Three weeks of absolute craziness, with the mainstream going rather mad on anything anti-vivisection, rumours that the army were going to be brought in (ha - as if that would help!) to protect the labs and phenomenal interest generated in the campaign. Given the hysteria, one cannot help but feel that the vivisectors are definitely on the run!

Going down to the building site and hearing it dead silent for the third week in a row was blissful - it must be really playing havock with the University's schedules for the coming years already

Several more contractors have confirmed they are also pulling out, including Lawtons BES and HTC Plant (who are in the process of removing the crane on site).

A big thanks to everyone who has helped us reach this amazing position. The pressure will be kept on Oxford Uni, including the weekly demos on Thursday at the lab building site.

SPEAK Campaigns

...western 'human beings' that is. How fucking dare you judge (to quote roy hattersley, labour party commentator in the Guardian) that "(of course) a human life is worth a puppy's pain". Evil arrogant dodge occultist cunts.

Your system, your way of life, your culture, your way of thinking, your karma ....

is terminally FUCKED egoising fascist arrogant western filth.

christian system is-a vam-pie-er

Jah Rastafar-I

King Amdo.

Oh by the way, despite the fact that 'we' will win the game in the end 'cos right is on our side, I don't think the the 'ALF' game is good tactic. Because all that 'we' are are concerned human beings not some sort of shadowy military style terrorist organisation...so why on earth give 'them' the chance, the initial grounds, for painting the situation as such. Just because rommie lee started this idea doesn't mean that we have to copy the silly cont. After all, back then wasn't the idiot sitched up by the special branch with a shotgun? (Let's switch off our perception, sus, and awareness 'for the animals' (sick) Huh?).

Grow up.

Blessed be,

Allah Akbar,

King Amdo.

(Oh and by the way animal rights obsessives, the Makah whale hunt is a tribal give away hunt)

Blessed be,

King Amdo

I am personally touched by this debate. My mother is dying of a rare degenerative brain condition. It's too late for her, but if research can continue thousands more like her (and maybe me) will be able to live. There is NO alternative to animal testing for neurological and brain research. There simply isn't that is a fact. I am aware of the search for alternatives, and currently they aren't even looking into a possible replacement for this, we simply don't know enough about the brain. By the time they DID find an alternative, we'd know enough to have solved all these problems anyway. The only way they'd get to that level is through extensive animal testing.

The life of an animal in research (I have a good friend involved in Alzheimer's researc, so I know) is fairly pain free. Little vivisection actually goes on, rigorous standards ensure animal welfare (I've heard the scare stories, they are not indicative of general standards of animal care in research facilities around the country), and when the animals are killed, it is done in a humane and painless way.

If you really want to end animal cruelty, why not start with abattoirs? This amazes me really. I've not heard of one protest outside an abattoir. Are they happening? if so, they're being kept very quiet. As I understand, the treatment of animals in abattoirs is infinitely more unpleasant than that in research institutes, and there's rathwer a lot more of it.

My concern is that research is targetted, not because it's more cruel, simply because the general population seems to dislike scientists in general, so it's easier to get popular support.

King Amdo, why bother? You have your AR facts all wrong, and the title of your reply to this post just seems to sum your general personage up entirely.

Hamish, animal testing will not save your mother. Blindly testing drugs on animals has held back important scientific medical advancements.
Animal testing has also maimed and killed thousands of people and wasted the lives of millions of animals.

visit:  http://www.vivisection-absurd.org.uk

In every succesive struggle for justice , the enemies of that struggle will writhe in anger and agony in their ultimate acceptance that they have been defeated.


Keep on fighting for animal liberation!

Hamish

Have you checked out the recent reports on how the Alzheimers research industry is resisting any challenges to it's science and cushy numbers? Scientists are very fallable, especially when there are research grants concerned.

Speak to AR activists, especially at Speak Campaigns, and you will find that a lot of them are actually pro research, just anti the corporate driven ineffectual garbage that is vivisection. Again, I suggest you read books such as those by Ray & Jean Greek, who are scientists who spent years in the vivisection industry only to realise it was built on false premises.

FtP

Bandana, if you'd even finished reading the first line of my reply, you'd realise that I'm not holding out for a cure for my mum. Also, demonstrating cases where animal research provided incorrect results does not prove it to be scientifically invalid. Animal research is one tool in an arsenal of scientific techniques, and it needs to be backed up by other methods. To believe that there is no benefit in it at all is deliberately blinding yourself to the truth. I will have a good look through the articles on the website you suggested, and try to approach them with as open a mind as is possible. In return, I would appreciate it if you did the same with  http://www.rds-online.org.uk

Many thanks.

RDS is a front for the biomedical industry. Meanwhile animal testing is both completely unjustifiable from a moral point of view and isnt the god-send some try to make it is, a well documentated discussion in the medical/scientific community found that the majority looked unfavourably on testing on animals knowing full well the results were precarious. Instead we need massive investment into gene testing, computer models, population studies and other alternatives.

Of course RDS is a front for the biomedical industry. It's board of directors include eminent individuals from industry and academia, and I have no doubt that it sources it's funding from both of these locations. How does that make it's points any less valid? Biomedical industries want to defend what they (and I) consider to be perfectly valid, and completely necessary work.

If you believe that animal testing is morally unjustifiable, fair enough. This is a matter of opinion. I disagree however.

Do you think it would be possible to do all this research into computer modelling without testing on animals to make sure that the models were accurate? What happens if the model didn't work quite right? Surely more animal testing would be required to update the model?

Thanks for your measured and considered responses. This is a discussion that needs to be held in a sensible manner. :)

You really are full of it aren't you 'Hamish'?

Just another apologist for those cowardly freaks and pervs in the life sciences industry that get off on torturing defenceless animals and poisoning humans for hard cash.

Heh, Specimen A, you're so precious. It's almost sweet really.

You kinda invalidate your own argument however...

No indeed I would not like to be experimented upon. I'd far rather the experiment was carried out on a mouse instead. As would most people, I'd imagine. Which is kinda my point, really.


Big kiss.

As soon as I spotted any of 'Hamish's' comments on indymedia concerning animal rights, I knew this pathetic slavering shit was apologist pro animal torturing scum!!!

Perceptive or what? Troll spotter exrordinaire!

Forward Evolution!! Open the MIND!


Bye Bye Hamish . ... .. .

That's it, thankyou for all your hard work! I'm finally converted!

Being called "evil animal murdering scum" four times had no effect, but five times..

Oh what a fool I've been!

The gerbils can only be saved by full scale bloody revolution!

*****

Well Mr. Boffin, as much as I enjoy whipping you up into a rabid frenzy of self righteous hatred, ultimately your total lack of willingness to engage on a more cerebral level bores me. I feel sorry for the more logically minded animal rights campaigners whose reputations you taint.

I wonder, will this be your tactic for persuading the rest of the country? Beating up people outside their homes, and vandalising the property of subcontractors hasn't exactly been a PR victory for the animal rights movement so far. I know what you're thinking; "Maybe what we need to do is blow up some MORE buildings, and beat up some MORE scientists?"

Grow up, realise that this is an open and INDEPENDANT forum, I have the same right to put across my opinion as you do yours. By shutting yourself off from opinions different to your own, you lose the opportunity to grow and learn.

Please don't respond unless you've got something intelligent to say. It's been fun so far, but I bore of teasing quickly.

Well I feel I am speaking as an 'average Joe' when I say that although animal testing is instinctively hard to accept, it is the best way at the moment of understanding the way the body works and reacts to new medications/pollutants etc.

I understand that there have been times that these methods have failed but for each faliure there are hundereds of successes. If it wasn't a viable way to test these things then why on earth would it still be being done? I would say that no-one wants to cause these animals pain but I know that there are some sick people who do. Instead of protesting about people who are trying to make life better for the masses why not protest about something that isn't, protest to make laws more strict for people who abuse their pets, or to make farming more regulated. There is so much more cruelty present in peoples homes than at these research centres, the quality of life for these animals before they die is better than the majority of household pets. How many mice, rats, rabbits are just locked away in a too-small cage when their entertainment value has worn off?

Look at your own dealings with animals before casting dispersions on others. All you see of the lab animals lives are the most heartwrenching pictures that people well versed in propoganda can find. This is not the reality, if it were then there would be no such work, you cannot know all there is to know about lab animal welfare by looking at still images.

I know this will not get through to the more militant of the protesters, but maybe some who come to this site for information, before their minds have been clouded by the emotionally laden images displayed will think about this.