Protesters Decry Animal Testing

“Ultimately, we’re asking that they end their animal experiments,” said protester Jamie Haydukes. “Most of the research they do involves cutting animals open to mess with their brains.”

Protester John Calveres said he objected to the institute’s work because he believes it does not advance medical knowledge to treat human diseases.

“This is basically empty science,” Calveres said. “Most of the researchers are doing stuff that we already know.”

John Flannery, the director of the neuroscience institute, said the institute seeks to investigate neural mechanisms to alleviate human medical problems.

“If our goal is to eliminate human diseases, we need to test on animals first,” Flannery said.

Robert Sanders, manager of science communications for UC Berkeley, said that researchers are careful not to cause the animals pain.

“We take excellent care of our animals,” Sanders said. “We use them humanely, without inflicting pain.”

Flannery said the researchers take care not to inflict pain because the institute has no desire to torture animals and because pain interferes with normal brain function, which disrupts experiments.

“We carefully design the experiments to not induce suffering or pain,” he said. We are also very dedicated to using the fewest number of animals possible.”