Reuters News Service
UPDATE 1-Novartis attacks signal new animal rights activism
By Emma Thomasson
August 6, 2009
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssHealthcareNews/idUSL672091220090806?sp=true ZURICH, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Animal rights activists claimed
responsibility on Thursday for burning down the holiday home of
Novartis (NOVN.VX) Chief Executive Daniel Vasella as Swiss police said
a second grave of his family had been desecrated.
Vandals sprayed a Vasella family gravestone with the slogan "Drop HLS
Now", police said, a reference to the British animal-testing
laboratory Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) that has been a major target
for protests by animal rights activists.
They also stuck two wooden crosses in the ground, the spokesman said.
He declined to confirm Swiss media reports the crosses carried the
names of the Novartis CEO and his wife.
Vasella's Austrian holiday home caught fire on Monday and the Austrian
interior ministry said they had receved a claim of responsibility from
a group called Militant Forces Against Huntingdon Life Science and its
authenticity was under review.
In a statement posted on a direct action website, the group said they
had petrol bombed Vasella's hunting lodge. "Understand this: this will
continue until you sever all ties with Huntingdon Life Sciences. We
will attack your private life wherever possible," the statement said.
The cemetery attacked last week was the same where Vasella's parents'
grave was desecrated and an urn containing the ashes of his mother
stolen.
Police also found the letters 'SHAC' -- the acronym for the Stop
Huntingdon Animal Cruelty group that campaigns to close down the
centre -- sprayed in paint. Swiss police are examining the evidence
but have no suspects so far, the spokesman said.
SHAC denied involvement in the attacks but said some like-minded
person might have been behind them and vowed to continue its campaign
against firms it said were Huntingdon customers like Novartis,
AstraZeneca (AZN.L), Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY.N) and GlaxoSmithKline
Plc (GSK.L).
REVIVAL OF MILITANT ACTIVISM?
The Swiss drug maker said it no longer uses Huntingdon but suspects
SHAC or those linked to it are behind the attacks.
"We see this as an escalation. There have been more and more of these
types of incident and attacks," a Novartis spokesman said. "From the
tactics as well as the signs that were left, the feeling is it is
probably related to SHAC."
Other recent incidents include graffiti sprayed in Vasella's street
saying "Vasella is a killer. We are watching you." Employees' cars
have being damaged and there was a fire at a Novartis sports facility
in France in May, the spokesman said.
The attacks on Novartis may mark a revival of animal rights activism
in Europe, which reached a peak in Britain before the introduction of
new police powers five years ago.
Much of the action was focused on HLS, a contracting firm in eastern
England which uses animals to test the safety of drugs, food additives
and chemicals. In 2001, its chief operating officer was attacked by
protesters wielding baseball bats.
Many pharmaceuticals manufacturers have also been targeted over the
years and sporadic action has spread to the United States and other
parts of Europe, leading to fears investment in drug research and
development could be jeopardised.
A spokeswoman for Switzerland's other big drugmaker Roche Holding AG
(ROG.VX) said it had not been attacked in recent years, but Europe's
biggest biotech company, Actelion (ATLN.VX), said the property of
several of its workers had been vandalised.
"It has long been a concern of ours that animal extremists would
broaden their scope beyond the UK to what they might see as softer
targets," said Richard Ley, a spokesman for the Association of the
British Pharmaceuticals Industry.
According to the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, some
12 million animals are used annually in experiments in Europe.
The drugs industry says it is exploring alternatives but that animals
remain a vital part of the research and development of new medicines
and vaccines. The vast majority of animals used in medical experiments
are mice.
(Additional reporting by Paul Arnold in Zurich, Alexandra Zawadil in
Vienna and Ben Hirschler in London; editing by John Stonestreet and
David Cowell)
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