For Immediate Release
October 25, 2005

US Senate Targets SHAC Campaign Against Animal Cruelty
 Activists Determined To Stop Cruel Huntingdon Labs

Washington, DC- Dr. Jerry Vlasak, Press Officer with the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, will appear before the US Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works on Wednesday, October 26 at 2:30pm (Dirksen Senate Office Bldg., Room 406). The Committee is convening supposedly to address the tactics being used by animal liberation activists against the animal testing company Huntingdon Life Sciences, which has been exposed in five undercover investigations to be abusing animal welfare laws, and continues to kill 500 animals daily in their three facilities.

In what is expected to be a contentious confrontation, a high-ranking Huntingdon executive, members of the FBI and Justice Departments, and the head of the New York Stock Exchange are also expected to appear. Huntingdons stock was de-listed from the exchange last month just moments before it was to make its debut there, and fear of animal activists has been cited by Committee Chairman Inhofe as a possible reason for the exchanges decision.

Dr. Vlasak is a trauma surgeon who has spoken out widely in opposition to the use of animals in laboratories; as a former animal researcher himself, he has pushed for more modern research methods, but also decried the immense and unnecessary suffering that animals endure in laboratories like those at Huntingdon.

In a country where 45 million citizens have no access to even basic health care, there is no reason to be spending hundreds of millions of scarce health care dollars killing animals, Vlasak states. Even forgetting its uselessness and expense as a research modality, it is immoral to torture and kill innocent animals for human desires. Id be against animal research even if it did work, and it doesn't.

Copy of Dr. Vlasaks prepared comments to the Committee

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