Public revulsion at AR extremists activities/70% pro-test...

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Extreme tactics by animal rights activists appear to have fatally damaged their cause
By Anthony King
(Filed: 29/05/2006)



Public revulsion at the activities of animal rights extremists appears to be damaging their cause and producing the opposite effect to that intended.


According to YouGov's survey for The Daily Telegraph, the proportion of people approving of animal testing in medical research is now at an all-time high and more than three-quarters believe that the more extreme elements among animal rights activists deserve to be called "terrorists".

The overwhelming majority of Britons have no objection to animal rights campaigners staging peaceful demonstrations or holding aloft placards portraying the pain they say is inflicted on laboratory animals. They may even approve of campaigns along these lines.

However, huge majorities clearly abhor almost every activity the extremists engage in. Most people think the Judge Michael Pert was right recently to sentence three extremists to 12-year prison terms. A lot of people think 12 years was not nearly enough.

Most earlier surveys on animal testing have shown opinion more or less evenly divided. A Gallup poll a decade ago found 40 per cent in favour of using live animals for purposes of medical research but with 50 per cent opposed.

An ICM survey last year found that the balance of opinion had shifted the other way with 50 per cent in favour but 47 per cent opposed. YouGov's findings suggest that opinion has now shifted further.

YouGov asked: "In your view, is it acceptable or not to test new medical treatments on animals before they are tested on human beings?"

The findings, set out in the chart, are emphatic. More than two thirds of people, 70 per cent, believe that using animals for these purposes is acceptable. Only 18 per cent believe that it is not acceptable under any circumstances.

The phrase included in the question, "before they are tested on human beings", may well have triggered memories of the men at Northwick Park Hospital who suffered when successful tests on animals proved unsuccessful on human subjects.

A striking feature of the data is that, with one exception, opinion on the issue differs scarcely at all from one social group to another. People in all age groups and all parts of the country, and supporters of all political parties, are united in believing that testing new medical treatments on live animals is morally acceptable.

The one exception is the large gap that exists between women and men. Among women, a substantial majority, 59 per cent, favour animal testing, but among men the corresponding proportion is far higher: 82 per cent.

Conversely, whereas 25 per cent of women are opposed to animal testing under any circumstances, the corresponding figure among men is a modest 10 per cent.

Nearly three quarters of YouGov's respondents, 72 per cent, believe that testing on animals is "sometimes essential". Only 19 per cent maintain that "alternative methods are always available".

Moreover, a large majority, 72 per cent, are also persuaded that the big pharmaceutical companies mean what they say when they threaten to transfer their medical research facilities to other countries if the research environment in Britain becomes, from their point of view, unduly repressive. A mere 14 per cent think that the companies are bluffing and simply want to conduct research on animals free of effective restrictions.

Although some people would be happy to see such work taken abroad, they amount, as the figures in the chart show, to only about one in eight, 13 per cent. Far more, 46 per cent, say they "would be sorry if this work were no longer being done in Britain". The animal rights activists are clearly losing that particular propaganda war.

The methods used by some of the more extreme activists are evidently deeply repugnant to the vast majority of people. Almost no one supports damaging and vandalising property, let alone issuing death threats and digging up and absconding with human remains.

The proportion of people opposed to such actions approaches 100 per cent - a most unusual occurrence in opinion surveys.

Fully 88 per cent also believe it is morally wrong to post on the internet the names in addresses of people, including small shareholders, who are in any way connected with animal testing.

But perhaps the clearest single measure of people's abhorrence of the activities of animal rights extremists emerges from the responses to YouGov's question about the sentences handed down by Judge Pert. The proportion reckoning the judge's sentences were about right or not tough enough totals 85 per cent.

Fewer than one in 10, only eight per cent, think that the judge should have been more lenient. Unsurprisingly, some people want to attach the label "terrorist" to the more extreme pro-animal activists. Given recent events, a large majority of YouGov's respondents, 77 per cent, are happy to agree.

It cannot be proved, but there is every reason to believe that the extremists are creating an atmosphere in which people view medical research using live animals more sympathetically than they would otherwise.

A cause with such unattractive supporters can come - however illogically - to appear unattractive in itself. YouGov also reminded respondents that the Prime Minister recently promised additional "efforts to support and protect individuals and companies engaged in life-saving medical research" and asked whether they believed that the Government should make such efforts.

As the figures in the chart make plain, most people think that it should. Medical testing with animals seems to be one of the few issues at the moment on which Tony Blair's Government can count on solid majority support.

YouGov elicited the opinions of 2,102 adults across Britain online between May 23 and 25. The data have been weighted to conform to the demographical profile of British adults as a whole. YouGov abides by the rules of the British Polling Council.

•Anthony King is professor of government at Essex University



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Public turns on animal terrorists

By Philip Johnston Home Affairs Editor
(Filed: 29/05/2006)




Extremist behaviour by animal rights protesters has had the effect of increasing public support for testing new medical treatments on animals, a poll for The Daily Telegraph has found.


The proportion of people who approve of animal testing is now at an all-time high and more than three quarters believe that the more fanatical activists can justifiably be defined as "terrorists".

High-profile campaigns, such as intimidating scientists and threatening shareholders in pharmaceutical companies, appear to have backfired badly.

The YouGov survey suggests that fewer than one person in five considers animal testing to be unacceptable in any circumstance.

More that 70 per cent said they accepted that experimentation on animals was sometimes essential because alternative methods were unavailable.

There was also widespread concern that a ban on medical research on animals would merely encourage pharmaceutical multi-nationals to set up abroad, where the safeguards that exist in Britain against causing unnecessary suffering may be absent.

The findings appear to contradict the claims often made by opponents of animal testing that there is "overwhelming" public support for their cause. While people might prefer not to see animals suffer, just 19 per cent took the view that alternative methods of testing were always available.

Brian Cass, the managing director of Huntingdon Life Sciences, an animal-testing research company which has been the target of activists for several years, said: "The issue has had so much publicity that organisations like ourselves have gone out of our way to provide an almost open laboratory to the media.

"This has brought a much more open presentation of both how animal testing is done and the legal requirements that control it. Once people understand what is going on they are in a much better position to form objective judgments. When they do so they tend to support the work."

Previous polls have shown opinion more or less evenly divided on animal testing.

YouGov's findings indicate that by stepping up their campaign, extremists have damaged their cause. While most people have no objection to campaigners staging peaceful demonstrations, they draw the line at some of the activities seen in recent years.

There was strong support for the 12-year jail terms given this month to three extremists who had been involved in a campaign of intimidation, including the disinterment of the body of a woman whose family bred animals for experimentation.

Opposition to threats, hate campaigns and vandalism is almost universal and 88 per cent believe it is wrong to post the names and addresses of people connected with animal testing on the internet.

Alistair Currie, the campaigns director of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, said extremists had not helped the animal rights cause.

"It has produced an image problem for the animal rights movement as a whole," he said. "But that doesn't necessarily mean people are more committed to animal rights experiments that they were previously."

The findings suggest that Tony Blair was very much in tune with public opinion when he took the unusual step of agreeing to sign a petition affirming support for the right of scientists to conduct legitimate animal experiments.

He also said that the Government would consider a new law to protect the identities of those involved in testing.

His move came amid continuing protests in Oxford against plans for a new medical research laboratory at the university and complaints that despite a few high-profile prosecutions, the police are not doing enough to disrupt the activities of known extremists.

Part of the reason for changing public attitudes could be an appreciation that animals are no longer used to test cosmetics in Britain, though the number of tests for medical purposes is rising. In 2004, there were around 2.85 million "procedures", a rise of just over two per cent on the previous year.


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