Vandals strike home of primate researcher

Animal-rights protesters have harassed primate researcher Eliot Spindel for years, sometimes demonstrating noisily outside his Lake Oswego home.

Now the Animal Liberation Front, an underground group characterized by the FBI as a leading domestic terrorist organization, apparently has drawn a bead on Spindel's domicile.

A contractor on Tuesday discovered graffiti spray-painted on the garage door of Spindel's house that read, "ALF eyes on you!" His daughter's car was covered with white foam.

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Spindel said he and his family were not at home at the time of the vandalism.

Groups of protesters have demonstrated outside Oregon Health & Science University for years, even showing up at the homes of more than a dozen researchers. But the protests took a turn last April, when masked activists demonstrating at the campus carried signs reading "A.L.F. welcome here" and "ALF vs. OHSU coming summer 2007."

Spindel, a 55-year-old senior scientist at the Oregon National Primate Research Center, said he uses mice, monkeys and cultured cells to study ways to block the effects of nicotine and smoking on unborn children.

"There's still a half a million mothers a year who smoke while pregnant," he said. That behavior, he added, "doubles the chances of children getting asthma. . . . It increases Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and pneumonia. So we're trying to block some of those effects on children."

The Animal Liberation Front typically channels anonymous claims of responsibility for its crimes to the North American Animal Liberation Press Office. But a Los Angeles-based spokesman for the group, Dr. Jerry Vlasak, said he had not received such a claim.

Vlasak said that monkeys have been shown to be poor models for research on smoking and that money could be put to better use helping women avoid or quit the habit.

"I really don't think there's any need to be killing monkeys," said Vlasak, "to help mothers understand the ill effects of smoking on their fetuses."