Animal Research Panel Named

Mayor Walter J. Sullivan, Jr. yesterday named two representatives of the research and animal-rights lobbies to a committee that will decide which law, if any, should restrict animal research in Cambridge.

Dr. John Moses, chairman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology animal care committee, and Steven Wise, a Boston attorney who heads the national Animal Legal Defense Fund, will prepare a report for the City Council, along with a veterinarian they will select together.

The committee's decision is likely to become law, because five of the nine City Councilors have agreed to vote according to the group's recommendations.

Under terms laid down by a September 21 Council vote, Sullivan picked Moses from a list submitted by universities and private research labs. He chose Wise after rejecting two other nominations from the Cambridge Committee for Responsible Research (CCRR), which leads the movement to restrict local animal research.

CCRR member Kenneth Russell said Sullivan rejected the group's president, Gul Agha, because he recently moved to New Haven and is no longer an official Cambridge resident. Sullivan also rejected Harvey Sapolsky, an MIT professor of public policy. Russell said that Wise, the CCRR's third nominee, was "a fine and logical choice," but that his group would have preferred Agha.

David Noonan, executive assistant to the Mayor, said Sullivan feared it would have seemed "lopsided" to put Moses and Sapolsky on the commission together because both work for MIT. He would not comment further on Sullivan's reasons for the decision.

Moses and Wise said yesterday that they will meet to nominate a list of veterinarians in mid-November. The Mayor will select the commission's third member from this list.

Although the past year's City Hall battles produced hours of testimony about local experimentation, both Moses and Wise said they need to study the issue further.

Both appointees said they expect their decision to command the Council's respect, but Wise added that he expects "everyone" to challenge it. They said they did not expect problems in working together. "I'm a reasonable person and I've heard he's a reasonable person," said Wise.

"I don't think you'll see University officials demonstrating in the streets," said Harvard Associate Vice President for State and Community Affairs Jacqueline O'Neill. She said local researchers were "very prepared" to help the committee and respect its decision.

The agreement to create the committee--and to abide by its decision--emerged from a tumultuous September meeting at which Councilors worked to create a compromise out of fear that the volatile subject of animal research would become this year's top campaign issue.

Moses, Wise and the veterinarian may decide that animal research should not be restricted, they may assemble their own ordinance, or they may select one of three proposals that the Council has considered over the past year.

The first and strictest proposal, drafted by the CCRR, would require researchers to get permission from a city-appointed civilian committee before using animals in their work.

Spokesmen for Harvard and MIT labs have said they fear that if such a committee were established, antivivisection activists would use it to forbid most of the research now conducted. CCRR spokesmen disagree, saying their members only oppose cruel or frivolous research.

The least restrictive proposal would make all labs obey the animal care rules that researchers must already follow if they receive grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Harvard and MIT already follow these rules because NIH pays for most of their biomedical research.