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Terrorists targeting researchers

Animal research plays an essential role in biomedical research. Scientists must be able to work without fear of intimidation.

The Bakersfield Californian | Wednesday, Aug 27 2008 7:35 PM

Last Updated: Wednesday, Aug 27 2008 7:38 PM

Many people are opposed to the practice of using animals in scientific study, including medical research. Activists can and often do voice their concerns to the institutions that participate.

But conscientious objection and the First Amendment right to protest do not include the right to kill, injure and intimidate. And that is what's at the heart of an Assembly bill soon to come before the state Senate that would give academic researchers, including those who carry out tests on animals, the same legal protection as elected and appointed government officials and reproductive health care workers.

AB 2296 would give law enforcement new tools to investigate animal-rights activists suspected in an unsolved succession of firebombings, trespassing and vandalism incidents aimed at University of California scientists.

Publishing the personal information of researchers with the intent to threaten, or trespassing on their residential property in an effort to persuade them to cease their work would become a misdemeanor.

The measure has been classified as urgent since the Aug. 2 firebombing of the homes of two UC Santa Cruz researchers. No one was seriously hurt in those incidents.

UCLA scientists also have been targeted: A firebomb scorched the front door of one scientist's home, and firebombs were placed near other homes and cars without exploding. One researcher sustained $20,000 in damage to her home after vandals put a garden hose through her window and flooded it while she was away.

As a UC-Berkeley police official recently told the state Senate Committee on Public Safety, "UC researchers and staff, along with their spouses and children, live in daily fear for their safety."

Since last August, at least 31 researchers at UC Berkeley alone have been the victims of some type of animal-rights incident, according to testimony at the panel hearing. Campus police report more than 70 incidents.

Researchers should be obligated to treat research animals with all due care -- and in fact, specific regulations outlining proper procedures apply. Scientists must be held accountable to those standards.

But animal research has played an essential role in virtually all advances in biomedical research for 200 years or more. Researchers, using all due care, should be able to do their work without fear of intimidation. This bill is a step in the right direction.