washington

When a dozen laboratories at the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus were attacked in early April, word of some $2 million worth of damage and 116 lost animals spread quickly in the scientific community.

Less attention was given to an attack on three labs at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), on 23 April. In conjunction with a peaceful protest by about 60 demonstrators, several labs were broken into by a smaller group.

This group threw computers and centrifuges on the floor in the Cell Culture Facility, and damaged surgical equipment in a cardiology lab. Activists then entered a neurology lab and released four transgenic mice — two with scrapie — being used to develop diagnostic methods for ‘mad cow disease’. Three activists were charged with criminal trespass. The damage is estimated to cost $11,000.

The incident is part of an unsettling pattern, says Ara Tahmassian, UCSF's assistant vice-chancellor for research services. Peaceful demonstrations have been occurring regularly on the campus for a year, he says. But three times in the month before the campus break-in, activists demonstrated at the home of Steven Cheung, an otolaryngolist who studies hearing loss using squirrel monkeys as a model. What Cheung believed to be a burning effigy of himself was thrown at the house.

“There is a kind of radicalism that we haven't seen before. I think we [in the research community] need to be a lot more careful not to take this lightly,” says Tahmassian. “My message to the campus has been: be on guard, times have changed.”

In Minnesota, police have made no arrests. But Kevin Kjonaas, the Animal Liberation Front spokesman who said the group claimed responsibility for the attack, has been subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury this month. Police will not say whether he is a suspect in the attack.

The Minnesota legislature passed a bill last month imposing civil damages of at least $5,000 for the unauthorized release of laboratory animals.