If medical researchers are spending time, money and efforts in protecting their environment how much does that detract from their ability to find solutions quicker.



UCLA Magazine A Target of Violence By Mona Gable, Photos by Diana Koenigsberg Published Oct 1, 2009 8:00 A.M.

http://www.magazine.ucla.edu/features/target_of_violence/

More than at any other university, UCLA faculty have been the targets of violent animal rights extremists. The work these scientists do saves lives, and the subjects of their research are treated humanely and with great compassion. But that hasn't stopped the bombs, the death threats or the predations of fanatics for whom no compromise is acceptable. On March 7, the blast was so strong it shook J. David Jentsch awake at 4 a.m. Jentsch, a 37-year-old Bruin neuro scientist, lives in a small,cottage-style house a couple of miles from UCLA. He had no idea what it was. But in the darkness he could hear his car alarm wailing. When Jentsch dashed to his bedroom window, he saw a terrifying sight: His2006 Volvo was engulfed in flames. Someone had shoved a bomb underneath it. A half-hour later, some two dozen FBI agents and officers from the LAPD, UCLA P.D. and Santa Monica P.D. swarmed through his house.Jentsch, a professor of psychology and psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences who uses animals in his research on schizophrenia and drug addiction, had never heard from extremists. Yet the bombing was the third crime against UCLA researchers by militants since the previous November and followed a long series of similar incidents.





Two days later, in a "communiqué" riddled with typos and profanity posted on the Web, a shady group called the Animal Liberation Brigade took credit: Jentsch is a piece of human s--- who addicts monkeys to methamphetamines and other street drugs at the University of California at Los Angeles … David, here's a message just for you, we will come for you when you least expect it and do a lot more damanage(sic) than to your property.



Proof of Life Despite a history of undeniable achievements, not everyone appreciates the role of animals in medicine. In the 1950s, it gave us the polio vaccine. Treatments for diabetes, heart disease and depression came from animal studies. If you've had a blood transfusion, a TB vaccine or an organ transplant, those were made possible by animals. If you're a survivor of breast cancer or AIDS, the drugs you're taking were first tested in animals. "Everything we know about how cells work, how bodies work, has come from animal research," says Dr. Lynn Fairbanks, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA and director of the Vervet Research Colony, who has been a frequent target of extremists. "A lot of young people you'd talk to will think the Iron Lung is a rock group. They won't remember polio. They don't remember smallpox,"P.



Michael Conn, associate director of the Oregon Health and Science University's Oregon National Primate Research Center and the co-author of The Animal Research War, told NPR science reporter Joe Palca in2008. "Those are some of the major triumphs of animal research." Still, animal research is not undertaken lightly. In fact, researchers must satisfy a huge number of requirements to get funding. When scientists at the National Institutes of Health review a proposal,their first concern is the welfare of the subject. Is the simplest model, like bacteria or yeast, being used? If the investigator wants to study monkeys, could she learn the same thing by studying mice? Is the researcher doing every-thing he can to minimize the impact on the animals? If not, a grant can be rejected solely on animal welfare concerns. If NIH finds the grant acceptable, the investigator submits an application to a university committee. (At UCLA, it's called the Chancellor's Animal Research Committee and is composed of scientists,veterinarians and community leaders.) In it, the researcher must justify the study in elaborate detail. Is it important for human health? Is it different from other research that's been done? Are the fewest number of animals being used to achieve the researcher's goals?Could the research be done with computer models instead? And that's only part of what the researcher must prove. Once the study begins,the animals are also routinely checked by veterinarians.





For years, though, UC researchers have endured a campaign of intimidation and violence. Although laboratory animals are protected by a number of strict federal laws and university regulations,although labs undergo rigorous inspections, although 95 percent of lab animals are rodents and mice, that has not deterred the attacks. Once content to target biomedical labs, extremists are going after scientists literally where they live. "In recent months, there have been more than 20 reports of damage to UC Berkeley researchers' homes," wrote UC President Mark G. Yudof in a letter to State Sen. Gloria Romero in August 2008, urging her to support AB 2296, a bill later passed to protect researchers against militants. But UCLA scientists have been hit the hardest.




They have received death threats, seen their homes and cars firebombed, had their names,addresses and photos splashed across extremists' websites. Even their families have been threatened. In August 2006, Dario Ringach, a UCLA neurology professor, was working on a device to restore vision to the blind. But Ringach had two young children and, after several incidents where animal rights activists targeted him at home, he stopped using animals in his research. "My colleagues couldn't believe this was happening to me, to my colony," recalls Fairbanks of her own experience with extremist violence. "We watched them grow up," she says of the monkeys, a multi-generational family of grandmothers, fathers, teens and children. "They have names.



The people who work for me are animal lovers."art Anti-animal research extremists claimed responsibility for destroying a UCLA commuter van parked overnight at a park-and-ride facility in Irvine, Calif., in June 2008. For Fairbanks, the attacks began one awful night in 2004.Demonstrators in black masks stormed her Bel-Air home, pounding on her front door and screaming obscenities. When she learned they were coming, she asked her son to spend the night because she was so frightened. In July 2006, Fairbanks was on a rafting trip in Oregon when she got a call: Someone had left an incendiary device on her elderly neighbor's doorstep, mistaking it for hers. The device never ignited, but the message was clear. Not long after, Fairbanks, who had already put her house on the market, moved.




Dr. Edythe London is a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at UCLA whose studies have led to critical insights into methamphetamine addiction and tobacco addiction. She doesn't do studies on monkeys or even rodents. But because she directs a research center in which animal studies are conducted primarily under the supervision of Jentsch, she has been deemed fair game. In October 2007, members of the Animal Liberation Front smashed a window in her Beverly Hills home, inserted a garden hose and flooded the interior. The damage was nearly $30,000. "One more thing, Edythe,"the group said in a public statement to London, taking credit for the vandalism, "water was our second choice, fire was our first."



Five months later, they firebombed her front door. Researchers Respond But after years of silence, the scientists are fighting back. A weekafter his car was blown up, Jentsch decided he'd had enough. Tired of harassment, assaults, myths and lies peddled by animal rights extremists, he launched UCLA Pro-Test, a support group for animal re-search. With the help of a young British activist, Tom Holder, who helped organize faculty and students at the University of Oxford after attacks on scientists there, Jentsch planned an event on April 22, the day animal rights groups would be demonstrating at UCLA.




That morning, when UCLA Pro-Test held its first rally on campus, 700 people turned out. There were nurses in scrubs, post docs in lab coats,students wearing green and white T-shirts reading "Stand Up For Science." At noon, the crowd marched up Westwood Boulevard to the Court of Sciences, where several UC officials and scientists spoke.One was Fairbanks, who said she was there not as a scientist, but as the mother of a child who had juvenile diabetes. "Animal research saved my son's life." "It felt so good to be standing up publicly," Fairbanks said later in her office at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Humanities. "We all need to do it. We're professional scientists." Since the threats and vandalism, London's life has irrevocably changed. "We have armed guards at our house. We have video cameras. I have a tremendous loss of privacy."



On an overcast morning in June, Jentsch is sitting in his office high atop Franz Hall. Just two days before, two dozen demonstrators con-verged on his house and shouted through bullhorns. Burn in [Please excuse my language... I'm an idiot]!How many monkeys did you kill today? Despite a permanent injunction the University of California won in May 2009, prohibiting animal rights extremists from coming within 50 feet of researchers residences during the day and 150 feet at night, despite the recent arrests of Linda Faith Greene and Kevin Olliff, who have been indicted on charges of conspiracy, stalking and other charges against UCLA researchers and are awaiting trial, the militants were still at it.





"How can you have a discussion with people whose tenet is we will never compromise?" asks Jentsch softly. "I find that very chilling." This morning the so-called "monkey killer" is wearing what he usually wears: faded jeans, a casual button-down shirt and a pair of loafers.Shy and sensitive, he seems an unlikely activist. Jentsch, who earned his Ph.D. in neurobiology at Yale University, has devoted his career to understanding what causes schizophrenia and other crippling mental disorders. One of Jentsch's projects is an attempt to map genes for traits related to schizophrenia so better treatments can be developed.




Recently, he and other UCLA scientists have been studying DISC1, agene linked to difficulties in memory and planning. Initially, "we didn't know what it did," says Jentsch. They discovered its role by developing a mutant mouse model with a version of the gene. He is also looking at the gene in monkeys, whose lifespan and cognitive processes resemble those of humans. But there's an ethical reason, too. "People ask me, why don't you study humans? Because people with schizophrenia are very sick. There's a significant argument about whether they can't consent. The animal model is the only alternative." One test Jentsch designed involves three boxes, each with a different picture. The monkeys initially learn that only one of the pictures means that there is a treat inside the box, and they begin to choose that picture over and over. After mastering the rule, however, the reward is switched to a box with a different picture. The question is,can the monkeys figure it out? Some monkeys are unable to adjust and keep selecting the same picture, a behavior that resembles schizophrenia. "So it's true you cannot study the syndrome of schizophrenia," he says, "but you can study the genes that program poor or good cognition."





Jentsch is also studying the biochemistry of methamphetamine addiction and tobacco dependence in teens. Specifically, he has been looking for genes involved in impulsivity and risk-taking — behaviors that inevitably cause such heartache in addicts' lives. "We have these adolescents, we say they're impulsive and take risks, but what does that mean? At a biological level, you want to be able to identify high-risk kids and know what the proper interventions are to stop them from taking drugs."




He has already discovered a lot. In 2007, in a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, he and his colleagues reported that a gene known to influence impulsive behavior in people did the same thing in nonhuman primates. In ongoing work using imaging, they also showed that when you expose rats and monkeys to tobacco or meth, a circuit in their prefrontal cortex goes haywire. "We now think this is an area of control for what makes addictions so difficult to overcome," he says.



London works closely with Jentsch's lab so that knowledge from animal experiments can be used to help people suffering from nicotine dependence and meth addiction. In a disease that afflicted 1.3 million Americans in 2007, meth's gravity as a public health problem is hard to overstate. London also consulted with journalist David Sheff, who wrote the bestselling Beautiful Boy about his son Nic's meth addiction. Nic, a middle-class student from the Bay Area, also wrote a book, Tweak, a harrowing account of his life as an addict. The researcher's interest in addiction is personal. When London was in her teens, her father died of complications from cigarette smoking.




In the 1980s, as a scientist at the National Institutes of Health, London helped write the Surgeon General's report on smoking. She also ran the brain imaging center at the National Institute on D rug Abuse, where she did groundbreaking studies on the effects of a little-understood drug called cocaine. She is making great progress in her research on meth. When London gave the same tests to meth users that Jentsch used in animals, the results were strikingly similar. They acted impulsively and could not adjust their behavior. When London peered at their brains through PET imaging, she saw something remarkable. Just like the animals, the meth users had lost some key dopamine receptors — ones linked to flexibility and control.




Recently, London has had encouraging results with the drug modafinil."We had this wonderful finding that it reduced the positive effects of meth, so it might have some potential for meth dependence." She was also getting ready to test the compound atomoxetine. In other human studies, the drug has had promising effects in improving self-control. London believes it could help people stop craving meth. "I think we're in a good time," she says of her colleagues' efforts."Clearly, the tremendous advances started with animal studies that led us to looking at the dopamine system." She pauses. A few minutes before, she was asked if she'd ever considered giving up. Now she answers. "No," she says firmly. "This is what I do. I've invested over 30 years of my life to try to do a good job. I can't let them do that." Her eyes fill with tears and she excuses herself to get a Kleenex. "We really can't let some uninformed anarchists hurt the world by stopping the progress of research," she says when she returns. "It's all about helping people. Real people."

NOTE: The article referred to, "We Must Face the Threats" that
appeared in the October issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, can be
read at: http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/full/29/37/11417.

CNN
Researchers to animal-rights activists: We're not afraid
By Thomas G. Watkins
October 8, 2009
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/08/animal.rights.threats/

(CNN) -- Three research scientists have taken a rare public stand
against animal-rights activists, describing them as terrorists for
their threats and acts of violence in commentaries published in the
latest issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

Since 2003, "we have seen our cars and homes firebombed or flooded,
and we have received letters packed with poisoned razors and death
threats via e-mail and voice mail," wrote Dario L. Ringach, a
professor of neurobiology and psychology, and J. David Jentsch, a
professor of psychology. They work at the University of California,
Los Angeles.

"Adding insult to injury, misguided animal-rights militants openly
incite others to violence on the Internet, brag about the resulting
crimes, and go as far as to call plots for our assassination 'morally
justifiable,' " they wrote.

In telephone interviews with CNN, both men said they had been subject
to harassment, threats and violence.

Last March, "they blew up my car while it was parked in front of my
home at 4 a.m.," said Jentsch, who uses rodents and nonhuman primates
in his research into how brain chemistry influences mental disorders.
His 2006 Volvo was destroyed.

The Animal Liberation Brigade, which took responsibility for the
attack in a Web site posting, announced "when we come back, it's not
going to be the car, hint, hint," Jentsch said.

He said an FBI investigator described the incendiary device as "sophisticated."

"We have to take them on directly"

The practice long followed by many researchers of keeping quiet and
hoping the activists will go away does not work, said the 37-year-old
scientist. "We have to take them on directly; that's what we plan to
do ... I'm not going to be afraid of these people; they're thugs."

Jentsch said the university has provided him with round-the-clock
security, along with a handful of other researchers who have been
threatened.

He acknowledged that having no children may make such a stand easier to take.

"People ask me all the time: 'What should people who have children
do?' " he said. "My only answer is -- what a horrible position to put
someone in where they have to choose between their family and their
career, their desire to make the world a better place through their
science."

That was the decision faced by Ringach, who previously worked with
primates. Three years ago, when his 6-year-old and 2-year-old children
were asleep, 30 to 40 masked activists arrived at their house and
banged on the doors and windows, he said.

"I just called 911," he said. "I really was terrified; my kids were
clinging to my wife."

Ringach gave up his work with animals.

Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act of 2006

As a result of that incident, Congress passed the Animal Enterprise
Terrorism Act of 2006. It's a federal law that prohibits interference
with animal enterprises, including research. But it is being
challenged as unconstitutional and, "so far, I'm not sure it has had
an effect on their activities," Ringach said.

The activists have not limited their attacks to primate researchers.
Last year, at the University of California at Santa Cruz, a researcher
who works with mice was awakened at dawn with his wife and their two
children when their house was firebombed. They escaped.

That day, another researcher at the same school -- who works with
flies and has not been identified publicly -- had his car set afire,
said Ringach.

"They're really against all types of research," Ringach said.

The Foundation for Biomedical Research said it was aware of 317
incidents of extremist activity by animal rights activists from 1997
to 2008, including firebombings of researchers' homes and cars,
breaking and entering, vandalism, stealing property and acts of
intimidation.

Scientists bear part of the responsibility for not having explained to
the public why their work is important, Ringach said.

"I would really like to have an honest and civil debate about animal
research," he said. "The problem is it's very difficult to do when
every day I have to look under my car and see if something is there."

Laura Eimiller, an FBI spokeswoman, noted that rewards of up to
$115,000 have been offered for information leading to the arrest and
conviction of the person or persons responsible for the bombings.

She said law enforcement officials consider the attacks to be acts of
domestic terrorism.

Taking it to the next level

Dr. Jerry Vlasak, a surgeon and spokesman for the North American
Animal Liberation Press Office, an animal-rights group, said it is the
researchers who are the terrorists.

"They take these sentient and intelligent beings and lock them up in
sealed cages ... and eventually kill them and chop them up in little
pieces."

Asked whether he supports the use of violence in furthering his goals,
he likened his mission to those of anti-apartheid and civil rights
activists.

"I understand why they're willing to do things like that when all
attempts at public discourse and reason and discussion have been
quashed," he said. "I understand why people would take it to the next
level."

In a separate commentary in The Journal of Neuroscience, the Society
for Neuroscience's outgoing chairman of the Committee on Animals in
Research, Jeffrey H. Kordower, called for the National Institutes of
Health to ensure the safety of researchers against animal-rights
activists.

The federal government requires recipients of NIH grants, primarily
universities, to have plans to protect patients undergoing clinical
trials and to protect animals used in research. But there is no plan
to protect researchers, he said in a telephone interview.

The request "has fallen on deaf ears," said Kordower, a neurologist
who directs the Research Center for Brain Repair at Rush University
Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois.

Though no one has been hurt, "the ... potential is that someone will
be hurt in the near future," he said.

Dr. Sally Rockey, acting NIH deputy director for extramural research,
defended her organization's efforts.

"As we have previously stated, the NIH is extremely concerned about
acts of domestic terrorism against biomedical researchers," she said
in a written statement. "In collaboration with the biomedical
community, we have developed resources to help our grantee
institutions prepare for and manage crises. NIH will continue its
commitment to this policy in the interests of the safety of the
researchers whose work it supports."

The issue is a critical one if science is to advance, said Society for
Neuroscience President Thomas J. Carew.

"Responsible animal research has played a vital role in nearly every
major medical advance of the last century, from heart disease to
polio, and is essential for future advances as well," he said in a
written statement. "Today, it is unacceptable that, in the pursuit of
better health and understanding of disease, researchers, their
families and their communities face violence and intimidation by
extremists."

Charges and countercharges

Vlasak said he had submitted a letter to the editor to The Journal of
Neuroscience that said, "As unfortunate as it may be, all successful
liberation struggles have had to incorporate the use of force in
addition to rational and educated argument; after all, an oppressor
never gives up his power until left with no alternative."

Vlasak said Journal editor John Maunsell rejected the letter, telling
Vlasak in an e-mail, "We will not publish responses from commentators
that appear to condone or encourage violence."

That sparked this missive from Vlasak back to Maunsell: "David Jentsch
can torture and kill nonhuman primates year after year in his
laboratory to allegedly study human addiction, but I refer to the
historical use of force to overthrow oppression and you censor my
letter?

"You wallow in hypocrisy, and refuse to acknowledge the suffering of
any being besides those of your own species. Your attitudes and
behavior will ensure the struggle continues, and hopefully escalates
to encompass ever-more effective strategies."

Vlasak provided CNN with copies of his e-mail correspondence with
Maunsell. A spokeswoman for the journal said it does not comment on
potential submissions.

In a joint comment e-mailed to CNN, Jentsch and Ringach said, "It is
not acceptable for Dr. Vlasak to talk about civilized public discourse
out of one side of his mouth and describe violence against us as just
and reasonable out of the other.

"People like him have deceived the public about the nature and
benefits of biomedical research and, at the same time, we think his
behavior has hindered the work of legitimate animal rights/welfare
groups.

"It is critical that 'mainstream' groups sever their ties with violent
individuals within their movement and publicly repudiate the acts of
animal-right extremists and those that incite them from the sidelines.
When that happens, scientists and animal advocates can get together to
have a reasoned and civilized dialogue about these important issues."

The outspoken researchers are not alone. More than 10,000 people --
many of them scientists -- have signed a "Pro-Test Petition" that
credits animal research with having "contributed ... to major advances
in the length and quality of our lives."

It adds that "violence, intimidation and harassment of scientists and
others involved in animal research is neither a legitimate means of
protest, nor morally justified."

Meanwhile Vlasak seems to have serious anger management issues that seem to get him into trouble from time to time.


http://www.altlaw.org/v1/cases/1666561 JOHNSON V RIVERSIDE HEALTHCAREUnited States Court of Appeals for the Ninth CircuitJuly 28, 2008 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT CHRISTOPHER LYNN JOHNSON, M.D.,Plaintiff-Appellant,v.RIVERSIDE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM, LP, Opinion by Judge O'Scannlain <SNIP>“As the facts are set forth in Johnson's complaint, Vlasak failed to review the patient's CT scan and consequently failed to realize that the patient was suffering from a skull fracture with an underlying brain contusion. Upon discovering the problem, Johnson admitted the patient for surgery and per- formed the necessary procedure. When Vlasak learned that Johnson had corrected (and therefore exposed) his oversight, Vlasak moved as if to strike Johnson, "charged" into the room where Johnson was standing and "screamed . . . `You f**king nigger-why did you do that to me?' "<SNIP>