Huntingdon Life Sciences

From Free net encyclopedia

Image:HLSlogo.jpg Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) is a contract animal-testing company founded in 1952 in England, now with facilities in Huntingdon in the United Kingdom, New Jersey in the United States, and Japan. The largest such commercial operation in Europe, it conducts tests on around 75,000 animals every year — mostly rats but including 750 dogs and 190 primates [1] — testing pharmaceutical products, agricultural chemicals, industrial chemicals, and foodstuffs on behalf of private clients worldwide.

HLS has been under intense financial pressure since 1999, when a group of British animal rights activists set up Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), an international campaign to close the company down. The campaign was started after film shot secretly inside HLS, and shown on British television, showed staff punching and laughing at the animals in their care. [2] (video)

1 History
2 Controversy
3 Links with Chiron
4 External links

[edit]

History

Originally the company concentrated upon nutrition, veterinary and biochemical research. An expansion of services in the late 1950s led to the testing of pharmaceuticals, crop protection products, food additives and a variety of industrial and consumer chemicals. This set the company on its present path to become a leading provider of toxicology testing.

[edit]

Controversy

Image:HLSCass.jpg HLS is criticized by animal rights and animal welfare groups for documented instances of animal abuse and for the wide range of substances it tests on animals, especially non-medical products.

The company's labs have been infiltrated by undercover animal rights activists several times since the 1980s. In 1997, film secretly recorded inside HLS in the UK by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals showed serious breaches of animal-protection laws, including a beagle puppy being held up by the scruff of the neck and repeatedly punched in the face, and animals being taunted. The investigation led to the company's Home Office licence being revoked in April 1997 for six months. At the time, the company's shares stood at £1.13: within three years they were worth 2.5 pence.

Huntingdon officials say these breaches were isolated cases [3] and that the staff responsible were sacked and prosecuted, but the company's labs have been repeatedly accused by animal-rights supporters of further similar offences. Film shot inside HLS in the United States shows a monkey being dissected whilst alive and fully conscious. [4] (video)

In 1999, two British animal rights activists, Greg Avery and his wife at the time, Heather James, started Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, (SHAC) an international campaign based in the UK and U.S., with the initial aim of closing HLS within three years. The campaign is based on non-violent direct action, as well as lobbying and demonstrations. It targets not only HLS directly, but any company, institution, or person doing business with the laboratory, whether as clients, suppliers, or even disposal and cleaning services. Despite its stated non-violent position, SHAC has been accused of encouraging arson and violent assault. HLS's managing director, Brian Cass, was attacked in February 2001 by three men armed with pickaxe handles and CS gas. [5] Cass was awarded the CBE in 2002 for services to medical research.

In May 2003, the company was accredited by the Association For Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) [6].

The SHAC campaign appears to have substantial support around the world among animal-rights and animal-protection activists, while HLS appears to be supported by the British Prime Minister Tony Blair. A spokesman for Blair told the BBC: "The prime minister is very pro-science in relation to this." [7] The company has argued that if their research is stopped in Britain, it may be conducted elsewhere, with a loss of British jobs, and to a country with less rigorous animal-protection legislation.

[edit]

Links with Chiron

Animal rights supporters allege HLS has connections with the Chiron corporation. The corporation received an email from a group calling itself "Revolutionary Cells," which said "We gave all of the customers the chance, the choice, to withdraw their business from HLS. Now you all will have to reap what you have sown. All customers and their families are considered legitimate targets,". This was followed by two bomb blasts at the corporation's headquarters in Emeryville. [8] There is no proven link between Revoloutionary Cells and SHAC.

Animal rights supporters have been served with a High Court injunction preventing them from harassing Chiron's UK staff in or around their homes. [9]

[edit]