Philosophy > General AR Philosophy

Text of NABR Interview with Merritt Clifton

I have been closely identified with many causes over the years, also including human rights, environmental protection, and the peace movement, because I have closely covered their concerns, and of course I have editorially expressed my own views as well; but in keeping with the ethics of my profession, I have never taken a partisan advocacy role, I have always tried to fairly represent the facts of the matters at hand, and I have usually become rather unpopular with rabid partisans of all sorts for reporting on their failures and shortcomings as well as their successes.

Which is, more-or-less, why I'm here.

Question: "There seems to be a rift in the animal rights movement between those who subscribe to animal rights and those who believe in animal welfare. Do you see a substantive difference between the two beliefs that make them mutually exclusive?"

Answer: Historically, both "animal rights" and "animal welfare" are paradigms for advancing the notion "be kind to animals," including some specific and rather elementary goals articulated almost from the very beginnings of the humane movement, nearly 200 years ago. These include the ideas that animals should not be tormented, whether for gain or pleasure; should not be neglected; should not be eaten under any avoidable circumstance; and should not be killed without dire and urgent need.

For the overwhelming majority of participants, the goal of the humane movement has always been to increase conscientious consideration of animals, anywhere our lives intersect. This was verified by the 1991 Rebecca Templin-Richards study of more than 1,000 self-identified animal rights activists, which found that 80.1% defined themselves as being aligned with both "animal rights" and "animal welfare." It is noteworthy that within the animal protection cause, those individuals who have tried to foment conflict between "animal rights" and "animal welfare" have invariably marginalized themselves. Witness the dramatic fall in the influence of animal rights philosopher Tom Regan and animal rights attorney Gary Francione. Until they declared "animal welfare" to be antithetical to "animal rights" at the 1991 National Alliance for Animal Legislation annual conference, scarcely any major animal rights event took place without them. These days they speak chiefly to dwindling crowds at gatherings they organize themselves.

There is, of course, another set of perceptions of "animal rights" and "animal welfare," popular among people who have found themselves the targets of protest, which can be traced to a 1986 discussion paper prepared for the Canadian government by the public relations firm Thomas Grey & Co., whose mandate was to find a way to save the fur industry. Grey & Co. postulated that public opinion overwhelmingly favors being kind to animals; therefore, the task before the fur trade was to separate the idea of being kind to animals from the idea that trapping and fur-farming are cruel. Their recommended strategy was to find and amplify the most extreme factions within the animal rights movement, identifying those as what animal rights is all about, striving to associate the anti-fur movement with the extremes. Two years later the same strategy appeared, copied almost verbatim, in the American Medical Association's recommended strategy for coping with anti-vivisectionists operating under the animal rights banner. Just about exactly two years after that, the same strategic recommendation was advanced by dog breeders in response to the breeding ban legislation introduced in San Mateo County, California. By claiming to support "animal welfare," but not "animal rights," opponents of humane goals could claim to support the goals acceptable to most of society while in truth only trying to preserve the status quo.

This strategy has ironically greatly multiplied the visibility and influence of the most extreme animal rights organizations, especially the misanthropic PETA, at the expense of others whose idealism on behalf of animals is combined with pragmatism and a positive attitude toward human potential. By choosing a "divide-and-conquer" strategy, opponents of humane goals chose polarization and mutually destructive conflict, instead of negotiation and mutually beneficial progress--a mistake I hope can be rectified, now that the consequences of polarization are visible.

Question: "What are the five or six simple things you say the biomedical community can take to resolve most public and animal welfare concerns, and disarm all but the most fanatical critics, without spending a great deal of money or compromising principles?"

Answer: After much meditation on the matter, I've actually come up with ten such simple things; but first, some essential context. The biomedical community has never clearly understood the source and nature of most humane opposition--not in the 19th century, not during the anti-vivisection crusade led by William Randolph Hearst during the first half of this century, and not over the past 20 years, either. The problem isn't simply that animals are being used in ways which many people perceive as torture. To the extent that animals are indeed being made to suffer, that is a problem; but it is also a problem with evident solutions, such as anasthesia where applicable; reduction, refinement, and replacement; and in convincing the public--which is best done by making it true--that no suffering is ever inflicted on animals without serious need and without every effort being made to minimize the degree and duration of the suffering.

A century of polls have established that even though the public disapproves of inflicting pain and death on animals just to satisfy what Charles Darwin called "mere damnable and detestable curiosity," the public does accept the use of animals in biomedical procedures when the choice is literally between "your child or your dog." For our family, that wasn't just a hypothetical situation. My wife Kim Bartlett and I immediately sought, without any moral qualms, the very best medical help we could find when at age 20 months our son Wolf was found to have a large brain tumor that could have killed him at any moment. The first priority for both of us was to save our baby--as it should be for any parent fit to have a child (and is, for most parents of any species). Techniques probably developed and perfected on animals permitted Wolf to become the bright, artistic, articulate, athletic, and sensitive child he is today. Yet this experience in no way diminished our concern with preventing animal suffering. The problem is that the biomedical community hides behind the "your child or your dog" dichotomy too soon, too predictably, and too universally to inspire much trust. Historically, hideous cruelties have been rationalized in the name of science, concealed for a time, and then been exposed; and each time, just as science re-establishes a good reputation, some other mutilated skeleton topples out of the closet--for instance, the Cold War nuclear research on unwitting human subjects, disclosed last year through a Cabinet-level probe and Congressional hearings. Seeing what has been done to people within the memories of many if not most adults doesn't inspire confidence that animals now are treated with any more consideration.

Most biomedical work involving animals may be within the bounds of public acceptability. On condition that good-faith efforts are made to implement optimum housing conditions for laboratory animals and that every effort is made to implement reduction, refinement, and replacement, strictly limited and supervised animal research may even be transiently acceptable to most animal rights advocates, within the context that while it may not be morally "right," researchers are doing the best they can to obey our conflicting mandates to protect our children and ourselves at the same time as obeying the Golden Rule.

However, whatever the reality is, the biomedical community is not going to enjoy the confidence of either the public or the humane community that it is acting in good faith, so long as it outwardly behaves as if it has a collectively guilty conscience, shrinking from any public scrutiny. From the first whisperings of anti-vivisectionism, biomedical researchers have done everything possible to sequester themselves away like Dr. Frankenstein, and have then wondered why, despite the many medical miracles they bring us, much of the public continues to suspect them of consorting with criminals, robbing graves, and building monsters.

Within the biomedical community, there are frequent claims that such suspicions reflect public ignorance, fear of the unknown, and an "anti-science" mindset. These claims contain some elements of truth; but one doesn't deal effectively with ignorance and fear by hiding. To gain public trust, the biomedical community must open doors and windows, taking the clear risk that certain procedures will prove unacceptable to the public, as the price of being able to operate with greater freedom--and less opposition to funding--in all the other areas that will be acceptable to the majority of observers.

The above is context. These are my specific recommendations:

1) Stop scaring yourselves to death. If biomedical publications reported on the Ebola virus the way many have reported on the activities of the Animal Liberation Front and a handful of other destructive yahoos, it would outweigh cancer as a public terror--even though it rarely occurs in humans and even more rarely gets into the United States. It is true that the ALF et al were responsible for 313 violent incidents between 1977 and June 1993, as established by the Department of Justice. It is also true that none of those incidents involved injuries to either humans or animals; 160 were petty vandalism; 105 occurred in 1987-1988, and that's more than have occurred in the past five years combined. In short, the 15-year record of the ALF and like groups, in the United States, has been roughly comparable to the 15-year record of Halloween in any major metropolis, right down to the extent of arson damage. The reluctance of many animal rights groups to denounce the ALF is, in my personal view, deplorable political cowardice; but it is worth noting, as well, that only one major group, PETA, has ever actively demonstrated any relationship to the ALF, or even support for it going beyond casual rhetoric. Meanwhile, there are some sound sociological reasons why the level of violence associated with the ALF and animal rights activism in Great Britain has not spread to the United States, and isn't likely to. Most obviously, British animal rights activism has attracted a large cadre of disenfranchised young males, for whom the animal rights cause is a vehicle for venting hostility toward everything they perceive as The Establishment. That can't and won't happen here, because in the U.S. our hostile and disenfranchised young males are usually hunters, a pursuit which apart from a relative handful of "terrier men" practically doesn't exist in Britain for income brackets below the upper middle class. Hunting and animal rights activism don't mix. Our hostile and disenfranchised young males instead join private militias. When they blow up buildings, it's in an entirely different cause, and people who enforce the Animal Welfare Act (at least seven of them, in Oklahoma City) are among the victims.

There are two blatant examples of scaring yourselves to death that I must mention. First, a great deal has been made over the years of Fran Trutt's attempted bombing of the U.S. Surgical parking lot in November 1988. Yet as court depositions established prior to Trutt's sentencing in 1990, that action would never have come about if two employees of the private security firm employed by U.S. Surgical, Perceptions International, had not encouraged Trutt for months; loaned her the money to buy that bomb and several others; and driven her to the site. I can testify about this case from first-hand knowledge, and have done so for years in both written and oral depositions: operating on apparent serious misconceptions about who and what I am, Marylou Sapone of Perceptions International approached me at a party on January 17, 1988, and spent more than two hours trying to convince me that U.S. Surgical president Leon Hirsch should be bombed, while I gently and politely explained to her that she had her head where the sun doesn't shine. I was gentle and polite because Sapone had just been introduced to me as my date's best friend; I had been instructed to be nice to her; and she appeared to be drunk enough that she wouldn't remember any of her foolishness the next morning. I told other people both at the party and afterward about the conversation, but no one else I spoke to then seemed to take her seriously, and it was only much later that I learned Kim Bartlett, then editor of The Animals' Agenda, had been warning people all along that she might be a plant. (I met Kim for the first time at that same party, briefly, but did not discuss Sapone with her. Kim is now my wife and the publisher of ANIMAL PEOPLE.) The gist of it, and the way it should be remembered, is that the scariest deed ever perpetrated in the name of animal rights in the U.S. was a set-up. It should be a heads-up to the biomedical community as well as the animal rights community that with friends like Sapone et al, nobody needs enemies. Both communities were victimized by the same dastardly plot.

The second example of scaring yourselves to death involves statistics. In 1990 the Association of American Medical Colleges estimated that over the preceding five years, activities related to animal rights had cost U.S. institutions $6.3 million in damages directly related to demonstrations, break-ins, and vandalism; $4.5 million in estimated lost research time; and $6.8 million in improved security precautions, many of them needed anyway to deal with the risks involved in working with "hot" viruses, artificially created life forms, and other breaking-edge aspects of biomedical research. These five-year tallies were immediately lumped together and bandied about in countless newsletters, press releases, online postings, etc., as the average single-year costs of the animal rights movement to the biomedical community. To lose $17.6 million to vandalism, etc., even over five years, is certainly disconcerting; but as subsequent federal probes of research overhead billing established, far more than that was lost over the same period just through sloppy accounting. The cost of ALF attacks and such-like are cause for concern, but not for panic.

With that much established, on to the rest of my recommendations:

2) Open all Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee meetings and records to the public, with full disclosure of protocols. This doesn't mean the public gets to participate, outside of a designated comment period; only that the public gets to see and hear whatever is going on, if anyone wants to. The best defense against anti-vivisectionists making unfair use of information thus revealed is to have other witnesses present, including at least one news reporter. The best defense against open IACUC meetings impeding research is to insure that humane concerns are not only addressed, but are seen to be addressed, in approving any procedure. It should be possible to maintain order and decorum at open IACUC meetings at least as effectively as is accomplished at other public meetings. The conceit that IACUCs are dealing with anything any more sensitive than the usual business of town councils and school boards, i.e. property taxes and children's education, will swiftly dissolve when the novelty of open meetings wears off, whereupon the press coverage will become a dry synopsis on an inside page of the paper, and the "crowd" will shrink to a handful of faithful regulars except on the very rare occasions when something genuinely controversial does come up.

3) Hold well-publicized regular open houses at all campus laboratories, maybe once a quarter or semester, keeping off limits only those places that have to be off limits to prevent the spread of contagious diseases. You might get huge crowds at first, but after the first few open houses, the attendance would drop off to mostly science majors curious about their curriculum and career opportunities. Meanwhile, the more people who don't know much about laboratory animal care and handling see of what is actually done, and the more they know they can go to see for themselves, the less alarmed they will be about claims that atrocities are the norm. The best way to convince people that scientists care about animals is for scientists themselves to show them.

If anything revealed by following the above recommendations does prove genuinely unacceptable to the public, it will have to be halted and redesigned, if it is to be done at all. I hope most biomedical researchers have the confidence in what they are doing to take that risk. I believe the longterm gains for all researchers would offset the short-term losses of a relative handful.

4) Do not leave exposure, denunciation, and termination of cruel procedures or holding conditions up to the most militant activists. If a profession is to operate with a high degree of autonomy, it also must visibly demonstrate the will and the ability to discipline practitioners. In journalism, a reporter who violates key tenets of truthfulness isn't just fired; he or she is trashed on page one of the paper, like the reporter who won a Pulitzer for a fabricated story about a crack-dealing child, or the TV news magazine crew who rigged the explosion of a pickup truck in a crash test, or Wendy Bergen, who was unemployed for years after staging a pit bull fight in Colorado, just so she could "expose" it. The public generally trusts the news media (despite many contrary claims) because it knows that we don't protect our own when we catch them lying; we hang them from a high scaffold with a short rope, and leave them twisting in the wind for many years. Very little could be more reassuring to the humane community and the general public than the sight of an IACUC doing likewise to the perpetrator of an abusive experiment or the person responsible for substandard holding conditions. Instead of pretending that all biomedical researchers are saints, when anyone of good sense knows there are some serious sinners in every gathering, the biomedical community needs to publically purge itself of the sinners, starting the disciplinary procedures before anyone else even knows an offense has transpired. When the closest a prominent biomedical researcher who's been caught doing something abusive to animals can get to renewed employment within the field is stocking the nonprescription drug shelves at the local Stewart's store, the credibility of the biomedical community on humane issues will rise proportionately to that individual's downfall. (Such individuals may be allowed to redeem themselves later--I'm not arguing for casting them into hell, only for giving them a long stretch in a humiliating purgatory--but they should only be allowed back into laboratories after they have accepted serious consequences for their deeds, and have demonstrated a markedly improved attitude toward both animals and their other professional responsibilities.)

5) Report biomedical use of rats, mice, and birds to the USDA--or publish independent tallies--whether or not the Animal Welfare Act regulations so require. Nothing builds suspicion of the biomedical community more than its ongoing adamant refusal to account for the animals who are purportedly more than 90% of all of those used--especially when the numbers used are supposed to be going down. The excuse that accounting for use of rats, mice, and birds would be costly is unconvincing when it is well-known that the essential data is already tabulated on shipping invoices from the rat, mouse, and bird suppliers. The biomedical community should be able to provide the necessary data with a lot less trouble and expense than is involved in continuing to argue about it.

6) Do not form alliances with wise-use wiseguys. Having anti-science "friends" who want to trash the National Biological Service, gut the Endangered Species Act, and rapidly deplete natural resources is not going to enhance your credibility. Whatever harm they do to your imagined foes will be offset by the harm the association does to you. (Except on the matter of animal use, I suspect the typical biomedical professional has far more of his/her outlook and values in common with the typical animal defender than with just about anyone in the militant wise-use camp.)

7) Be conscious of the need for those humane organizations which are willing to work with you to show gains. If the biomedical community wants to enjoy mutually considerate relations with the humane community, it must be aware of the intense competition for funding among animal protection groups, who despite the prominence of a handful which are very successful at fundraising but not much else, together claim only nine tenths of 1% of the U.S. charity dollar. In general, the noisier and more flamboyant groups get the donations, starving the rest, including the very groups which are most serious about accomplishing real progress against animal suffering, with which the biomedical community is most likely to be able to do business. When you contribute to a polarized, either/or atmosphere, where everything is either a victory or a defeat, you tend to contribute to the economic success of the groups whose positions are most extreme. Those in the middle then get clobbered for "selling out" and not even getting anything to show for it. If you really want to improve communication, take the opposite approach. Identify the honest and responsible groups--which is going to take some investigation, because they are generally not the biggest. Some of them may well have absolute philosophical stances, incompatible with your own position, but that does not necessarily mean they are unrealistic about accepting progress as it comes. Find the ones you can deal with, especially those which have strong reputations for credibility and integrity among the humane community, because you don't need puppets: you need a strong, credible, respect-worthy loyal opposition, to serve as your public critics and external conscience. Then reward them for reasonable and considerate if perhaps philosophically uncompromising behavior by giving them prominent public credit for whatever changes you make on behalf of animals. Don't just say, "We've decided to double the size of our primate holding facilities, to enrich their environment." Say instead, "Because we agree with our friends at X-humane group that animals should enjoy the best possible conditions, we are accepting the recommendation of X-humane group that we should double the size of our primate holding facilities. We may never agree on the rightness or wrongness of animal-based research itself, but we are in agreement that those primates we do use should enjoy the very best facilities we are able to give them." You get what you want, the humane group gets the boost that it needs along with the fulfillment of some humane goals, and the flamboyant yahoos are shut out of the action.

8) Halt classroom dissection exercises at all levels below upper division university level courses for people majoring or minoring in biomedical subjects. While secrecy creates public suspicion of biomedical research, public revulsion at laboratory use of animals grows directly from the near-universal memory of having been compelled to dissect a frog or whatever, or to watch such a dissection, as nothing more than a rite of passage in a mandatory course somewhere, from which the average student remembers little else with comparable vividness. Whatever lessons in actual biology such exercises teach are counterbalanced by the sight of countless little animals who have been killed strictly for "mere damnable and detestable curiosity." Whatever scientists may say or do to express concern and respect for the animal lives they take is offset by the memory of lab instructors and fellow students trying to offset their misgivings with dark witticisms. And whenever dissection proponents argue that having students do dissection teaches them something about the value of studying animals in lab procedures, I personally hear an undertone of the gangster idea that the way to initiate a reliable footsoldier is to involve him or her in making a "hit." Then complicity obliges silence. You don't need that kind of emotional baggage to make a case for the things you do that really matter, and you shouldn't be doing the things that don't really matter.

9) Quit buying animals from Class B dealers. So far as I can tell from the available statistics, Class B vendors of random-source dogs and cats are the least important of all sources of animals used in laboratories, yet are the source of the most complaints about unethical procurement, including outright theft, and inhumane holding conditions. Every cent you save in obtaining dogs and cats from Class B dealers is offset by a dollar's worth of suspicion. Renounce using random source animals, and you'll take away the most potent propaganda issue that antivivisection groups have, as well as the primary biomedical-related issue of several other national organizations which are (quietly) not anti-animal research per se.

10) Advertise not just your good deeds on behalf of humans, but also your good deeds for animals--and do some of the advertising in humane media and campus media, directing the ads right at your critics. I'm not talking about smart-assed, nose-thumbing ads like the ones that say, "Because of animal research, animal rights activists will have 20 more years to protest." Those are an insult to the intelligence of anyone who is aware that our increasing longevity is produced by multiple factors, also including improved diet, less smoking, better sanitation, cleaner air, safer cars, fewer wars, and less hazardous workplaces. In effect, those ads flip off people who care about animals in the same way that some of the most provocative yet least effective animal rights campaigns flip off researchers, contributing to polarity rather than progress. I am talking about a whole different approach, as outlined above under point #7: respectfully acknowledge your critics; recognize that while certain disagreements rooted in values and conscience may never be resolved, you do share some common concerns; and explain what you've done to meet those concerns. Progressive measures would also be recognized through news items in ANIMAL PEOPLE, but to really make a positive impression you need to amplify your accomplishments just as your opponents amplify theirs. We're not going to accept an ad that says, "Experimenting on animals is good and you people who don't think so are all a bunch of idiots." That would be an insult to the conscientious motivation of our readers. We would, however, be pleased to accept ads that address our readership as one group of conscientious people speaking to another, trying to establish common ground by responding to common concerns. Make that effort, and I think you'll find that despite a hostile response from the absolutists, most humane activists will respond positively, even through profound disagreement.

Question: "What is the most counterproductive aspect of the animal rights movement right now? What about in the medical research community (in regards to how the public views the issue of animals in research)?"

Answer: I think this is covered in my response to the second question.

Question: "Researchers are perhaps most infuriated by what they see as misrepresentations of medical history by groups like the Physicians' Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) and the Medical Research Modernization Committee (MRMC). What is your opinion on how these groups are affecting the debate? Do you think the contributions of animal research have been overstated by doctors? If so, which side is closer to the truth?"

Answer: I've certainly seen PCRM and MRMC overstate their case from time to time, but no more so than such defenders of animal research as Frederick Goodwin and Adrian Morrison, whose pronouncements about the animal rights movement tend to contain at least one factual or contextual error per sentence. On the whole, I think PCRM was on solid ground in advancing its alternative basic food groups in 1991, but overstepped in misrepresenting Dr. Benjamin Spock's criticisms of drinking cow's milk a year later as a categorical condemnation. What Spock actually said was quite strong enough, without having to put additional words in his mouth. Those two episodes to me demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of PCRM: sometimes it delivers necessary critiques of the way things are done, and sometimes ideology overwhelms accurate representation. Overall, I must say I haven't seen either PCRM or MRMC taking any more liberties with medical facts than your average author of a newspaper doctor's column. Remember the late Dr. George Crane? He used to stir up incredibly heated controversies with highly opinionated claims about how things should be done, and of course we now know that some of his most ardently delivered advice was dead wrong--but in the context of the times and his role, he served a very useful purpose, in making people think twice about their beliefs concerning health and fitness. As a longtime consumer affairs reporter, for both print and electronic media, I always advised readers and listeners to get a second opinion, and a third opinion if possible. I think the opinions of PCRM and MRMC are worth considering. Yet I don't think they are the only opinions anyone should weigh, any more than I think anyone should uncritically accept as gospel what Crane or Goodwin or Morrison had/has to say.

Question: "When we interviewed Henry Spira in early 1993, he said the biggest roadblock to using nonanimal alternatives was bureaucratic inertia and regulatory requirements that were not harmonized. Do you think there has been much progress in recent years in having animal tests replaced by alternatives?"

Answer: Henry Spira, as usual, was right on target--and I have a major argument with much of the environmental establishment in this area. Although I personally made a statement of conscience against dissecting animals in 1966, and refused to do it despite heavy academic consequences, I was not aware of the existence of organized opposition to any aspect of biomedical use of animals until 1980, when I became aware as an environmental reporter focusing on chemical pollution that LD50 tests in Canada and elsewhere were commonly rigged by companies using strains of mice, rats, hamsters, etc., who had genetically higher resistance to the chemicals being tested than some of their cousins. I became acquainted with Spira while researching an expose of the subject that was eventually syndicated across Canada. My bottom-line finding was that because conventional animal testing didn't detect the effects of many hazardous substances with long latency intervals, such as asbestos, and could be manipulated to mask the risk from other substances, such tests were not really doing a reliable job of protecting public health and safety. The lab people knew it, the regulators knew it, and industry knew it. Everyone agreed that better testing protocols had to be developed and be made the standard. Yet to this day many leading environmental organizations scream bloody murder about clearing obsolete testing requirements out of the way so that money and resources can be devoted to tests that really tell us something. There is a misperception promoted by many environmentalists (and occupational safety advocates) that reforming protocols is the same thing as weakening them. That misperception must be corrected, and this is one area where humane advocates and the biomedical community could work together to mutual advantage--and to the advantage of the environment itself, for that matter. There has been progress, but there could be a lot more progress with an enlightened approach to dealing with the obstacles.

Question: "Do you have an opinion one way or the other on The Body Shop, which has come under intense scrutiny and criticism by journalists about its ethical image?"

Answer: ANIMAL PEOPLE has worked closely with freelance Jon Entine in exposing the animal aspects of The Body Shop story--and has asked The Body Shop for their side of it, too, which despite repeated promises has never been forthcoming. The big issue, as I see it, is honesty. If The Body Shop wants to pose as a cruelty-free company, meaning no use of animal-tested or animal-based products and ingredients, it should obey the same constraints on use of ingredients, testing protocols, etc., as other cruelty-free companies. If it tried to take a position it couldn't sustain, it should be forthright about what happened and why. Retreating behind the rather empty motto, "Against animal testing," without doing anything noteworthy to back it up, is not honest advertising in my opinion. There are four simple words Anita Roddick should learn to use: "We goofed. We're sorry." Put those together with corrective action, and The Body Shop will be forgiven. Stonewall, or practice denial, and the result will be escalating mistrust and resentment.

Question: "In the speech you made in St. Louis, you said the animal rights movement should move into a position of enfranchised loyal opposition regarding medical research. What methods would this entail, and which would it exclude?"

Answer: To some extent, this is covered in my responses to the first two questions; but there is more to be said. There are several different types of advocate, e.g. the reformer, the watchdog/critic, and the instigator. The role and tactics of a loyal opponent varies among them. The universal premise is only that a loyal opponent works toward resolution of problems, not toward destruction of individuals and institutions. This requires treating one's opponent with respect, assuming integrity and good intentions whenever possible, and always giving the opponent the chance to respond positively to a problematic situation before raising public hell about it. When raising public hell must be done, campaigns should hit hard but cleanly. For instance, an appeal to emotion is legitimate, if the appeal is factually well-founded; if based on a false or exaggerated claim, such an appeal is illegitimate. Reformers generally work in the legislative and litigative areas. Functioning as loyal opponents of one another, the biomedical and animal protection communities should be able to jointly confer, agree on problematic areas, and work out the details of appropriate bills before they are ever taken to legislative bodies. Watchdog/critics observe procedures and raise questions. To do this effectively, they need access, as discussed in my response to the second question. In exchange for access, they must agree to make only fair use of information thus gained; exaggeration, distortion, and misrepresentation for propaganda purposes is not acceptable. I must note, however, that in the current situation, where access to information about IACUC deliberations and biomedical research is quite limited, activists are having to construct their perceptions from bits and pieces, and much exaggeration and distortion results from that, not from deliberate malice.

Finally, there are instigators, a category that includes whistle-blowers within institutions, practitioners of provocative civil disobedience, and even the ALF. There is a limited place for instigators within a loyal opposition, too, as mind-boggling as that concept may sound. For instance, some of the very early ALF actions apparently exposed abuses that even the top administrators of some of the targeted research institutions purportedly didn't know about, and therefore hadn't had any chance to rectify. Exposing improperly concealed information to rectify abuses is ultimately an act in the public interest; but much depends on how it is done, when it is done, and how the information is revealed. Working as loyal opponents, ALF raiders would gather information without otherwise damaging facilities, and would deliver copies of the documentation to the people in authority over the site of the alleged abuse as well as to antivivisection propagandists and media, with a note saying, "Did you know this was going on? Please do something about it. Thank you."

Conversely, Perceptions International could have functioned as a loyal opposition in the Fran Trutt case, if insuring the use of fair tactics rather than scoring propaganda points had been the real object of the espionage. Suppose Marylou Sapone, instead of suggesting a bombing at U.S. Surgical, had merely discovered a mad bomber among the protesters, as she claimed she had. An ethical response would have been for her superiors and their employer to call a private meeting with the organizers of the protests against U.S. Surgical, and say, "Look what we've found. We don't think you want any part of this, any more than we do. What do you want to do about it?" That would have given the organizers the opportunity to oust the dangerous elements from their midst and perhaps reorient their campaign to avoid attracting any more of same. Even more important, it would have built mutual trust, reinforced by a positive response from the protest organizers, leading perhaps to a mutually acceptable resolution of the issue at hand.

Question: "What developments or events in the last year or two do we need to see more of to improve dialogue?"

Answer: Apart from the initiatives of Henry Spira, who has consistently been more than a decade ahead of just about everyone else in achieving progress through negotiation all along, for more than five years an obscure and rather Quixotic independent environmental researcher named Walter Miale has been quietly trying to encourage dialogue between the humane and biomedical communities, mostly through private correspondence and telephone calls. During the past few months, with the cooperation of Jane Goodall, following up on Peter Singer's Great Ape Project, and partially backed by the American Anti-Vivisection Society, Miale has succeeded in amplifying a call for public discussion on college campuses, which is remarkable in several aspects. First, Miale isn't "with" any particular group, and doesn't have anything to gain from his effort, materially or otherwise. His name isn't even on most of the related literature. Second, Miale has already gained the trust and cooperation of some distinguished scientists who have been reluctant to align themselves with anything that might be construed as anti-science. Third, Miale has convinced American AV to make a politically risky break from the antagonistic official positions of other antivivisection groups and even its own past history. Just for calling for dialogue instead of abolition, now if not yesterday, American AV is likely to take a bashing from the militants. It's time to shake hands and say, okay, let's start doing some serious discussion in public forums, with some agreed-upon referees, in a format that encourages fact-finding and idea-sharing rather than heightened conflict. Of course American AV is an antivivisection society, and should be expected to continue to maintain a hard line on basic principles. That's why it exists. Likewise, no one of a realistic mind expects the biomedical community to bend on basic principles. What can be achieved are specific goals that are in line with both sets of principles. The purpose of dialogue is to define those goals and find ways and means of accomplishing them.

Question: "How do you feel about research institutions using animals from pounds?"

Answer: I don't feel healthy animals should be going to pounds in significant numbers in the first place. That circumstance itself indicates a fundamental failing of society, which ANIMAL PEOPLE has energetically addressed since volume 1, #1, through an ongoing series of studies of pet overpopulation and feature articles on successful initiatives to promote neutering, encourage shelter adoptions, and encourage responsible pet-keeping. Some communities have already reduced their local pet overpopulation to the point that they literally don't have a surplus any more that could go to biomedical research: the only animals euthanized at shelters in those communities are those who arrive seriously ill or injured, or are suspected of having been exposed to rabies, or are of dangerous temperament. We hope that by the turn of the century, this situation will be more the norm than the exception, and the question of using pound animals in laboratories will therefore be moot.

Meanwhile, there is one powerful argument against ever using pound animals in laboratories: it creates public mistrust. As humane leaders have contended for half a century and as the experience of the past 20 years has confirmed, people are afraid to bring animals to shelters when they fear those animals might be used in painful experiments. Thus more animals are abandoned. Feral dog packs and feral cats correspondingly multiply in number. Cutting off the supply of animals to laboratories has been a vital part of reducing pet overpopulation, from San Francisco to Boston. Similar psychology applies, by the way, to population control euthanasia. We're also beginning to see, as in San Francisco, that halting euthanasia of healthy animals paradoxically brings the numbers of surplus animals down, when undertaken in conjunction with aggressive promotion of low-cost neutering. Once again, giving up an unpopular practice results in more unwanted animals being taken directly to shelters, and fewer being released on the streets to "give them a chance."

Canadian humanitarians Rod Preese and Lorna Chamberlain and U.S. researcher/humanitarian Barbara Orlans have all recently suggested the possibility that shelters could help put random source dealers out of business and improve humane oversight of laboratory procedures by supplying animals to laboratories in exchange for a veto over how the animals are used. This idea has some appeal, in that it could rectify several problems at once; but I doubt that many research institutions would really be willing to give a humane society veto power over what they do, and in any event, I would personally oppose the idea of any shelter getting into the business of laboratory supply, not only for the reasons outlined above, but also because organizations which do animal pick-up and rescue need public trust and cooperation--and they're not going to have it if people get the idea they're just picking up animals to fill a researcher's order.

Question: "What are the chances that there will be fundamental changes in attitudes toward eating meat, poultry, and fish?"

Answer: Such changes in attitude are already ahead of actual practice, a surefire indication of a rapid evolution. While only about 1% of the U.S. population practices strict vegetarianism, eating no flesh at all, about 6% now claim to be vegetarians, with significantly lowered consumption of red meat and somewhat lower consumption of other flesh as well. As awareness spreads about the state of oceanic depletion and about the conditions under which chickens are raised, people who have already kicked red meat are going to kick fish and poultry, too. The demographics and economics of vegetarianism vs. meat-eating are such that by the turn of the century, just five years away, we could have 10% of the U.S. population claiming to be vegetarians and maybe 3% actually abstaining from all flesh. Since vegetarianism is gaining fastest among the best-educated people (whether affluent or not), it's gaining status, as well. People consider ordering meatless meals at restaurants to be a sign of class. This, to me, is amazing considering that as a middle-aged second-generation vegetarian, I can remember when I could go literally years without ever meeting another. I used to be downright phobic about going into restaurants because it was so hard to get something to eat. No more. Not long ago I walked into a restaurant deep in the heart of Texas, late at night, and must have looked dismayed when I looked at the menu, because in less than 30 seconds the waiter had guessed I'm a veggie and began rattling off a whole second menu that the cook could prepare for me in just about five minutes. It seems they counted on running into x-number of vegetarians per night, and prepared for that contingency. Ten years ago that was unheard of: I'd have been stuck with dry biscuits.

By the time my son is my age, agricultural economics alone will have mandated a huge reduction in flesh-eating. If attitudes keep evolving ahead of necessity, society (including farmers) should be able to make the transition with minimal economic disruption. (I should perhaps mention that I've lived most of my life in farm country, and was a part-time farm hand for a dozen years, mostly on a dairy farm but I've also helped handle sheep. I have a lot of sympathy for small-time family farmers, who unwittingly are hurt more by the meat habit than anyone else, because it lures them into economically, environmentally, and psychologically suicidal practices.)

Question: "What do you think of Alex Pacheco and Ingrid Newkirk and the effect they have on the animal rights movement? What is your overall assessment of PETA and its tacit support of the ALF?"

Answer: Pacheco and especially Newkirk are catalytic personalities who unfortunately have not put their dynamism together with wisdom. They were instrumental in raising the animal rights paradigm to public awareness--and have been equally instrumental, especially Newkirk, in eroding their own gains with activities that tend to create more public consternation than agreement that the targets of the various protests need to be changed. PETA today is more a cult than the legitimate voice of a movement; indeed, I don't think it speaks for the majority of the animal rights movement on many subjects. There are exceptions. The PETA anti-fur campaign, orchestrated by Dan Matthews, is the most energetic and successful anti-fur campaign currently going. I think PETA may be due for reconceiving and remaking itself, rethinking a lot of dogmatic positions and revising both positions and practices accordingly. However, I wouldn't bet a nickel that it's going to happen. More likely, PETA will continue to be the strongest voice for the most militant fringe, walling itself away in irrelevancy as the rest of the humane cause and the targets of humane concern gradually work out solutions to differences.

As to the ALF, I'll quote from the January/February 1994 ANIMAL PEOPLE editorial:

For more than a decade now, most of the animal protection community has privately regarded the ALF with exasperated embarrassment, while a more militant minority has extolled the ALF as heroes and heroines and tried to mirror ALF deeds with fiery rhetoric. Some of the major organizations have tried to politely distance themselves from animal rights because of the association of militant rhetoric and ALF deeds with the term "animal rights," which deserves better service. No one, though, has stepped forward to bluntly point out that the ALF and imitators are practically single-handedly responsible for rationalizing the organized backlash against the animal rights movement; are the major reason why animal protection representatives still have virtually no place on institutional animal care and use committees, where a voice raised at the right time can often save hundreds of animals from suffering; and have managed to equate the term "animal rights activist" with "terrorist" in the minds of many people in law enforcement and media, even those otherwise sympathetic to the cause of animals. The fact is, the ALF hasn't done either animals or animal protection any good since it digressed long ago from the undercover information-gathering that characterized early actions, taking up ever-escalating vandalism instead, as if merely gathering publicity were the organization's sole objective, never mind for what.

When the ALF plants firebombs, it flaunts disrespect of everything the rest of us in animal protection stand for. It not only directly harms the cause it purports to aid; it escalates the societal cycle of violence. And arresting the cycle of violence is far more important than the accomplishment of any single tactical objective, whether stopping the sale of fur or the practice of vivisection or any other particular abuse. We enjoy the opportunity to arrest violence toward animals--and children, women, gays, poor people, and racial and ethnic minorities--because we live in a society which through the effort of generations of our forebears has, however tenuously, replaced the old notion of "might makes right" with the concepts of debate, democratic process, and respect for divergent points of view. Part of our social contract as civilized people is that we agree to trust in the ability of our ideas to persuade, and to tolerate the prevailing consensus, however much it may offend us, until we can change it by peaceful means. We accept that no principle is more important than the principle that we will not revert to might-makes-right and the mayhem that goes with it wherever and whenever factionalists decide that winning a point now matters more than building upon a secure foundation of mutual trust.

We need only look to Northern Ireland or the former Yugoslavia or any of a hundred other societies wracked by bloodbath and retaliation to see what happens when one condones violent tactics. Violence begets violence. Deed brings retribution. People and animals suffer, and the more violence there is, the more readily the various factions rationalize even more violence, so that within a short time violence on behalf of lofty ideology becomes violence as means of bare survival. It is to be sure a considerable distance from one or several idiots placing firebombs in department stores to fullscale civil war; but if we accept violence on behalf of our cause, why shouldn't proponents of a thousand other causes accept violence on behalf of theirs?

That's the real issue. If we're genuinely against suffering, we're against violence--and against the ALF, who belong in the same jail cell as animal torturers, because regardless of their rhetorical excuses, they're really all about the same thing: short-term self-gratification, without regard to consequence.

Question: "At Animals' Agenda and now at ANIMAL PEOPLE, you have published the amount of funding that organizations receive. Do you think the large national organizations are soliciting and spending donations in good faith?"

Answer: Some are and some aren't. Since there are more than 60 national organizations, this question is too broad to answer without writing a book.

Question: "In earlier communication with us, you said that while Spira exemplifies the very best of the animal rights movement, Wayne Pacelle and Holly Hazard exemplify the worst. Would you care to elaborate on Pacelle and Hazard?"

Answer: Pacelle and Hazard impress me as being all style and no substance, more concerned with money and power than with genuinely conscientious conduct and caring about animals; more interested in "victories" than in results.

Thank you for this opportunity to address the biomedical community.

I deeply resent the fact that Merritt Clifton has, in the past several months, continually made personal ad hominem attacks against me and others. I made a decision months ago not to respond to Merritt's personal attacks and I am not going to change my position in response to Merritt's comments in his NABR interview.

I am, however, compelled to make the following observation. I think that it is patently absurd--and dangerous to the movement--that people like Merritt represent themselves as "objective journalists." Indeed, in addition to Merritt's self-proclaimed journalist status in the NABR piece, he actually states that he has not taken a "partisan role" in movement issues. This is, of course, false. From his earliest days in the movement, Merritt has taken positions--usually on the side of the moderates. Moreover, he has abused his role as "journalist" to wage vendettas against those he does not like.

Increasingly, Merritt is siding with reactionaries. Witness his sycophantic defense of Rowan's absurd conclusions (based on data that Rowan himself indicates are faulty) that animal use in labs has decreased by 50% since 1967. Read Chapter 14 of Jude Reitman's book, "Stolen for Profit." In that chapter, Ms. Reitman meticulously documents Merritt's collusion with Rowan to downplay the problem of pet theft at the expense of the marvelous work done by Mary Warner. Reitman also exposes that Tufts Vet School, where Rowan is employed, has as its largest donor Henry Foster, head of Charles River Breeding. Foster bankrolled NABR, and the insidious Francine "Frankie" Trull, who is the "head" of NABR, was a former employee of Tufts.

It is time that those of us who have a sense of what animal rights is about (yes, that is right, I do indeed reject animal welfare) acknowledge what many of us have known for years: Clifton is, and belongs on, the other side.

And if that causes my "influence" to "dwindle" with any of you (as Merritt suggests), then I should, unlike Merritt, be honest and reply that I do not much care.