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FURY OVER TOP RSPCA JOB FOR ANIMAL-TEST MAN
(Cutting Sunday Telegraph by Lynne Wallis and Greg Neale 10/8/97
ANIMAL rights activists have condemned the appointment to a senior post in the RSPCA of a scientist who conducted experiments on animals
. Dr Tony Suckling, who has been appointed deputy director-general, joined the RSPCA in 1990 as its director of science. He carried out experiments on animals in the 1970s and 1980s as part of research into damage to the human nervous system.
He has since changed his views on the acceptability of vivisection, but believes that some animal experiments are necessary.
Dr Suckling said his appointment had been confirmed earlier this year. "As far as I can recall, there wasn't any dissent."
But Marjorie Pooley, an RSPCA member from Winchester and a long-time campaigner against vivisection, said the appointment was unacceptable. "To give someone with Dr Suckling's history the second most powerful position within the organisation is giving out all the wrong messages about experiments on animals. As it is, the RSPCA is only calling for reductions and refinements, not abolition."
Dorothy Adams, a member of the RSPCA's ruling council for the past six years, was also concerned about the appointment. "I am unhappy that he still thinks that some animal experiments may be necessary," she said yesterday. "I'd like to know what those experiments are. I believe that the RSPCA should be consulting those bodies, such as Doctors and Lawyers for Responsible Medicine, which are totally opposed to animal experiments on medical and scientific grounds only."
A spokesman for the RSPCA said: "We take the pragmatic view that it is very important that the animal welfare position is represented. Some other animal welfare organisations do not talk to the people who run laboratories to discuss vivisection practices. We do, and we believe this has led to improvements in animal welfare."
Working at St Thomas's Hospital during the late 1970s, Dr Suckling injected a virus into mice to study damage to the central nervous system. He then moved to York University, where he created an animal "model" of multiple sclerosis, known as Chronic Relapsing Encephalomyelitis, in baby guinea pigs. Dr Suckling produced the model by injecting the ground-up spinal cords of young guinea pigs into adult animals, along with other substances, to generate an auto-immune response. The experiments sometimes caused the animals paralysis, unsteadiness, weakness, incontinence and weight loss - all symptoms of MS in huma
He regarded this as the best available model of the human disease and published papers on the subject in 1989. Yesterday, he said he gave up experiments on animals after 18 years after coming to question their value
. "I would never go back," he said. "There comes a time when you have to say, 'Is this worth it?' I was becoming less sure that the work I was doing had value."
Now, he said, while he accepted that some animal experiments were required under law, and some had some human medical benefit,
"Personally, I am concerned that there are experiments being done that are not properly justified. "I sit quite comfortably with the RSPCA's policy, which is one of opposition to experiments [on animals] that cause pain, suffering or distress."
Dr Suckling is also a member of the Animal Procedures Committee, appointed by the Home Secretary, which advises the Government on vivisection. Anti-vivisection groups have complained that of the committee's 14 members only three - including Dr Suckling - are from animal welfare groups. But an RSPCA activist said yesterday that Dr Suckling was an active spokesman for animal welfare interests on the committee.
The opposition to Dr Suckling is the second controversy in recent months to disturb the RSPCA. Earlier this year, it was revealed that supporters of fox-hunting were joining the RSPCA in an attempt to sway it from its policy of opposition to hunting./cutting ends