Vaccines to prevent infections and viruses, such as flu, insulin for diabetics, pain relief during operations, kidney dialysis and open heart surgery are all treatments tested on animals so they can be used safely to help millions of people. Morrissey’s claim that violence is “the only language” medical researchers understand is profoundly offensive to those dedicated scientists who spend their lives working in the hope of alleviating human and animal suffering and extremely unhelpful for patients and their carers who have benefited from or support work on animals.
If Morrissey is opposed to barbarism, as he claims, he should condemn all deliberately violent, threatening and intimidating acts, including those against researchers and against the secondary targets who are the favoured victims of animal rights terrorism. When Morrissey talks of a “war”, he liberates activists from traditional concerns about right and wrong, and sounds remarkably similar to those religious extremists who support arbitrary terrorist attacks.
Professor Colin Blakemore
Medical Research Council