Close Huntingdon Life Sciences

[hedgewitch]

Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) is Europe's largest contract animal testing laboratory.

They have about 70,000 animals on site, including rabbits, cats, hamsters, dogs, guinea-pigs, birds and monkeys. These animals are destined to suffer and die in cruel, useless experiments. 500 of them die each day.

HLS will test anything for anybody. They carry out experiments which involve poisoning animals with household products, pesticides, drugs, herbicides, food colourings and additives, sweeteners and genetically modified organisms.

HLS have been infiltrated and exposed a number of times in recent years. Each time horrific evidence of animal abuse and staff incompetence has been uncovered, including workers punching beagle puppies in the face.

Take action to have this disgrace of a company closed down.

please sign the petition...

[The Riff-Raff Element]

I've already signed this, but it must be remembered that closing HLS would only be treating a symptom not addressing the cause.

HLS exists because - in many cases - the law requires that products are tested on animals. It is this that must also be changed if a success in closing HLS results only in the cruelty being exported. Alternatives for many testing procedures on animals exist so could I ask that people also take the time to badger their MP and MEP for a change in the law that at least requires these to be used where they can? In many cases the alternatives are even cheaper than animal testing but the laws on product safety testing do not recognise them as being valid.

[Bluemoon]

I read biochemistry at uni, I refused to take part in animal experiments and my tutors not only supported me (and others who took the same stand) but said that it was all pointless anyway and they just had to teach things that way because that's what employers were doing. Employers don't really want to do it, it's an expensive and (usually) inconclusive way to go about things anyway. As someone has said, it's governments who demand the testing. I'm going to sign the petition.

[pumpy]

The problem is, where do you draw the line? My Jackie, (type 1 diabetic),wouldn't be alive,without animal testing. It is a necessary evil,in certain conditions. As a ex-smoker, i wouldn't have been able to give up,without medical assistance, which was probably researched on animals. Also, the reason why we know, what makes animals happy, is because of research. These things have to be done, ... but certainly not in the name of cosmetics, or other human vanities.

[Flo]

I don't like the work done by HLS and others like it and would prefer that these facilities did not exist. However I suspect that the work would just be done elsewhere in the world if it was not done here.

Unfortunately the Animal Liberation Front which led the protests at HLS uses methods that do not come within the parameters of lawful protest, or anywhere near legal action in some cases.

I'm afraid that a lot of public sympathy veered towards HLS in time past because it had a business which is allowed by law and the protesters at the gates were obviously outside the law a lot of the time.

Until we resolve the problem of how to test drugs without the use of animals, then we are not really getting to the bottom of the problem. If HLS shuts - well there's plenty of other places where the work can be done in a global economy.

[pumpy]

The A.L.F. do not attract public support, neither do the testing centres. Drug-testing has to be carried out somehow, is it something that we have to live with?

[pumpy]

The A.L.F. do not attract public support, neither do the testing centres. Drug-testing has to be carried out somehow, is it something that we have to live with?

[pumpy]

The A.L.F. do not attract public support, neither do the testing centres. Drug-testing has to be carried out somehow, is it something that we have to live with?

(and my twin brother thinks the same)!!

[StripyPixieSocks]

I have been on 'the other side' as my husband used to work at the university vet school* where animals were kept. We had to be constantly on the look out for devices under cars, bricks through windows - and all my OH was doing was cleaning the animals out and feeding them. There was a story in the paper yesterday of Anti-HLS people sending letters to all the neighbours of one man claiming he was a pedophile, because he worked for Glaxo, who use HLS.

If anti-viv people used a better route - like petioning their MP's as mentioned above, or promoting alternatives perhaps they wouldn't be written off as 'those animal rights nutters' - people would actually listen to their message. The only press they seem to get is when they have released animals into the wild or are being 'done' for something. It doesn't help the cause at all.


* They don't test things on them there, more for students to get used to animals I think..

Unfortunately those so-called anti-vivisectionists and anti-cruelty people who seem to think killing or maiming people gets their message over are usually the same element who turn up at riots and road protests and have no real interest in the cause whatsoever.

Also unfortunately they make it all the much more harder for the legitimate people and causes to get their message across.

Yes, HLS should be closed down but as someone mentioned above it will probably just be re-opened somewhere else and it's the root that needs addressing not the branches and leaves of the problem if you see what I mean :)

[foodinistar]

Animal testing is a deep moral question. As already mentioned, at root the government has legislated that testing be done on animals before chemicals are licensed for use in/by humans.

But you have to admire the dedication of these anti-vivisectionists. Every week they take a day off work to demonstrate outside a place near me. And wear undyed clothes.

[Thomzo]

I'm afraid that I would prefer HLS to keep going in the UK than the work be exported to a country that doesn't care so much about animal rights. Nobody is perfect and HLS might have made mistakes but at least it is done within a legal system that recognises animals (or at least more so than many other countries). We hear about the mistakes at HLS and something gets done about them. In other countries the abuse would be far more widespread and far less reported.

I also think that maybe HLS could get on with their jobs better and treat the animals in a better way if they did not have all these nutcases threatening them and their customers. (I've even heard of their auditors being targetted with hate mail and threats.) After all, it must be very difficult for HLS to attract well educated, responsible, caring staff when these poor people are being threatened or attacked all the time.

I am not for vivisection; I quite agree that it should not be used except where there is no alternative and only for medical reasons. But if the work has got to be done then the people who do it should be treated with respect. After all, if these moron protestors really cared about animals they would target every single car, van, lorry, coach, train and plane. Transport kills and maims far more animals per year than HLS.

Zoe