California State Assemblyman Gene Mullin (D-South San Francisco) has recently proposed a bill that would make posting the names of academics who conduct animal research online illegal.

Biology Prof. Russell Fernald said that the bill would help ensure personal safety for animal researchers from animal activist groups.

“I think we’re up against operations and people whose passions about these issues transcend their own sense of fairness,” he said. “We’re not dealing with people who are rational and reasonable. If I could trust these activist groups to look carefully at what I’m doing, I wouldn’t be opposed to them.

“But like other researchers, I would not want them to threaten my family, which they’ve done when they found out the names of other scientists,” he continued. “For them, it’s not about the issue, it’s about tormenting the researchers. People are made targets. They’re made to drop their research work; anything we can do to reduce threats can be good.”

While the bill is being considered in the State Assembly, a recent poll by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has labeled Stanford University as one of the worst institutions in the nation with regard to treatment of laboratory animals. The poll specifically condemned the labs of Psychiatry and Behavior Sciences Prof. Alan Schatzberg and Developmental Biology Post Doctoral Scholar David Lyons.

Schatzberg and Lyons have published numerous papers that study the behavioral effects off stress inoculation in primates. Both researchers declined to comment on PETA’s accusations.

“We really stress that when a juvenile monkey is exposed to this level of stress, it’s not just for the duration of the protocol,” said PETA laboratory oversight specialist Alka Chandna. “They’ll have a lifetime of problems — they’ll never be properly socialized, they’ll have a higher likelihood of self mutilation and they’ll exhibit what we call stereotypic behaviors such as rocking back and forth or circling madly in their cages.”

Fernald said that there are already sufficient regulation apparatuses in place to ensure the humane treatment of animals.

“We as biologists are really carefully regulated by government, state and local agencies to ensure that everything we do with animals is as careful and as pain-free as possible,” he said.

“We’re regulated by four agencies that come and inspect protocol,” he continued. “We have all kinds of training, and we’re very careful about what we do. There should be no concern with whether what we are doing is reasonable and safe and careful. There are people on the regulatory committees who are from the local areas. They’re reflecting community values. It’s reasonable to protect medical scientists from intrusion because we are regulated in a way that adequately protects the animals we’re working with.”

Fernald added that, ultimately, animal research is necessary to ensure the health and safety of human life. He said that many of the drugs and ointments people use are not tested on animals, which could lead to severe and unexpected physiological responses in people who use these products.

“Without animal models you could never test [such situations] in a real life model,” he said. “I would contend that we shouldn’t do anything without testing it thoroughly, and I think we’re doing too little. With the lax regulatory regime we’re in now, we run the risk of real physiological damage because we don’t know what we are doing to our bodies.”

“We have to recognize we share an evolutionary history and physiological response with many animals,” he added. “Why is animal testing needed? Because we are animals.”