Primate debate: U. won't detail monkey experiments
By Linda Fantin
The Salt Lake Tribune
Issue: 1/13/04

More than 100 monkeys were involved in experiments at the University of Utah between October 1998 and February 2003. Some primates were as young as 6 months old.
    But good luck finding out what was done to them.
    The school's attorney says that information, and the researchers who gather it, should be protected -- from public disclosure, from curious competitors and from people such as Jeremy Beckham.
    Beckham, 18, a freshman and budding biologist is, nonetheless, upset about animal testing. Taxpayers would be, too, Beckham insists, if they knew what was taking place in laboratories funded with federal grants and state money, like those at the U.
    Last fall, Beckham filed an open-records request for research protocols containing blow-by-blow descriptions of experiments involving primates, including what anesthesia is used on the animals, whether they are restrained, and what kind of post-operative care they receive.
    Beckham plans to publish the information on his Web site. The ultimate goal, he says, is to generate enough public outrage that the school ends experimentation on baboons, macaques, marmosets and other monkeys. In October, he founded the Utah Primate Freedom Project. The Web site describes it as "a collection of concerned university students, alumni and laypersons," but that's a bit overstated.
    "Right now, it's me and a couple of friends," Beckham says.
    That's apparently enough to make the university nervous.
    The school is refusing to release the protocols, partly because officials worry that researchers will become targets of harassment and violence.
    There also is the issue of the research itself. Until the studies are complete, protocols must be kept confidential to safeguard the research and the school's rights to any discoveries that result from it, university attorney Phyllis Vetter says.
    "The main thing for the university is that the requested documents contain ideas that the creators are entitled to keep confidential until they bear fruit," Vetter says.
    U. researchers "do their best to meet or exceed all the standards that apply for humane and proper treatment in the use of animals," she says. As for the personal safety of the researchers, Vetter says that is a "real concern" for the school, but declined to elaborate.
    On Thursday, Beckham and the 154-year-old institution he attends will square off before the state records committee, which can uphold or overrule the university's decision.
    So far, the tussle about access has generated little publicity, but plenty of paperwork. Each side has submitted hundreds of pages to the panel.
    "My friends tell me I should be a lawyer," Beckham says.
    The Taylorsville High graduate was always interested in biology, but his mission to defend it didn't start until he was 15. In fact, Beckham used to hunt and fish until a TV talk show guest posed a troubling question: If you wouldn't shoot your dog, why would you shoot a deer?
    Within a year, Beckham was eschewing all foods made with animal products and making a name for himself among animal-rights activists. While attending a debate camp at a Texas university, Beckham shot video of the school's mascot -- a live bear cub -- and the conditions under which it was kept. He had his mom send the footage, along with a complaint, to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
    Beckham believes that being a science major in college gives him more credibility as an activist. But it also pits him against many of his fellow students and professors. He already has written to instructors to find out who among them does not require students to dissect pigs and other animals.
    "You can get through most medical schools without messing with animals," he says.
    Beckham has no intention, however, of getting through his freshman year without messing with the administration. He says the university's real motive in denying access to primate protocols has less to do with intellectual property rights and personal safety, and more to do with an industrywide reluctance to reveal what goes on behind lab doors.
    After all, he says, some U. professors publish details about ongoing experiments -- and in some cases their home addresses -- on personal Web sites. The National Institutes of Health also releases abstracts for the research it funds.
    If the school is worried about disclosing a researcher's identity, Beckham says, all officials have to do is redact their names, pager numbers and other contact information from the forms.
    Beckham says that branding him with the same iron as more violent activists is akin to alleging the U. abuses its lab animals because other schools have been cited for doing so.
    The National Association of Biomedical Research, which advocates the humane use of animals in research and monitors the activities of animal-rights protesters, understands the U.'s desire to protect its people.
    "Most lab researchers are not accustomed to this kind of attention," NABR Executive Vice President Mary Hanley says. "They don't want to fight back publicly. They're scared. Sometimes the institutions have to do it for them."
    Still, Hanley insists, the best defense is a good offense. She suggests that the school release the protocols and then invite the media and members of the public into its labs. "The public is paying for this stuff so they have a right to see it," she says. "I'd tell them, 'Here's what we do, here's who we are and we're damn proud of it.' "