Colin Blakemore, the recently appointed chief executive of the UK Medical Research Council (MRC), has threatened to resign from his post if the British government does not reaffirm its commitment to the use of animals in research and to the rights of scientists to speak out and engage the public on such controversial issues.

The issue has arisen over the secretive system of granting British honors such as knighthoods. Normally, the new chief of the MRC would automatically be granted a knighthood, but at the end of last week documents were leaked that suggested that Blakemore had been rejected for an honor because of his involvement in “vivisection.”

Blakemore, a neuroscientist and Waynflete Professor of Physiology at Oxford, has been outspoken on the use of animals in research. Animal rights activists have beaten Blakemore up, vandalized his home, and injured his secretary with razor blades. For a time, he had to travel with a police escort.

“I'm not threatening to resign out of pique,” Blakemore told The Scientist. “It's a matter of principle. The mission statement of the MRC is explicit. There's a specific commitment to talk to the public about issues in medical research. How can I now go to our scientists, and ask them to risk talking about animal research, when there now appears to be evidence that in secret the government disapproves it, even though in public they've strongly encouraged it? I just found myself compromised.”

“I'm considering my position over Christmas,” he said. “It would be gratifying to see an expression of support from the prime minister.”

The issue has come up before in similar circumstances. Widely corroborated reports tell that the night before the February 2003 opening of the Prince of Wales International Centre for SANE Research in Oxford, for which Blakemore had fund-raised for 5 years and whose scientific committee he'd headed, the Palace asked him not to attend. Marjory Wallace, chief executive of SANE, was contacted by the Palace and told, “It would be inappropriate for the prince to be seen shaking the hand of a vivisector.” As a result, the whole Oxford contingent boycotted the event.

David Sainsbury, the UK science minister, told the British Broadcasting Corporation that he agreed with Blakemore that the honors decision “does send out the wrong message.” Sainsbury distanced the government from the awards decisions, saying they were “a civil service process” and that he was “absolutely clear… on behalf of this government that [the Blakemore honors decision] does not represent in any way government policy.”

“The prime minister himself in a speech to the Royal Society said that it was very important that research should not be stifled because it was controversial and has made it clear as I have that we give full support to scientists in this particular area,” Sainsbury said. “The government believes it is necessary to do animal experiments within the tough regulatory regime we have; it is also quite clear that the government both admires and fully supports all those on the front line who stood up to animal rights extremists.”

But questioned later yesterday evening on the independent Channel Four TV news, Blakemore would not say he was withdrawing his resignation threat. Speaking to The Scientist after the broadcast, Blakemore said he wanted a prime ministerial commitment to animal research. “Lord Sainsbury telephoned me this afternoon and said that he hoped the prime minister would write something, probably after Christmas,” he said. “I'm much more reassured than I was yesterday. I still want to think things over, but I'm enormously heartened not only by the response from politicians, but also by from colleagues—the response has been terrific.”

Blakemore is especially encouraged by a letter to the prime minister from the new UK Biosciences Federation, established in September 2003. “Sir Tom Blundell, the president, and the entire council, representing over 60,000 biologists from every area, not just physiology and animal sciences, but botany, ecology, and zoology, have all signed a letter to the PM objecting to what had happened and asking for a statement from him concerning the commitment of the government,” Blakemore said.

“Research on animals—despite all the efforts to familiarize people with it and its significance, to habilitate it in the minds of the public—is still considered unrespectable,” he said. “Yet medical science cannot continue without it. And people must come to realize that.”