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Animal research: Battle scars

Nature volume 470, pages 452–453 (2011)Cite this article

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Nearly one-quarter of biologists say they have been affected by animal activists. A Nature poll looks at the impact.

In the past five years animal-rights activists have perpetrated a string of violent attacks. In February 2008, the husband of a breast-cancer biologist in Santa Cruz, California, was physically assaulted at the front door of their home. In the same month, the biomedical research institute at Hasselt University in Diepenbeek, Belgium, was set on fire. In the summer of 2009, activists desecrated graves belonging to the family of Daniel Vasella, then chief executive of the pharmaceutical company Novartis, based in Basel, Switzerland, and torched his holiday home.

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  1. Daniel Cressey
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Additional information

See Editorial page 435.

For full survey results, see: go.nature.com/pn9a4i

Daniel Cressey writes for Nature from London. Survey work was aided by Laura Harper.

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NIH Office of Animal Care and Use

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Cressey, D. Animal research: Battle scars. Nature 470, 452–453 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/470452a

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