“The public does not fully realize that when it comes to extremists, there's nothing to talk about. There is nothing to say to them short of we will stop doing research.”
The house on a quiet, palm-laden street in Beverly Hills seemed an unlikely terrorist target. But in the early morning hours of February 5, a masked man crept toward the multimillion-dollar home on Shady Brook Drive and wedged a Molotov cocktail against the front door. The device ignited, sparked a fire, and charred the entranceway black with soot. No one was home or hurt. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the lead agency on the case, has been mum on the status of the intended victim: Dr. Edythe London, professor of psychiatry and a biomedical scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she uses non-human primates to study nicotine addiction.
It is known that the suspects, now fugitives, are animal rights extremists with ties to the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), one of a handful of belligerent underground groups that have splintered from the larger and lawful animal rights movement. First Amendment defenders bristle at the characterization, but the FBI designates activists who resort to arson or explosives as “domestic terrorists” and a serious threat to homeland security. Working with the same Joint Terrorism Task Force tracking Al Qaeda’s terrorist cells, the FBI now has special agents in 35 of its field offices—from San Francisco to Baltimore—devoted to hunting and prosecuting animal rights and environmental extremists.
The February firebombing at London’s home, one of some 200 separate extremist cases currently under investigation in the United States by federal agents, marked the second time extremists had targeted London. The first attack occurred on a windy Saturday night in October, when prowlers snuck into the backyard of London’s hillside abode, smashed a window, and, after clogging an intake drain in the swimming pool, inserted a garden hose, running it at full blast. It is unclear how many hours passed before the ground floor flooded, but the vandals caused at least $30,000 in damage.
Several days later, the ALF took credit for the vandalism in an anonymous “communiqué,” as extremists call the announcements. It was posted online by the Animal Liberation Press Office, a legitimate group unrelated to the ALF, but used to publicize what animal activists call “direct actions,” guerilla tactics used to commit illegal attacks. The ALF, which insists it never harms people or animals, included a personal message for London. “One more thing Edythe,” the perpetrators said in an October 25 communiqué about the flood. “Water was our second choice, fire was our first…. It would have been just as easy to burn your house down Edythe.”
The group warned: “Until we see the end of primate vivisection at UCLA, we will remind you of our presence. Push them to stop Edythe or we keep pushing.” That never-stop-until-we-win sentiment was echoed in an ALF communiqué dated February 21, when the activists took credit for the firebombing weeks earlier. “Now is the time to stop vivisecting. We don’t back down. Ever.”
In the past 10 years, there has been a surge in attacks against biomedical research scientists, whether they work for multinational corporations, private animal laboratories, drug companies, or academic institutions. Biotech and pharmaceutical researchers and CEOs—along with their spouses, children, neighbors, and friends—have been harassed (somewhere in the world almost daily) by threatening telephone calls, nasty emails, and vulgar letters. For many targets, personal privacy goes out the window as activists use the Internet to publicize personal details about their lives—home addresses and Social Security, credit card, and checking account numbers. The online information dumps often are accompanied by pleas for comrades to go on the attack. Midnight and pre-dawn lawn protests are part of the movement’s regular repertoire.
Life science researchers at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) in Portland are all too familiar with the drill. A recent target on the extremist hit list: Dr. Miles Novy, a medical doctor who treats OHSU patients and conducts research on non-human primates to study premature birth. In December, Novy awoke to see both of his cars vandalized and doused with spray paint. The word “sadist” appeared on one car, “A.L.F.” on the other. Months earlier, another target, Dr. Eliot Spindel, found the slogan “ALF Eyes on You” scrawled across his garage door. ALF took credit and followed the direct action with a communiqué, threatening to firebomb Spindel’s Portland home.
OHSU spokesman Jim Newman calls the threats “very ugly, very disturbing,” and “increasingly menacing.” But Newman and others hesitate to use the word “terrorism.” “What occurs in the scientific community is not the same,” he says. “But when someone stands on your front lawn and says, ‘I know where you live,’ it can be terrorizing. Obviously, there are various levels of terrorism. This is not 9/11 terrorism, but clearly these incidents are intended to create terror in the targets.”
Of greatest concern, law enforcement and industry leaders say, are the increasing number of extremist attacks on “tertiary targets”—the banks, insurers, investors, and equipment suppliers that do business with those who conduct animal research. The attacks, once reserved for corporate offices and research labs, have become more personal and menacing in the past two to three years, targeting victims at home. “The trends are clear and cause for alarm,” says Frankie L. Trull, president of the Foundation for Biomedical Research (FBR), a Washington, D.C.-based public policy group that, among other things, tracks illegal acts against biomedical researchers. “There has been a dramatic increase in both the number and severity of attacks.”
FBR research shows a 1,000 percent increase in so-called “domestic terrorism” attacks by animal rights extremists in the past decade. This estimate reflects illegal acts by both environmental activists and animal rights extremists, whose targets have included circuses, puppy mills, and furriers, along with biomedical researchers. In 2006, an FBR survey of documented episodes found 88 violent acts committed by extremists. But in the five years between 2000 and 2005, extremists committed 363 violent acts. Government estimates are far higher. Based on activist claims of responsibility posted on the Internet, the FBI identified no fewer than 1,200 illegal acts against U.S. targets between 1990 and 2004. At least 200 of those cases involved arson or bombings, tactics virtually unheard of in the early 1980s. Experts say the actual number of incidents is likely much higher, but accurate counts are elusive because people and institutions under-report attacks, fearing the publicity will draw even more unwanted attention.
“It is one thing to write concerned letters or hold peaceful demonstrations,” John E. Lewis told Congress during testimony on Capitol Hill while he was Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division. “It is another thing entirely to construct and use improvised explosive or incendiary devices to harass and intimidate innocent victims.” Lewis is now head of all FBI operations in Arizona.
The FBI concedes that members of the extremist movement are difficult to track, arrest, and prosecute. They often commit actions wearing masks and camouflage that hide their identity. In general, animal rights extremists tend to be white, well educated, and hail from a middle- to upper-class family. But as perpetrators, they operate in cells, or as autonomous splinter groups with no formal structure, membership, or organizational hierarchy. Yet there is a thread of cohesion in the movement. Extremists are well trained to understand the letter of the law and its limits. Aided by the Internet and disposable mobile phones, they are savvy in their use of secrecy and security measures that help them avoid capture. As one extremist website has suggested, “Never discuss illegal activity indoors, over the phone, or email.”
Almost without exception, activists suspected of attacking life science facilities have a connection to the ALF or to a group known as Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty. SHAC, a group founded in the United Kingdom but now operating in the U.S. as well, is devoted to the demise of New Jersey-based Huntington Life Sciences, a subsidiary of Life Science Research, one of the world’s largest contract research firms. The most notorious and violent case tied to the HLS campaign—and perhaps the incident that forced U.S. industry leaders to blink—involved Chiron in Emeryville, California. In August 2003, the biotech pioneer was the target of two bomb attacks. A month later, a bomb containing nails exploded at the headquarters of Shaklee, a home products and nutrition company, in nearby Pleasanton, California. No one was injured.
The two California firms were targeted because their parent, Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical, based in Japan, had at some point hired HLS to perform animal testing. A group calling itself the Revolutionary Cells of the Animal Liberation Brigade claimed credit for the bomb attacks in a communiqué posted on the ALF website. It came with a haunting caveat: “We gave all of the customers the chance, the choice, to withdraw their business from HLS. Now you will reap what you have sown. All customers and their families are considered legitimate targets.”
The FBI’s lead suspect in the Chiron attack—Daniel Andreas San Diego, a 30-year-old native of Berkeley, California—faces charges of “maliciously damaging and destroying property by means of explosives.” Photographs obtained by federal agents depict San Diego as a clean-cut, white male with an impish smile. A fugitive since October 2003, the former computer network specialist has eluded capture despite widespread distribution of a “Wanted by the FBI” poster offering a $250,000 reward for information leading to his arrest. He has even been featured on the popular television series America’s Most Wanted, with details of his deeds and photos of identifying body scars: colorful tattoos of “burning and collapsing buildings” and a slogan etched onto the center of his chest that says, “It only takes a spark.”
“The animal extremists at this point are taken very seriously,” says Trull. “The entire research community is aware that members of the animal rights movement have turned to violence, seeking to eliminate animal research irrespective of its benefits to people and animals.”
And the benefits have been many. Animal experiments have led to vital medical breakthroughs ranging from drugs to treat heart disease and HIV, to new surgical techniques that improve survival rates for organ donors and cancer patients. At the same time, mindful of the concerns about animal welfare, biotech, drug, and chemical companies, along with university researchers, have stated a firm commitment to the “3R principle”—refinement, reduction, and ultimate replacement of laboratory animals in product safety testing. Industry leaders point out that the use of non-human primates, dogs, and cats has dropped dramatically and that there has been an increasing reliance on mice, fruit flies, and zebra fish.
Extremists, however, reject all animal testing. They argue that test results on mice or flies are worthless because the findings cannot be extrapolated to humans. But more to the point, says Dr. Jerry Vlasak, spokesman for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, humans have no right to treat animals as property “just as we had no right to treat blacks as property.” He defends the use of violence as a valid way to advance change, saying “all struggle for liberation relies on the use of force.” He says of researchers: “They won’t listen to reason. And asking nicely doesn’t work. We had to take it to the next level. If people won’t stop the exploitation, killing, and torture of animals, then we are morally justified in using whatever means necessary to stop them.”
Federal law, meanwhile, requires the use of animal tests to establish the safety and efficacy of consumer products. Close to a dozen government agencies—including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of Agriculture—require animal test results before granting the approval of drugs, chemicals, and consumer products. And both animal testing and laboratory practices are tightly controlled by scientific policies, federal safety regulations, and numerous federal laws such as the Animal Welfare Act.
Despite improvements and advances in the care of lab animals, the violence against researchers has continued to escalate. No one in the U.S. has been seriously hurt or killed, but better safety measures and employee education is needed, says FBR’s Trull, because “awareness does not always translate into taking precautions or making preparations until a threat or attack touches the researcher directly.”
Until recently, the industry has been chastised for its sluggish response—some say denial—of the severity and extent of violent activists. But many trade groups and university leaders have taken up the cause. The Biotechnology Industry Organization, the National Institutes of Health, the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science, and other trade groups have all, in the last three to four years, stepped up efforts to educate members and publicly condemn the most violent attacks.
The attacks on London’s home, for example, drew condemnation from both the NIH and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Noting its support for the right of all citizens to protest and dissent, the AAAS Board of Directors called the repeated attacks on UCLA researchers “deplorable.” “If intimidation drives scientists from their valuable efforts and discourages young scientists from pursuing fields of inquiry that require the use of animals, medical progress will be seriously impeded,” the organization said in a statement.
And FBI experts on domestic terrorism have become a regular fixture on the seminar and conference circuit, increasingly invited to lecture members of trade associations on the growing threat posed by animal rights extremists. Many concede that the repeated and increasing acts of violence by animal rights extremists have frayed the collective psyche of the scientific community.
For example, none of the corporate executives or researchers victimized by animal rights extremists—from scientists at Brown University to corporate executives at HLS or Wachovia, a tertiary target with past ties to the research company—agreed to talk about the violence on the record, let alone return a telephone call. “Even now, when researchers get hit, the tendency is to keep it quiet and out of the media,” says OHSU’s Newman.
At the same time, the intimidating acts trigger an undercurrent of anxiety. “Every phone call makes you wonder,” he says. “Is it someone in the animal movement trying to get my personal information for future reference?”
By most accounts, SHAC’s relentless campaign against HLS has had some success. Roughly 100 companies—from banks to security firms to lawn care providers—have severed ties with HLS. Protesters even managed to manipulate the New York Stock Exchange, which caved to SHAC tactics out of fear in 2005, briefly postponing the company’s date for listing on the NYSE.
One company, Bridge Pharmaceuticals, a San Francisco-based life science company, has suffered no attacks but decided nonetheless to transfer research and testing operations to China, specifically to avoid potential hassles with animal rights extremists. The loss that truly shook the industry, however, came to light in August 2006 when UCLA neurobiologist Dario Ringach, targeted by animal rights extremists for his research on non-human primates, called it quits. He announced his decision in an email to the ALF and others, requesting that the activists immediately drop him from their hit list. “Please don’t bother my family any more,” Ringach wrote. The subject heading and the first line of the email simply said: “You win.”
By most accounts, UCLA has endured the greatest number of attacks on academics. Widely criticized for its slow response to the initial wave of attacks, the university now takes an active role in FBI investigations of cases such as London’s. When Ringach conceded defeat and announced plans to abandon the use of non-human primates in research, UCLA issued the following statement: “We all suffer when animal rights activists attempt to intimidate researchers by physically threatening and harassing them and their families, including young children.” The statement added: “To be so extreme as to use violent tactics aimed at halting animal research is to take away hope from millions of people with cancer, AIDS, heart disease, and hundreds of other diseases.”
The violent tactics, or, more accurately, the need to respond to the attacks, takes away something else: time and money. That is why Mark A. Suckow, a professor at the University of Notre Dame, argues that every extremist attack creates a ripple and an overall effect on the community that he calls “pernicious.” “The pressure animal rights people place on research institutions and regulatory agencies has a pervasive affect on readiness,” says Suckow, Director of the Freimann Animal Care Facility at the Freimann Life Science Center, both based on the South Bend, Indiana campus. “There is a big loss of time, energy, and resources taken away from research.” Between pouring money into regulatory compliance and public relations required in the aftermath of an attack, the monetary drain adds up. Money is also spent on safety classes and measures to protect employees—which for some has included installing surveillance equipment and other protection at the target’s home. In retrospect, some now concede that the industry has at times been its own worst enemy, refusing or failing to communicate to the public the importance and necessity of using animal research models. “The animal rights people have been very effective at communicating their message, and in many cases the public buys it because they have no other information,” says Suckow. Newman adds: “If 20 years ago, the community had talked about the benefits of animal models, maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation today.”
Public relations aside, the animal rights extremists pose another problem. “The public does not fully realize that when it comes to extremists, there’s nothing to talk about. There is nothing to say to them short of we will stop doing research,” says FBR’s Trull. “Their war cry is, ‘We don’t want cleaner cages. We don’t want bigger cages. We want no cages.’”
In 2006, six animal activists from the group SHAC were convicted by a jury, jailed, and collectively held liable for $1 million for intimidating and attacking biomedical researchers at HLS. But many extremists remain fugitives, and arrests have been few and far between. Some say tougher laws might make it easier to prosecute animal activists. To that end, Congress in 2006 amended the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, making it a federal crime to cause “economic disruption” to life science and other animal researchers or to “tertiary targets” such as family and friends or corporate business partners.
Carolyn Marshall, a journalist based in San Francisco, is a regular contributor to The New York Times.
May 15, 2008
http://www.burrillreport.com/article-risky_business.html