Cleveland and AMA officials are also concerned about a new twist in the opposition’s tactics. Recent flyers have listed individuals by name and describe their purported work.

But animal advocates maintain that almost all is fair in such a war.

“I think the opposition has become more aware of the fact that the animal-rights movement is becoming more powerful and gaining popularity--and they have stepped up their attempts to draw more colleagues,” Mackler said.

“This is a perfect example--the AMA is soliciting medical professionals to become involved in a very political, controversial and emotional issue.”