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Update from Uncaged Campaigns, UKOctober 2, 2000 Imutran Attempt to Suppress 'Diaries of Despair'Uncaged Campaigns and Dan Lyons, the author of the Diaries of Despair report, are both currently the subject of a High Court Injunction preventing the dissemination of internal information or statements based on internal information from Imutran. Imutran obtained the injunction by arguing that the publication of the leaked documents breached their commercial confidentiality and endangered the personal safety of individuals named in the document. The injunction was obtained on 26 September 2000, prior to a full hearing on 10 October 2000. Therefore, at the present time we are unable to send out your leaflets as requested. We are confident that the initial injunction will be overturned at the full hearing because of the overwhelming public interest in the disclosure of this information, and the exaggeration of the threat to personal safety of Imutran. As soon as we have the legal all clear, we shall be sending out the leaflets and other resources. Websites and EmailsYou may have received an e-mail from Imutran Ltd dated 2 Oct notifying you that they have obtained an Injunction against Uncaged Campaigns and Dan Lyons. We were ordered by the High Court to disclose the addresses of recipients of confidential information or statements based upon such confidential information. We are resisting any attempt to gag our organisation believing that the public interest and newspaper publications defeat their claims of confidentiality. We have agreed in principle to editing to address any legitimate concerns regarding commercial sensitivity and staff safety that can be demonstrated by Imutran, balanced by the considerable public interest in freedom of information with regard to these documents. Imutran had agreed to the restoration of our websites displaying an appropriate notice pending agreed editing. They then stopped negotiating the notice when it was almost agreed and now wish us to remove all the documents and articles and to undertake not to republish - so the fight continues. In fact, the injunction ordered by the High Court on 26 September was only a holding injunction: we are back in court on the 10 October for the full hearing. We advise you to consult your legal advisers before you disseminate any confidential material you may have received or downloaded. Articles published in the Daily Express and the information contained therein are already in the public domain and can be freely distributed. You do not have to destroy any articles that you may have received from Uncaged Campaigns concerning this affair. www.lineone.net/express/00/09/21/news/n1820-d.html Remember, contrary to the impression given by Imutran in some of their emails, we have only been served with a temporary injunction, and we are confident of winning the case at the hearing on Tuesday 10th September. Imutran to close!In the meantime, we have some tremendous news. Four days after our devastating disclosures and call for an independent judicial enquiry, Novartis, Imutran's parent company, has announced that Imutran is to close! Novartis have announced a merger with Massachusetts-based Biotransplant, Inc. We suspect that the timing of the merger announcement and movement of xenotransplantation research to North America represents an attempt to shore up public, scientific and financial confidence in their xenotransplantation project in the wake of our devastating exposé. The move also evades a Home Office limit on biopsies that Imutran wished to conduct on the xenotransplanted organs that was imposed due to the suffering and deaths caused to the primates involved. Novartis have now moved much of their xenotransplantation research to the USA and Canada. We will be working with international organisations in order to oppose this new research programme. Home Office Response and Independent Judicial EnquirySeveral hundred higher primates and thousands of pigs have been subjected to intense and protracted suffering and killed over the last 5 years in a research programme that appears to be on the brink of collapse. Novartis are now looking to breed new strains of transgenic pigs and investigate new methods of immunosuppression. This begs the question as to why this programme was licensed in the first place. The severe suffering and predictable lack of progress are just two of the legal reasons we are calling for an independent judicial enquiry into the fiasco of the Home Office licensing of pig-to-primate transplant experiments, and their subsequent failure to halt it. Home Office Minister Mike O'Brien MP has already given an initial response which is woefully inadequate in its dismissal of all of our recommendations, including our call for an independent enquiry. He requested that we meet with him this week. However, we have replied that we are busy with our response to the High Court injunction this week, and that in any case he clearly needs to study the report and documents more carefully and come up with a more constructive and reasonable response. It is inconceivable that it would be appropriate for the Home Office to investigate the serious failures of ..the Home Office! We expect to meet the Home Office in two to three weeks: it is crucial that proper consideration is given to the implications of the information that Uncaged Campaigns has put into the public domain. We will not be rushed or bounced into accepting an inadequate response. The Prime Minister's office has also replied with a perfunctory "this is a matter for the Home Office" statement. This is a totally unacceptable and unfair response which demonstrates a deep disregard for the serious issues raised by the report and the documents. In the meantime we await detailed responses from the United Kingdom Interim Regulatory Authority and several other relevant bodies. ActionPlease write to the Rt Hon Tony Blair MP at 10 Downing Street, London SW1A 2AA and/or email the Home Office at public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk to demand: a revocation of licenses to conduct xenotransplantation research on animals; a prohibition of the use of primates in research; the revocation of Huntingdon Life Science's Certificate of Designation and rehoming of animals incarcerated therein; and an investigation by the Good Laboratory Practice Monitoring Authority into the conduct of the whole research programme. Most important is an independent judicial enquiry to investigate: possible breaches of UK and European law that may have taken place during the course of this research; the decision to license such research; the conduct of the Home Office throughout this whole affair; and the lessons to be learnt from this affair. Thanks for your support. |