Monkey lab move 'a blow to UK'

Campaigners say animal experiements are unnecessary

Scientists fear the move to drop plans for an animal experiment centre in Cambridge could damage efforts to sell the UK as a base for medical research.

Cambridge University's scheme at Girton was intended to draw in experts from around the world to carry out research into neurological conditions.

What would have been a modern facility acting as a magnet for scientific research and funding will remain for now a cluster of old farm buildings.

Animal rights activists are jubilant.

But Dr Evan Harris, a Lib Dem MP on the Science and Technology Select Committee said: "The impact of this... could be profound as research investment leaves the UK."

He said protesters were wrong to believe they had secured a victory for their cause, saying: "More work will be done in less well-regulated countries and progress in finding cures for serious diseases will be held up."

UK ANIMAL EXPERIMENTS 2.73 million experiments in the 12 months of 2002 Total number of procedures rose by 4.2% on 2001 About 80% are for research and drug development Safety testing accounts for most of the rest Great apes such as chimpanzees cannot be used in experiments

He argues the government is at fault for allowing campaigners to succeed in pressuring institutions such as Cambridge University to back down from research projects.

More than 3,000 monkeys are known to be used each year in the UK in science experiments, although very few of this number undergo the highly invasive brain procedures of the type that would have been conducted at the proposed Cambridge lab.

Researchers argue that without animal experiments they would be unable to make major advances in battling serious illnesses that afflict mankind.

Professor Colin Blakemore, Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council, said: "Primates are special and we strive to minimise their use. But studies involving primates have been crucial for our understanding of brain function."

"We must make sure that pressure and threats from a tiny minority of protestors do not impede research that is vital in the hunt for treatments and cures for terrible illnesses."

'No alternatives'

Others are equally adamant research work involving animals must carry on.

Philp Connolly, director of the Coalition for Medical Progress, told BBC News Online: "Be in no doubt, research using primates will continue.

"In the case of Cambridge as I understand it, this new lab was aimed at moving work from other centres - so the work is still being done, but elsewhere."

Professor Tony Minson, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the University of Cambridge, said: "To achieve the important advances in medical knowledge, animals are used where there are no alternatives.

"The animal rights groups will of course claim this as a victory, but in our view they have won no arguments whatsoever."

It is a view totally rejected by animal rights campaign groups.

Andrew Tyler, of Animal Aid, which has been one of the main opponents to the Cambridge lab, said it would have been the biggest primate research centre in Europe.

"It's difficult to know how many animals would have been consumed.

"It would have been a factory to mutilate the brains of monkeys and then dispose of them.

"It would have made Cambridge University the monkey torture capital of Europe."