50 Activists Protest Outside Animal Researcher’s Home

About 50 animal-rights activists held a candlelight vigil outside the home of a UC Irvine brain researcher Wednesday night to protest what they alleged was cruelty to animals, a charge a university spokesman denied.

“We feel that the research is scientifically invalid, a waste of taxpayers’ dollars, and cruel to animals,” said Ava Park, founder of a group called Orange County People for Animals, which demonstrated in front of the home of Edward G. Jones, chairman of UCI’s department of anatomy and neurobiology.

While most of the protesters stood silently in a line, holding signs bearing such slogans as “Vivisection: Science Gone Mad,” others distributed leaflets to Jones’ neighbors accusing him, among other things, of cutting the eyes out of monkeys, injecting toxic chemicals into the eyes of monkeys and cats, and bolting the skulls of living animals to restraining devices.

“We’ve targeted Jones,” Park said, “because, all things considered, the types of experiments he does make him the worst vivisectionist at UCI.”

According to a university spokeswoman, Jones was out of the country and unavailable for comment.

But Robert F. Phalen, another UCI professor and a member of the university’s Animal Research Ethics Committee, was on hand to defend his colleague as “a model investigator” whose work with animals is important in understanding functions of the brain related to the treatment of such disorders as Alzheimer’s disease, mental retardation, pain syndrome, addiction and learning disabilities.

“He is one of the best (researchers) we have at UCI,” Phalen said. “The animal research committee knows him as someone who is very sensitive and very skilled in his treatment of animals.”

While some of Jones’ techniques do result in the disfigurement and death of animals, Phalen said, the professor’s experiments are conducted in a painless and humane manner and are completely justified by their applicability to humans.

Park said she had organized the protest to coax Jones into a public debate on the subject of animal experimentation.

“We have tried to contact him repeatedly,” she said, “and he never returns our calls. We hope that this silent vigil will coax him into a debate (that) would let the public decide.”