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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS
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MONTH: June 2006
Poll shows loss on testing
LONDON––“The proportion of people approving of animal testing in medical research is at an all-time high. More than three quarters believe that the more extreme elements among animal rights activists deserve to be called terrorists,” wrote Anthony King of The Daily Telegraph on May 29, 2006.
Agreed Daily Telegraph home affairs editor Philip Johnston, “Campaigns such as intimidating scientists and threatening shareholders in pharmaceutical companies appear to have backfired badly.”
King and Johnston based their analysis on a May 2006 YouGov poll of 2,102 British adults, sponsored by The Daily Telegraph.
“With one exception,” King wrote, “opinion on the issue differs scarcely at all from one social group to another. People in all age groups and all parts of the country, and supporters of all political parties, are united in believing that testing new medical treatments on live animals is morally acceptable. The exception is that among women, 59% favour animal testing, but among men the corresponding proportion is far higher: 82%. Conversely,” King continued, “where 25% of women are opposed to animal testing under any circumstances, the figure among men is a modest 10%.”
Added King, “72% are also persuaded that the big pharmaceutical companies mean what they say when they threaten to transfer medical research to other countries, if the research environment in Britain becomes, from their point of view, unduly repressive. A mere 14% think that the companies are bluffing and simply want to conduct research on animals free of effective restrictions.”
The poll was taken shortly after Prime Minister Tony Blair on May 14, 2006 endorsed animal testing in a guest essay for The Daily Telegraph, and blasted activists who had issued anonymous threats to about 50 shareholders in GlaxoSmithKline Inc.