War On Science.(Huntingdon Life Sciences; animal testing and medical research)

Signs in front of Huntingdon Life Sciences say "WELCOME" in seven languages, but the double security fence, the water-filled moat and the bales of razor wire tell a different story. Sixteen months ago this research firm in rural Cambridgeshire became the principal target of British activists opposed to the use of animals in medical research and testing. Eleven employees have had their cars blown up by firebombs outside their homes. In February masked thugs jumped the managing director and beat him with baseball bats. Just before Christmas a senior official was sprayed in the face with chemicals in front of his house, an attack witnessed by his wife and child. The animal-rights group SHAC (for Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty) published the names and addresses of managers along with the message "HLS workers are animal killers: Go Get 'Em." The activists haven't stopped at intimidating HLS and its employees: they've also taken aim at anything else connected with the company, from customers to banks to brokers. And the campaign has succeeded: this year it has pushed HLS to the brink of collapse.

The closure of HLS would be a step toward the activists' ultimate goal of ending all animal testing and research in Britain once and for all. Along the way they may also threaten the future of Britain's medical- research industry. The cost to science could be steep. Britain, the country that gave the world Dolly the cloned sheep, is home to the research labs of a clutch of topflight global companies. This research is also vital to the health of Britain's pharmaceutical industry, whose exports totaled [pound]7.1 billion last year.

Investors have already grown leery. Research directors from five leading pharmaceutical companies have written to the Home secretary, warning that security worries compel them to reconsider expansion plans in Britain. Japanese companies are rethinking [pound]1 billion worth of investments in British research, according to the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry. Says spokesman Richard Ley, "However [the activists] dress this up, this is a campaign against the whole pharmaceutical industry and new medicines."

A robust animal-rights movement is not new in this country. The sentimental attachment to animals runs deep. Charles Darwin, father of the theory of evolution, actively opposed vivisection. In the 1980s British activists spearheaded the movement against animal furs. Violence by the animal-rights fringe has disfigured political campaigns to an extent unknown in the rest of Europe. "I have stopped counting the death threats I've received," says Mark Matfield, director of the Research Defence Society, which speaks for scientists involved in animal research. Most threats prove hollow, he says (though protesters once trashed his car). Hollow or not, they're hard to ignore. Even before the SHAC campaign, Colin Blakemore, an Oxford physiology professor and one of the very few academics now prepared to argue publicly for research, was a regular target. He's had demonstrators march outside his home and terrorists threaten to kidnap his children. One even delivered a bomb packed with needles through his mail slot.

But the campaign against HLS marks a worrying escalation. The dozen or so full-time activists who run SHAC have so far confined themselves to shutting down dog and cat farms that rear animals for the labs. HLS, by contrast, has a staff of 1,100, with 200 more in Princeton, New Jersey, and ranks among Europe's largest contract research labs. In recent years it has worked for 40 of the world's top 50 pharmaceutical companies. Staff have received hate mail, threats, abusive tele-phone calls and protests outside their homes.

Activists are even targeting companies linked to HLS. Lamp posts in plush districts of London carry stickers giving the names, addresses and photographs of senior figures in the pharmaceutical industry whose companies use HLS. The message: "Animal Killer. Let him know what you think of animal cruelty." Earlier this month protesters barricaded themselves for 11 hours inside the London offices of the Bank of New York, which had been holding some HLS shares. Charles Schwab, the online broker, ceased handling HLS shares after protesters dressed in rabbit suits clambered onto the roof of its Birmingham office. Says Greg Avery of SHAC: "The roll call of companies that have distanced themselves from HLS is very, very impressive. We are pulling one supporting pillar after another out from under them."

The strategy has been effective. In January HLS came close to shutting down after the Royal Bank of Scotland--a target of repeated demonstrations--refused to extend ...