Animal-testing debate in Knesset Auditorium
Photo: Haim Zach
Anat Refuah (Archives)
Photo: Society for the Abolition of Vivisection
Animal-testing debate turns sour
Academics, experimenters, animal rights activists gather for meeting on monkey testing. Prominent professors lead many out of auditorium during closing speech
Dozens of animal rights activists, academic institution representatives, experimenters, and Knesset members gathered in the Knesset’s auditorium last week for a rare public debate on monkey testing in Israel.
The relatively calm debate erupted just a few minutes before its conclusion, during a speech by Anat Refuah, head of the Department to Protect Animals in Labs at the Let the Animals Live Association.
Refuah began her speech, in which she criticized representatives of the experimenters and academics. Seconds after she began speaking, a loud commotion was heard from the audience, with the experimenters and academics demanding she be removed from the stage because of what they called “intentional provocation”.
Kadima MK Yoel Hasson, chairman of the Knesset’s lobby for the protection of animals, unsuccessfully attempted to reconcile the sides. Refuah herself promised not to name specific experimenters in her speech.
However, the experimenters and academics present in the audience, headed by Professor Benny Geiger of the Weizmann Institute of Science, and Professor Avinoam Reches of the Hadassah University Medical Center, began to leave the auditorium.
In their wake, a large part of the audience walked out, but the debate continued, finishing with a series of questions by the remaining audience members.
“I’m sorry the representatives of science and medicine decided to get up and leave,” Hasson said.
“Despite a history of tension between and supporters and dissenters of animal testing, this debate determined that talks are possible, and that we’re ready to hear difficult things too. There was no room for personal blame or leaving in protest.
“Bottom line, we are asking for better supervision of animal testing in general and monkey testing in particular. A change in the labs can only be determined here, and only through negotiations and serious legislative work,” Hasson explained.
Refuah, a leader of the ongoing struggle against animal testing, said it was to be expected that her speech not be easy for all to hear.
“The researchers carrying out the experiments on animals, and the companies that employ them, have a real problem dealing with public criticism, and with depictions of what actually goes on behind laboratory doors. Unfortunately, they were just looking for an excuse to leave the hall while I was talking,” she said.
