"Animal Zealotry" that destroyed a lab in Iowa

I am a little late getting out an article from the Sunday, July 17, Washington Post but I wanted to make sure people got a chance to respond. The piece is headed, "The Animal Zealotry That Destroyed Our Lab" It is by Mark Blumberg, a behavioral neuroscientist at the University of Iowa whose lab was trashed by the Animal Liberation Front late last year. (Pg B 03)

The article includes some misleading comments from Blumberg about the "exhaustive array of local, state and federal rules" to which researchers must conform. Blumberg uses rodents, who are exempt from the (generally unenforced) federal laws pertaining to laboratory animal care.

The piece, however, includes delightful comments from Senator Frank Lautenberg, a Democrat from New Jersey, who apparently would prefer the FBI were devoting itself to finding "terrorists" who are killing people, rather than those trashing computers and freeing animals.

The full article is on line at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/15/AR2005071502181.html OR http://tinyurl.com/dmeml No matter what one thinks of this type of action -- and there are good arguments for and against -- the piece opens the door for letters against vivisection. Please don't pass up the opportunity to write on behalf of the animals.

The Washington Post takes letters at letters [at] washpost.com and advises, "Letters must be exclusive to The Washington Post, and must include the writer's home address and home and business telephone numbers."


(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts, please do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this tag line.)