The Scalpel and the Butterfly by Deborah Rudacille, Farrar, Straus &
Giroux, $25, ISBN 0374254206
IN Britain alone last year, 1200 attacks by “animal rights extremists” caused
£2.6 million worth of damage. The British government is seriously
considering the introduction of laws to clamp down on these activities to
protect research laboratories, their staff and families from attack and
intimidation. Recently, firebombs destroyed or badly damaged cars parked outside
the homes of people who work at Huntingdon Life Sciences, a contract research
laboratory near Cambridge.
It would therefore be surprising if scientists were not once again asking
themselves questions that they…
