A physiologist's views on the animal rights/liberation movement.

Many physicians and biomedical researchers still believe that the animal rights/liberation (AR/L) movement does not pose a serious threat to biomedical science in the United States. Indeed, some cell and molecular biologists regard the animal rights/research issue as a tempest in a teapot that will not affect them because they use few or no animals. By using the so-called alternatives to animals, they believe that their work is shielded from negative impact from the animal activists. This belief is self-delusionary. Animal activists use three forms of persuasion to win converts to their movement. Moral/ethical arguments figure prominently in their literature (1); misrepresentation of the value of research with animals and how it is conducted constitutes the second pillar that supports their philosophy. The third form of persuasion involves a campaign of vandalism, slander, intimidation, and violence that is directed at selected scientists by the terrorist arm of the movement. Although