On Mon, 25 Apr 2005 17:16:56 GMT, (Alan) wrote:

I have often thought there seemed to be a lack of compassion for
animal welfare on BBC and it seems Im not alone

Found this on the animal aid site

Excellent!






Home News News bulletin: April 2005
http://www.animalaid.org.uk/news/2005/0504lett.htm
BBC complaint
Animal Aid has made a formal complaint to the BBC about their coverage
of the recent announcement of an inquiry into the use of monkeys in
medical research...

Michael Grade
BBC Chairman
Broadcasting House
London W1A 1AA

April 15, 2005

Dear Mr Grade

I write to complain about a news item that went out on BBC 1
television on Wednesday March 23. My concerns go beyond the handling
of this particular piece, which is why I'd appreciate your
consideration of the issue - not least the paragraphs in italics at
the end of my letter. I have sent a copy to Fraser Steel.

For background information on primate experiments, read The
Scientific Case Against Primate Research.

The piece related to the announcement by a prominent group of
pro-animal experimentation research and scientific bodies that they
intended to launch a major study of the use of non-human primates in
medical research. The bodies included the Academy of Medical Sciences,
The Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust and the Royal
Society.

Representatives of those bodies featured in the broadcast item,
together with a Parkinson's disease sufferer who was offered as an
example of how monkey experiments allegedly bring direct and
spectacular benefits to patients. There was also a soundbite from our
own scientific consultant, Andre Menache.

Altogether, we found the item to be conspicuously biased in favour of
those promoting the use of monkeys in medical research. This was
particularly disappointing considering the BBC's recent self-confessed
failure to achieve balance in this area - and because of the detailed
discussions on the importance of balance that we had with your
correspondent in advance of broadcast.

Animal Aid's own position is that medical research using primates is
both morally unsupportable and scientifically invalid. At a public
inquiry in 2002 into Cambridge University's plans to build a new
primate research centre, presided over by an independent Government
inspector, evidence was submitted both for and against the use of
primates in research. Animal Aid played a key role in coordinating
scientific evidence against such research. The inspector concluded
that the University had not substantiated its claim that the
experiments would benefit human health or that they were of 'national
importance', and recommended that planning permission be turned down.

See also our 2003 report, Monkeying Around with Human Health.



One of our central concerns about the study into primate research that
you reported on in the March 23 broadcast was that - because of the
declared commitment to primate research by the bodies involved - the
resulting inquiry is unlikely to be an open assessment of the issue.
Rather, we fear that it would amount to a propaganda exercise designed
to assuage growing public concern over whether the use of primates is
justified morally and scientifically.

Returning to your own coverage, medical correspondent Fergus Walsh
visited the Animal Aid office and interviewed our scientific
consultant, Andre Menache. Fergus and I talked at some length about
how the piece was to be presented. He was aware that, in April 2004, I
received an apology from the Today programme after the BBC governors
criticised them over the way they edited an interview with me for a
January 2004 item about Cambridge University's decision not to pursue
their plans to build the primate research centre referred to above.

Fergus said he was committed to producing a balanced piece and he
seemed genuine in that desire. However, I was concerned that, while he
intended giving prominence to 'soft' footage he had been invited to
shoot at an unnamed primate research centre, he was reluctant to
consider balancing this by including graphic undercover footage of
monkey experiments shot by the British Union for the Abolition of
Vivisection at Cambridge University.

He argued that using the BUAV footage was a problem because the BBC
had 'not been there to verify it'. I pointed out that it had
previously been used by Newsnight and that there had been no
suggestion by any party that the footage was faked. Equally, he
acknowledged that at the research centre he had visited he had not
been permitted to see or film any damaged monkeys. This is despite the
fact that brain research on primates is inevitably highly invasive,
involving, typically, penetrating the skull and causing deliberate
damage to the brain with surgery and/or with corrosive chemicals.

Photo credit: ISAV

For full details of the Cambridge inquiry, read The History of the
Campaign.





The broadcast piece did indeed give prominence to his soft lab
footage, while omitting the BUAV film. Furthermore, while different
proponents of monkey research were given an opportunity to make their
case, Andre Menache was allowed just a couple or so sentences.

Among the most distorting elements was the interview run at the end of
the 6pm piece with a man suffering from Parkinson's disease. He was
introduced as an example of the benefits monkey experiments can bring
- his violent shaking eliminated by the switch of a device whose
discovery, it was claimed, resulted directly from monkey research.
This testimony - and the credence afforded it by the authorial voice -
is very likely to have been decisive in persuading the uninitiated
viewer that monkey experiments do indeed benefit human medicine.

In fact, as we pointed out at the aforementioned Cambridge Primate
centre public inquiry, deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson's
sufferers was discovered some 40 years ago through serendipity by the
French surgeon, Dr A Benabid. Monkey experiments followed but it is
the habit of the animal research community to try to attempt to
'confirm' in 'animal models' what has already been discovered in
people. If the 'discovery' had first been made in monkeys, the only
way of knowing if DBS would work in people - whose brains are markedly
different - would have been to attempt it in people. In short, if we
are to advance human medicine we must study (non-invasively and with
informed consent) human beings and not other species.

Even if Fergus Walsh and his news team were/are unconvinced by the
proposition set out above, they were still in error when they
presented DBS as an outcome of monkey experiments. Furthermore, five
minutes on the web would have told them that (see enclosed items).

Photo credit: ISAV

See also our 2004 Mad Science Awards which went to primate
vivisectors at Oxbridge.



There is, it seems to me, a distressing reluctance at the BBC to
challenge the 'official version' when it comes to medical research and
animal experiments. Powerful voices within government, academic
circles and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, are wedded to
animal experiments and the BBC is too timid to challenge them by
giving proper voice to a dissenting view. What is more, there is a
tendency to explain away this timidity and lack of journalistic
scrupulousness as 'responsible and balanced' reporting.

By contrast, I would refer you to the coverage of the issue given by
the 7pm Channel 4 News on the same evening. They ran both soft monkey
footage and the BUAV undercover material (an expert in the studio said
that both sequences were representative of what takes place in a
monkey lab) and they pitted our scientific consultant against a
leading animal research advocate in a debate. The piece tilted neither
one way nor the other, but it dared to offer contrasting views on a
matter of great public importance. For this is not only about the
suffering of animals. It is about whether animal research yields
benefits for human medicine or if it is a wasteful activity that also
harms people.

Yours sincerely

Andrew Tyler
Director, Animal Aid

Copy: Fraser Steel


Angus Macmillan
www.roots-of-blood.org.uk
www.killhunting.org
www.con-servation.org.uk