Bomb threats, vandalism, razor blades concealed in envelopes and kidnapping attempts on his three daughters have become increasingly common for Colin Blakemore.
The director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at England's Oxford Medical School has been targeted by extremist animal rights groups because he advocates and performs research that involves experimentation on such animals as rats, mice, cats and monkeys.
Although extremist activist groups have become particularly prevalent in England, the topic of animal testing remains sensitive for even the most moderate of animal rights activists and the most careful of researchers in the United States. And as members of the scientific community at large continue to perform medical tests on a variety of animals, the issue has become particularly pertinent to the University medical community as well.
Blakemore-whose most recent research involves tiny fragments of brain tissue from rodent embryos that help him learn about genetic disorders of the brain-said the animal testing that occurs in a university setting is "crucially important" for major medical advancements.
"If you were to lose that biomedical research that goes on at universities," he said, "you would lose an opportunity for major breakthroughs."
Furthermore, animal research at Duke is entirely regulated and is therefore not very controversial, said Richard Rahija, director of the Division of Animal Laboratory Resources.
Rahija, whose oversees the University's animal care program and supervises the technical staff that cares for the animals, said that both federal and University inspections ensure that animals are not abused. "Any animal that is put into a testing program is humanely euthanized," he said.
Some, however, remain skeptical as to whether animal research is a necessity or an ethical problem.
Allison Green, coordinator of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' college action campaign, said, "Animals can be burned, poisoned, shot, cut open.... Testing is inherently cruel, [and] even if the experiment does not cause extreme pain, captivity itself is a problem."
In addition, Green said that animal testing does not often translate into benefits for humans.
However, many scientists inside and outside the University community said there are many benefits to research.
Karen Hoffman, president of the North Carolina Association for Biomedical Research, notes that various species of animals are important for different research studies. Dogs, she said, are used for hemophilia research, cats for vision research and rodents for cancer research. "The medical science community feels that research is part of the high calling for the betterment of human kind," she said.
Rahija said that those who are not personally touched by the issue may not see the benefits of animal research. "Go through the pediatric neurooncology ward, and see kids under the age of 10 [with cancer]," he said. "Ask them what it would mean to extend their life for one or two years [because of animal testing]."
Regardless, Green remains firm in her belief that animal testing inevitably leads to animal cruelty. Although often she receives comments that testing would help her father, who suffers from cancer, Green said that mentality makes her angrier.
"It's a false equation," she said. "People who make a living experimenting on animals like to make it seem like it's a choice between a child and a rat."
Although Duke does not have an animal activist group, students at both the University of North Carolina at Asheville and Guilford College in Greensboro are developing organizations that challenge the ethical nature of research testing.
"Animal testing and animal rights pertain strongly to students on a college level," said Hannah Elliott, a freshman at Guilford who plans to start such a group. "It is important that... [students] are exposed and informed, [and the issue] gets students putting it on the same level as other social or political causes."
Dr. Warren Strittmatter, chief of the division of neurology, said he can understand that there could be concerns about animal testing. "But there really is no other way to study disease mechanisms at this level than to study animal models," said Strittmatter, who uses laboratory mice to test the effects of the gene apolipoprotein E, which plays a role in Alzheimer's disease.
Professor of Neurobiology Bill Hall agreed that animal testing is often the only way to garner accurate results. "Essentially every medicine and surgical procedure is developed through research in animals-the general biology [of animals and humans] is pretty darn similar," he said.
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