Bill aimed at protecting animal researchers scaled back

Legislation aimed at curtailing violence against scientists who conduct experiments on animals is being retooled to address concerns that it would cloak research laboratories at UC Santa Cruz and elsewhere in secrecy.

Assemblyman Gene Mullin, who chairs the Select Committee on Biotechnology, acknowledged Monday that the bill's major obstacle will be satisfying fears about the effect on public access to information about research activities at academic and nonprofit labs. The bill would also cover commercial research labs, but not farms, meat packing plants or similar businesses.

At UC's request, the San Mateo Democrat proposed the measure Feb. 21 after physical attacks by animal rights advocates on university researchers in Los Angeles and Berkeley, which were followed by what police call a home invasion attempt by six masked demonstrators against a UCSC researcher. UC officials laud the bill as much-needed protection for employees who are conducting medical studies designed to treat and cure illnesses, but animal rights groups and First Amendment advocates complain the measure would have a chilling effect on public access, as well as demonstrators who protest legally.

As the bill moves to the Assembly's Judiciary Committee this week, Mullin said clean-up language would strike original provisions that exempted information about researchers from public disclosure laws. He said he is still hammering out how to balance between the right to privacy of researchers and their families with the public's right to know what kind of experiments are being conducted and who is funding them. "We are not in the business of narrowing constitutional provisions," Mullin said.

But Steven V.W. Beckwith, UC's vice president for system wide research, said free speech is a two-way street. He said the university would not tolerate violence against employees by "terrorists" who call their actions freedom of expression and said the bill was being modeled on legislation designed to protect abortion providers and other healthcare workers.

"As a university, we really cherish free speech, but [this] issue isn't free speech, the issue is violence," he said during a teleconference with Mullin and other UC officials. "The bill before us should make it much easier to preserve the rights and safety of [researchers'] families."

A UCSC biomedical researcher whose home was targeted by animal rights activists declined Monday to discuss the legislation, which she said she was not even aware of. Police are still investigating who was responsible for banging on the front door of her Santa Cruz residence and hitting her husband on the arm with an unknown object.

Researchers at UC Berkeley and UCLA have also been the target of numerous incidents, including a firebombing and other property damage at their homes. Santa Cruz police are working with authorities in both cities to determine if there are links.

Calling the incidents "the greatest threat to academic freedom that I've seen in the history of this campus," UCSC Chancellor George R. Blumenthal, said the bill, if passed, "could serve as deterrent for new cases."

AB 2296 would make it a misdemeanor to harm or intimidate a researcher who works with animals, including publicly posting the names, photographs, home addresses and home telephone numbers of researchers online or elsewhere. Anyone convicted under the legislation could face up to a year in county jail and fines up to $25,000. The bill also allows researchers or their employers to seek an injunction against animal rights advocates or Web sites publishing their photos or personal information.

Jerry Vlasak, a Southern California physician who acts as a spokesperson for the Animal Liberation Press Office, said the bill will not deter underground activists from illegally entering private property to set lab animals free or conduct other demonstrations. Rather, he said the measure is aimed at advocates who are "trying to obey the law" by conducting legal protests and boycotts.

The Animal Liberation Front has not claimed responsibility for the UCSC attack, but Vlasak said the fact that lawmakers are getting involved in protecting researchers has served the group's purpose because it has clearly "made these people feel uncomfortable" about the experiments he said take place "in these torture chambers they call laboratories."

Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, said he was sympathetic to the university wanting to protect the well-being of employees, but said restrictions on speech, including requiring Web site operators to take down information posted about researchers, smacks of "prior restraint against the press." He said public access laws already contain protections that balance personal privacy rights against a compelling need for the public to know about government-funded activities.