Activists Protest at UCLA Neuropsychology Building

As part of National Primate LiberatioN Week, the Daily Bruin reported that animal rights activists marched from the Federal Building in Los Angeles to the University of California – Los Angeles Neuropsychology building to protest primate research that UCLA carries out.

According to the Daily Bruin, the protest was put together in response to a report released by Michael Budkie of Stop Animal Exploitation Now! that primate research in the United States is expanding overall. Budkie told the Daily Bruin that his group hoped to appeal to faculty and students to change minds about primate research,

Whlie some people at universities get paid to perform experiments, I know that other scientists have higher ethical standards.

The Daily Bruin quoted protester Dena Snedden repeating the animal rights line that animal research is driven largely by greedy animal researchers,

It’s time that they explore and implement humane medical research. The technology is there. The reason this [animal research] is happening is to line certain individuals’ pockets at the animals’ expense and the public’s expense.

Lets take a look at one of these greedy bastard researchers, Lynne Fairbanks, whom the protesters named as one of UCLA’s primate researchers.

Fairbanks’ recent research has centered centers on understanding the neurobiology of human interactions — i.e. the role that brain and body chemistry plays in alcoholism, drug addiction, depression, ADHD and a variety of other common psychological ailments. In 2001, for example, Fairbanks was the lead author of a research paper published in Neuropsychopharmacology. That research, involving vervet monkeys, linked abnormal serotonin activity to poor impulse control and aggression in the monkeys.

What sort of sick, greedy person would want to better understand the role that brain chemistry plays in human behavior, especially abnormal or harmful human behavior?

Sources:

Protest held for primate liberation. Lee Bialik, Daily Bruin, October 5, 2004.

Monkeys, rats shed light on roots of impulsivity. Crime Times, V.7, No.3, 2001.