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The Primate Freedom Tour continues to wind its way across the country. In a stop at the University of Southwestern Louisiana's New Iberia Research Center, animal rights activist Jennifer Schneider compared the facility to a concentration camp.
"As a descendant of the Jewish people, I must speak out against the primate concentration camp at New Iberia (and) the scientific fraud of primate research," Schneider said in a prepared statement.
Although the Tour hoped to get researchers involved in a debate, the Iberia Research Center refused to take the bait. "It is not our purpose to debate the issues," said veterinarian and New Iberia director Thomas J. Rowell. Not that Rowell didn't do a good job of deflating the animal rights claims with brochures and media interviews that led to highly favorable coverage.
A reporter for the Baton Rouge Advocate highlighted the important work being done at the facility by noting that, "research at the center has helped to ensure the safety and efficacy of polio vaccines, led to the development of vaccines for hepatitis and types of pneumonia and influenza, as well as contributed to knowledge about Creutzfeldt-Jakob and mad cow diseases, he [Rowell] said."
After repeating the typical animal rights cant about alleged animal abuse at primate facilities, the Advocate noted that,
Similar stories were told by other protesters, although none knew of any specific examples of mistreatment of animals at the New Iberia facility. Rowell calls some of the protesters objections "a complete misconception." "You have, what, a sixth-grade school teacher that's leading the effort?" he asked. "I'm not sure what experience he has in science and what we do in the line of research support."
In fact, the New Iberia's handling of the tour is almost a textbook case in how to defuse animal rights activists. Rowell wisely chose to hold a press conference about the Primate Tour a few days before the protesters arrived so that the media would be well aware of the type of research and monitoring that goes on in his facility.
In addition, Rowell tried to kill the activists with kindness. At his press conference he told the assembled reporters that Primate Freedom Tour members had a right to protest his facility and said an area near the research center would be made available for the protesters. During the protest the university offered the protesters water coolers, portable toilets and awning to block the sun, but the activists refused the offer. Tour research director Rick Bogle refused the assistance, saying, "We cannot accept it because the money they used to purchase it has blood on it … it came from the sale of innocent primates into torture and death .. it's blood money."