THE DIARIES OF DESPAIR REPORT
The Diaries of Despair report and the documentation upon which
it is based provide the public with an unprecedented and extensive
insight into the reality of animal experimentation in modern Britain.
The aim of the report was to present all the information contained
within the leaked Imutran documents that was relevant to the serious
ethical, scientific and political concerns that arise. The length
of the report - 150 pages - is testament to the weight of evidence
contained in the documentation. Never before has so much secret
information about animal experiments entered the public domain.
The report had been effectively banned for almost two and a half
years as a result of the injunction obtained by Imutran and Novartis
Pharma in late September 2000. Following the companies' withdrawal
of their law suit, we are now in a position to publish the report
in a complete form, except for identifying details about individuals
and collaborating companies and institutions, and details of drugs.
A slightly anomalous situation arises from the wording of the new
injunction permitting publication: some of the information that
has been blanked out is already in the public domain. For example,
details of drug regimes appear in papers published by Imutran scientists
in scientific journals, although we question the accuracy of Imutran's
public statements. (See further reading.)
The Diaries of Despair report is the essential tool to enable interpretation
of the Imutran documentation. Information of public interest that
is derived from injuncted documents is retained and presented within
the report. The reference numbers for such documents have been blocked
out in the text or footnotes. The way in which the report was written
means that it inevitably presents the public interest argument for
its own existence and publication. The successful legal argument
in defence of the report's publication is essentially the same as
the argument for an independent judicial inquiry: the leaked documentation
reveals horrific animal suffering, corrects Imutran's misleading
public presentation of their research, and exposes wrongdoing on
the part of Government.
The Diaries
of Despair report is split into five parts. Part
I sets the scene by describing the context of this programme
of vivisection. Chapter
1 provides some background information about the multi-faceted
controversial nature of xenotransplantation, an overview of the
most salient points to emerge from the leaked documents, and the
rationale behind the development of transgenic pigs as a potential
source of xenografts. Chapter
2 presents the victims of this research, higher primates, to
describe the suffering they endure. We also explain to the reader
the legal framework, centred around the Animals (Scientific Procedures)
Act 1986, which the Home Office must implement to regulate animal
experimentation.
Parts
II and III
tell the story of the baboons and cynomolgus monkeys, from (in the
case of the baboons) capture in the wild, through transportation
half way across the world, to their deaths in the experiments themselves
at Huntingdon Life Sciences. Part
IV scrutinises the role of Huntingdon Life Sciences. Part
V draws together the various themes to emerge from the leaked
documents, to analyse whether this research programme has been correctly
conducted and regulated. Finally, we offer our conclusions
and recommendations.
The events that have unfolded since the original publication of
Diaries of Despair merit a report in and of themselves:
- the shabby and deceitful political manoeuvring of the Government
- our successful battle to resist Imutran and Novartis' legal
offensive
- the second leak of documents from
the Home Office in October 2002
The fallout from the Diaries of Despair is presented in the Government
and Legal Battle sections.
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