Alistair | Archives | Animal Writes | PETA.org.uk - Part 2

Alistair Currie - Resident Expert on Animal Tests

Alistair Currie recently celebrated 25 years as a vegetarian (and 15 as a vegan), having gone vegetarian on the day he started training as a nurse in 1984. For far too long, he was content to eat his own badly cooked vegetarian food and simply observe the activities of the animal rights movement. Then, in 1994, he attended his first animal protection meeting in his hometown of Edinburgh. Soon after, he became an enthusiastic activist and, thanks to the advice of his new AR friends, a somewhat less bad cook. After 13 years as a registered nurse, he was so inspired by a talk given by a PETA campaigner to his local group that he decided to seek a professional role in the animal rights movement and has never looked back.

Alistair worked on farmed-animal and vivisection campaigns for Uncaged Campaigns, Viva! and the the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection before coming to PETA in 2007. He is now the policy adviser for the organisation. His work focuses on ending animal experimentation and maximising PETA's impact on public policy in the UK and the European Union. His widely varied responsibilities include meeting with Cabinet ministers, mobilising PETA supporters, lobbying politicians, speaking on national television and in numerous public talks and debates (including those held by the prestigious Oxford Union) and conducting detailed technical work on animal testing and the use of alternatives to animal experiments. Staying in touch with his local campaigner roots, he still occasionally dons the odd animal costume for one of PETA's eye-catching photo opportunities!

Alistair lives in London with his wife and enjoys really good vegan food, music and watching infuriating television programmes (Question Time and X Factor in particular).
  • 23
  • Aug

Enough ‘True Blood’ for Cosmetics Testing

Photo: RE/Westcom/StarMaxInc.com

Showing that she’s far from cold-hearted, True Blood star Kristin Bauer has written to the European Commission to ask that it preserve the current planned date of 2013 for banning the sale of animal-tested cosmetics and toiletries in the European Union. With the European Commission poised to make an announcement on the deadline this year, now is a critical time to apply pressure on them. We blogged a few months ago about a backward-looking scientific report which increases the risk the Commission will propose postponing the… Read more.


  • 17
  • Aug

‘Project Nim’: Bob Ingersoll Interview

Project Nim – the must-see documentary of the year by director James Marsh – details the attempts of scientists to teach a chimpanzee (Nim Chimpsky) sign language. Primatologist Bob Ingersoll features in the documentary, and our resident expert on all things animal testing related, Alistair Currie, interviewed Ingersoll on his relationship with Nim, animal testing and his interest in animals.

Here he is in his own words:

Alistair: Did you have a particular interest in … other animals before you started [working with chimps]? What gave you that original interest?

Bob: You… Read more.


  • 10
  • Aug

REACH: A Glimmer of Hope?

Puppy in a cage

© iStockPhoto / DanBrandenburg

We blogged a couple of weeks ago about the world’s largest chemical testing programme – Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) – which also happens to be the world’s largest animal killing programme. A recent development has given us hope that the death toll can be cut, and we’ve taken action to try to ensure that happens as soon as possible.

REACH is an EU law that requires companies to submit “safety” data for chemicals that are made or imported into… Read more.


  • 06
  • Aug

Almost 100 ‘Dogs’ and ‘Cats’ Line Up to Plead for Protection in Laboratories

Looks pretty good, doesn’t it? Almost 100 PETA supporters took part in an eye-catching photo opportunity at Marble Arch in London today to demand that the government not adopt lower standards of protection for animals in laboratories when it incorporates the EU’s new directive regulating animal experiments later this year. If the government adopts the directive without changes, all animals will be affected. But dogs and cats in particular would become far more likely to be used in experiments because they would lose the special protections that Britain has given them for… Read more.


  • 22
  • Jul

Don’t Worry About Vivisection – the Government Has It in Hand

Household products

© iStockPhoto / AnikaSalsera

We’ve been waiting more than a year, but on Monday, the government finally unveiled its grand plan to reduce the number of animals used for vivisection.

First, the good news. As promised, the government is taking steps to end the testing of household products on animals. This is an issue that I raised in meetings with key Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs before the election, and as long overdue as this is, the Coalition deserves credit for being the government finally willing to… Read more.


  • 19
  • Jul

The World’s Largest Animal Testing Programme – Even Worse Than You Thought

REACH adImagine finding out that the world’s largest animal testing programme – which has already killed an estimated 200,000 animals – is killing tens of thousands more animals than the law says it should. That is exactly what is happening right here in Europe. To draw attention to this tragedy, we’ve placed this advert in an influential European politics magazine, The Parliament, demanding urgent action from the authorities responsible.

This month, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), which administers the massive European Union chemicals testing programme known as “REACH” (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction… Read more.


  • 14
  • Jul

10K Killed Every Day in UK Laboratories

Each July sees the release of the depressing official figures for the number of animals used in laboratories in the UK. After last year’s slight dip, the statistics this year (for 2010) show a shameful but sadly predictable rise in the number of animals subjected to experiments in the UK. That total now stands at 3,642,517 animals (in other words, almost 10,000 animals per day!)

Cats could lose their special protection, leading to more suffering

Cats could lose their special protection, leading to more suffering

Almost every single one of those animals will have been killed –… Read more.


  • 29
  • Jun

PETA Calls on Iran to Scrap Mission to Send Monkey Into Space

PETA has sent an urgent letter to Dr Hamid Fazeli, head of the Iranian Space Agency, requesting that he call off plans to launch a monkey into space later this summer. Monkeys are highly intelligent and sensitive animals who are not only terrified by the violence and noise of a launch and landing but also suffer when caged in a laboratory before and – if they survive – after a flight.

Iran’s plans hark back to the dark days of the US and Soviet space programmes in which dogs and primates were… Read more.


  • 21
  • Jun

Beagles Happy After Barking-Mad Breeding Facility Is Binned

PETA takes its hat off to the East Riding Council for denying the application of B&K Universal (a subsidiary of US-based Marshall Farms) to build an industrial facility for breeding dogs for laboratories. There is no place on UK soil for a mega-corporation that profits off animal suffering – a strong sentiment expressed by more than 2,300 PETA supporters in their letters calling on the council to reject the application. Had B&K succeeded in its plan, thousands of dogs bred at Grimston would have been subjected to experiments here in the UK… Read more.


  • 18
  • Jun

Government Reveals Its Hand on New Animal Test Law

When laws protecting animals are updated, the usual practice is to strengthen them. But the Home Office’s just-released plans for a new UK law on animal experimentation could lead to more suffering for more animals than ever before.

Last year the EU produced a new directive to regulate experiments on animals, and that means that all member states, including the UK, have to amend their own laws. PETA worked hard to get the best result for animals when the directive was going through the European Parliament, and this will certainly stop some… Read more.


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