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Protesting Animal Testing, Intruders Vandalize Italian Lab
ananyo writes "Activists occupied an animal facility at the University of Milan, Italy, at the weekend, releasing mice and rabbits and mixing up cage labels to confuse experimental protocols. Researchers at the university say that it will take years to recover their work. Many of the animals at the facility are genetic models for psychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia. Some of the mice removed by activists were delicate mutants and immunosuppressed 'nude' mice, which die very quickly outside controlled environments. No arrests have been made following the 12-hour drama, which took place on Saturday, although the university says that it will press charges against the protesters. The attack was staged by the animal-rights group that calls itself Fermare Green Hill (or Stop Green Hill), in reference to the Green Hill dog-breeding facility near Brescia, Italy, which it targets for closure."
Haven't we learned anything from the movies... this is how the zombie apocalypse begins
Those guys are total fucking assholes.
Hmm... perhaps among the charges should be animal cruelty for exposing the immunosuppressed animals to pathogens that will likely kill them in rather painful manners.
I feel like it's 1987
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I have some sympathy for those who think animal testing is inhumane, but really all they are doing is just making sure these animals suffered for nothing. Does anyone think these funded projects will not get funding and a new set of animals to test on again?
I think humane treatment of animals needs to be done in a context of changing society's views on animal testing itself instead of what is basically vandalism. Vandalism is only going to let people regard those against animal testing as some sort of anarchist losers.
And yes, breaking into some of these labs is a biohazard situation. Probably not zombies, but still potentially very dangerous,
It seems to me these activists have just volunteered to replace the animals in the next round of experiments.
Agreed. Some morons do reprehensible harm to research that would have helped many people, and cause the death of many of the test animals, all for the purpose of opposing a completely unrelated dog breeding facility that's in a different city.
I'd rather use some harsher descriptions than morons, but we'll leave it at that for now.
https://secure.flickr.com/photos/fermaregreenhill/
Brilliant. Photos of themselves committing the crime, posing with the animals they released, posted publicly. How about they just turn themselves in to the police right now?
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
No arrests have been made following the 12-hour drama
What? "Protesters" are in a university facility for 12 hours doing who-knows-what, come out, and just being allowed to leave? Any Italians around here that can explain why they weren't loaded on a number of vans, taken downtown, and locked up?
I wonder if that university has access to JSTOR...
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
This is the same behavior I would expect from any kind of extremist where their actions are based on intolerant idealism. Whatever your religion, if you think other people need to suffer, you are wrong.
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This is called trespassing, not occupying. It's always interested me how our politics can influence our descriptions.
"Haven't we learned anything from the movies... this is how the zombie apocalypse begins"
Nope, still not funny. Will check back in 28 weeks.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
It's always apocalyptic for the animals when this kind of thing happens. This is Eco-terrorism and it's the local wildlife that suffers with the large influx of new animals that they suddenly have to compete with or risk catching whatever it was that required laboratory conditions to begin with.
The lab raised animals have no natural ability to forage, hunt, seek shelter, hide from predators or anything else. They are proverbial sitting ducks and when released into the wild are usually located by the large numbers of dead (whatever) bodies all in a given area. In the event of predatory animals they can go on a rampage against farm animals or pets and the net result is a lot of other dead animals as well.
The impact to the environment is bad as there is no balance and concerns like population disbursement across suitable environments are never taken into consideration. These are not the actions of anyone that gives a damn about the environment because if they did and had a clue they would never do something like this.
When the animals are found they have to be put down (killed) in order to avoid further contaminating the environment with what was otherwise a controlled test requiring laboratory conditions. The net result is that critical research in things like medicine or other science sometimes gets set back by years as they have to start the entire research experiment over. This of course results in far more animals going through than otherwise would have and can significantly hamper life saving research.
I don't think there is anything more vapid than an animal rights activist IMHO because these people see nothing more important to focus their time on. To wake up in the morning and be outraged because rats are being used to test cancer drugs on suggests a certain disconnect from reality.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
It should be noted that animal rights extremism is one of those nastiest "-ism"s out there. They're uniformly odd (gay, vegan, left-wing, what not) not-very-bright, hyper-emotional, irrational and violent, not to mention, annoying. In otherwise, extremism and violence-prone personalities.
Furthermore, southern Europe has the craziest and most violent animal rights nutters out there. For a while, I'd see a crazy woman in a chicken suit squawking through a microphone incoherently in front of my office (AstraZeneca are allegedly near by), but then I went south a few times, and those extremists are split from the whole fucking program.
The problem here though is they're just going to clean the lab (killing off any remaining animals) and restart their experiments with new animals.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
Releasing a none-native species into the wild is highly damaging. Since nobody can tell what that does to the native species already in the area. This people might have just done massive damage to nature in Italy. Not just the research it self.
I have a better idea. Next time those activists got to the doctor, they should be offered bleeding and sea cures as treatment. No antibiotics, insulin, or modern drugs.
Widely publicize that your lab is testing one mouse for exotic and deadly diseases. Then label all the cages only with numbers. Anyone breaking in wouldn't know which was safe to let escape. Notice that no actual disease test needed. Kind of like those signs "Property guarded by armed owner four nights per week: you guess the nights"
I like animals, I really do, but since our government agencies won't allow human volunteers prior to other means of testing, Research facilities are in a No Win situation. They use animals of various kinds to perform tests upon so the world has modern medicine that saves human lives. So they will tend to use those type of animals that the world has an abundance of, mice rats and more. The researchers also use those animals that are most closely related to human for more specific testing. Researchers must have strong constitutions, for I would suspect that many like animals and do their best to not let their personal views on animal testing influence the stringent research they are doing.
Do these protesters really believe that through animal testing they have learned how to save other animals, not just people?
Do these protesters realize that without this type of research, that they may force a delay in modern medicine by years, some of this medicine will likely be used to save themselves or someone they love dearly?
Do these protesters ever go after the insecticide companies or companies that make poison strictly for killing animals that are pests?
Do these same protester protect every species, such as roaches, ants, and stinging bugs?
If they have ever owned one pet or put an animal to sleep because they care or ever gotten a pet for their child who "wanted one" or though that a cute pet would make someone happy, then the hypocrisy is just laughable.
If you want to protest testing against animals petition your government to allow humans to volunteer for being the research test subjects, and when none come forward (after a set amount of time) then researchers can use animals. Talk to your politicians, change the laws.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
Hah.... Problem is, for the nuts that do this it doesn't matter if the animals live or die. Either they're "saved from a worse fate" in the lab, or it's "the scientists who made them like this" so their existence is already unnatural or they're even "martyrs to the cause", but it's a flimsy justification for wanting to bust up someone's workplace without running into the level of security to be found in the average factory or office complex.
Ultimately, it's not that they like animals. It's that they hate people.
And I'm not exagerating, last year, in a spanish 'animal lovers' facebook group named F.R.A (you can verify it by yourself), a girl told the rest how 'good person'was an old lady, who beat up his grandson (who was just learning to walk) after being bitten by the house's dog, she produly told the group that 'no question was asked' and she inmediatly figured out that the dog was innocent.
And many cheered it up!
Even in youtube videos, where little children got severely injured (look for instance, "perros atacan niño", there are comments accusing the victim that 'the kid must have provoked the dog, dog's won't attack without being provoked', and when I ask them to watch videos in youtube, like "Dog attacks Police Officer Taser Full News Report" they get angry, and many of them say I'm a nasty person, and that they refuse to watch the video.
FWIW, they openly say they prefer animals than humans, they don't bother to deny it.
Would you feel well, if you realize some of these individuals, is near your children on daily basis? Shouldn't PSYCHIATRY already have noticed them? Or are there studies of this mental illness that Im not aware of?
How is this news for nerds?
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
Anyone who identifies themselves as an "animal rights" activist or supporter to the degree of valuing them over human lives should be denied any and all medical treatments derived from animal testing.
After all, they wouldn't want to be hypocrites, right? Right??
Can we quit tossing around the bloody "T-word" every time a crime is committed? This is VANDALISM.
Not sure about Europe, but in the USA, so-called "terrorists" can be stripped of their Constitutional rights just based on a government accusation. No evidence, no charge, no trial. Government says you're a "terrorist", your rights go down the toilet and you're either imprisoned or assassinated without due process.
While I'm not wild about animal testing, I recognize the necessity. Moreover, I know you can't "liberate" an animal that might survive a week in the wild, if that. Do these morons plan to give their immunosuppressed rats nice comfortable homes for the rest of their lives? From experience I can tell you that cats and dogs raised in lab environments emphatically do NOT make good pets and certainly can't care for themselves. If released, they will simply starve slowly. I'm also guessing that the people who released the animals dont' have the money to sustain them all to the end of their lives and that one way or another, most will end up in a public facility, euthanized. At taxpayer expense, of course.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
On the flip side, I wonder how many people would be unwilling to go to the doctor if they had to watch a live vivisection, or watch time lapse videos of the slow painful death of the creatures that were part of the research for whatever particular ailment they have.
Given that the US has been passing various 'you must know' anti-abortion laws, might as well require people to sit through videos displaying the animal cost of what they are benefiting from. Then extend it to cosmetic displays in stores.
This is a very old debate, and it was pretty much hashed through when doctors and patients were trying to decide what to do with Nazi research on human subjects (or the human testing that goes on in India today). Most people are pragmatic enough to take advantage of research that has been done while still being against how it was done or seeking to find better ways to do it in the future. Though I guess we could just go back to human testing.. we have lots of poor people around the world.
Wannabe martyrs, desperate to be 'persecuted' for their beliefs to prove how oppressed they are and how evil their opponents.
Give them what they want, then.
I don't see why it would be unethical if we allowed people to be used for testing. We're rational and self-aware beings.
The people could be paid for it and we'll know for sure that the treatments/medications/whatever actually works on humans.
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Commie.
Can we quit tossing around the bloody "T-word" every time a crime is committed? This is VANDALISM.
No, I think the OP's remark is entirely justifiable.
This particular news item may only have been about mixing up samples and vandalizing a lab, but in the UK there have been numerous examples of animal rights protestors setting bombs and making death threats to academics. Life-threatening intimidation with an expressly political aim is precisely the definition of terrorism.
Got bored waiting, so took 10 seconds to refer to Google:
As can be seen from the graph below, schizophrenia definitely has a very significant genetic component.
Note that this link has references which lead to (drum roll....) peer reviewed studies! Some of you may want to view with caution.
Scientists aren’t certain about what causes ASD, but it’s likely that both genetics and environment play a role. Researchers have identified a number of genes associated with the disorder.
ASD == Autism Spectrum Disorder. This page is informational, but contains links to more info. Again, view with caution.
So, tell me again how there is no genetic link to these diseases and that you don't need to provide any proof to support that statement? I wasn't asking you to prove a negative, a reference citing that no genetic link had ever been found, maybe that X other causal factors were, would support your point. It seems that the exact opposite of your unsupported claim is what is generally accepted. Or are you going to tell me that NIH has it completely wrong?
Nobody does anything like what you seem to be implying. Watching an animal surgery would be like watching a human one, complete with anesthetic, monitors and a skilled surgeon. When animals are sacrificed it must be done by one of a couple of approved methods, picked not only because they're humane but because they have the lowest possible probability of failing and causing unintentional suffering. In order to use animals in the first place you must very carefully describe to one or more ethics committees what you want to do, how you're going to do it, how many animals you need, why you need them, and what you're going to learn. Any violations of your approved protocol are serious, even if they seem like small things. You don't stand a chance of being approved unless there's a very good reason for any pain the animal might suffer. It's rare that any animal would be subjected to something as inhumane as, say, a mouse trap, and the resulting knowledge has been, and will continue to be, used to relieve the suffering of millions of humans AND animals.
In contrast, how many people think twice about putting out some rat poison to deal with some pests? Rat poison that acts by interfering with clotting, causing the rat to die of hemorrhaging?
The people doing the research aren't soulless monsters. I know quite a few, and I had a couple as roommates in grad school. One of them sat as the student representative on an ethics committee.
Cosmetics and other non-medical testing may be different. I'm not familiar with it, but that's not what we're talking about here.
You'd prefer "Visigothise"?
I would prefer terms that don't associate criminal/unethical/immoral behavior with an ethnic group, like 'gypped' or 'jewed'.
Or hooligan?
It's been 1500 years since the Vandals fell. At some point demanding removal of all references (admittedly unfair to the Vandals) begins to turn the language into Newspeak.
So ... in the unlikely event that I'm ever designing an experimental protocol which involves animals, then the low cost of subcutaneous RFID tags for all animals becomes pretty easy to justify. And maintaining an off-site database.
Might be a bit big for mice ; maybe tattooing with combinations of different UV-fluorescent dyes?
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"