Aerial photo of a giant ring-a-roses formed to protest xenotransplantation, Jesus Green, Cambridge, July 24, 1999

On July 24, 1999 in Cambridge, 400 people from all across the UK formed a giant ring-a-roses, a traditional children's dance that commemorates the devastating effects of the Great Plague. This event, organised by the Sheffield-based anti-vivisection charity Uncaged Campaigns, highlighted the danger of new viruses entering the human population as a result of animal-to-human transplants (xenotransplantation), a technology being researched by Cambridge-based Imutran, a subsidiary of Novartis. The UK Government has so far refused to allow human trials of xenotransplantation because of worries about the risk to public health.

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