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SILENCE IS BEHOLDEN: Scientists who object to animal testing claim they are ‘frozen-out’ by peers

In a study carried out by a non-profit organization, some researchers were refused funding if they questioned the validity of animal-based methods. Others remain silent because they are worried about the implications when they go before grant review panels and journal editorial boards. Animal research activist Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel states: 'In other disciplines we accept scientist activists. We accept climate scientists who are activists. We accept physicians who advocate for their patients, who are activists about maternal rights. But within the animal research community, that is somehow considered anathema'.

KATIE DANCEY-DOWNES: Scientists who question the validity of animal experiments are warning that medical progress is being held back because they are being “frozen out” by their peers.

A number of scientists based in the US claim they are being censored because of their scepticism, while others are said to be too afraid of the consequences to object to tests on animals. In an industry where evidence is paramount, they warn of a culture of entrenched attitudes instead of open-mindedness.

Researchers say they are being forced to also carry out experiments with animals if they want their work to be published, after their studies were rejected because they did not include an animal test. However, a UK-based defender of animal testing said claims of a divide between scientists was over-exaggerated by animal rights’ campaigners.

In a study carried out by the non-profit Index on Censorship organisation, some said they were refused funding if they questioned the validity of animal-based methods. Others remain silent because they are worried about the implications when they go before grant review panels and journal editorial boards.

In a global survey, a third of respondents said they had been asked by peer reviewers to add animal experiments to non-animal studies.

Lisa Jones-Engel, who spent years conducting tests on monkeys in biomedical research, said she was ejected from a conference two hours before she was due to speak after telling the organisers she now worked for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta).

She says they took her security badge, and officials escorted her out of the hotel. “I’ve basically just been cast out as a scientist,” she recalls. “What the industry did that day was to guarantee that they had just solidified who I am and who I was going to be.”

In 2022, Dr Jones-Engel was among scientists assessing the long-tailed macaque, the species most widely used in laboratories, finding populations were declining dramatically…

Dr Jones-Engel stated: “I was personally attacked. A petition was written by the industry targeting me, another scientist and another activist saying that, even though we’re scientists, because we are advocating for the listing of those animals to be endangered that must mean this was all being driven by the animal-rights community.”

She said activist-scientists received silencing treatments. “In other disciplines we accept scientist activists. We accept climate scientists who are activists. We accept physicians who advocate for their patients, who are activists about maternal rights. But within the animal research community, that is somehow considered anathema,” she said.

Charu Chandrasekera applied for a grant to develop a 3D bio-printed human lung tissue model, but one of the biggest criticisms from the peer review was a lack of animal data.

She says she knows scientists who stay silent because they worry about the implications when they go before grant review panels and journal editorial boards…

When Frances Cheng questioned the use of animals during her training, she said she was not trying to highlight animal cruelty but rather that the methods were unscientific, with animal biology not translating to human biology.

When she wrote a line in the dedication of her thesis apologising to the animals she’d “unnecessarily” killed, her supervisor told her to remove it. She says she was told her job was to graduate, not to think about animal cruelty and translatability.

Dr Cheng, who later went on to become chief scientist in the laboratory investigations department at Peta, believes animal data is valued more than data based on human physiology… There have been huge developments globally in phasing out chemical testing on animals, including technology such as organs-on-a-chip, which simulates human organs. SOURCE…

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