London

Scientists and technicians who are harassed or assaulted because of their links with animal research now have a collective voice.

Launched in London on 22 April, Victims of Animal Rights Extremism (VARE) aims to provide a support network for its members. It has no money and will not be registered as a charity because most of its members are reluctant to reveal their identities for fear of further harassment.

Clive Page, a pharmacologist at King's College London who works on asthma and lung disease, is one VARE member who has gone public. “Most people are not going to put their heads above the parapet if they think the activists are going to murder them,” says Page, who was listed in 1999 as a potential assassination target on a website put up by militant opponents of vivisection.

VARE says it wants to see legislation specifically to deal with the prosecution of criminal activity by animal-rights groups.

Some groups opposed to animal experiments dismissed the association as a front for the drug industry. “This is an attempt by the pro-vivisection lobby to exploit the issue of animal-rights extremism in order to gain public sympathy,” says Wendy Higgins, campaigns director for the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection.

But victims of animal-rights extremism say that they need to join together for support and advice. Mark Matfield, director of the Research Defence Society, a pressure group that defends animal testing, says that between 20 and 30 activists are responsible for most criminal activity — and that the police know who they are. “Criminal law is not giving enough protection,” he says.

A spokeswoman for the Home Office says that the government is “determined to tackle animal-rights extremists and to support the biotechnology industry”.

→ http://www.vare.org.uk