I received a comment on my blog post addressing the strong stand UCLA researchers took against animal rights hooligans in Los Angeles this weekend; the commenter made a clear statement that resonates with me:

Hooray for AMP!

For those of you who do not know, AMP stands for Americans for Medical Progress, a non-profit organization that supports advocates working to get the message out about the importance of humane and responsible research involving animal models. Some of their work is shown below, and more can be found here.

Long before I even finished my dissertation, this organization was working to support researchers around the country, including me – whether I was aware of it, or not.

For decades, they have been working to advocate for ground-breaking medical research, leading to benefits to research near you. If you are a biomedical researcher (whether your research involves animal models or not), AMP has aided the cause to propel our colleague progress towards scientific knowledge, treatments and cures.

And when animal rights activists struck hard in Los Angeles, setting cars ablaze and sending razors and threats in the mail, AMP stood up with us. By the time the arson at my house occurred in 2009, a more than 5 year campaign by animal rights activists against UCLA investigators was underway. No national advocacy or scientific organization had done anything directly to support us.

But AMP changed all that. They reached out to us, made crucial connections and aided our formation of the group now known as Pro-test for Science. Today, I count the AMP staff as friends, as well as colleagues in this struggle.

Every single day, they are working to contribute to our community’s effort to make the world a better place. Most of you don’t even know it, because neither money, nor fame drives their hard work. They do it for the cause – the cause of making the world happier, healthier and safer for scientific research.

Because AMP also needs support from the scientific community, I am writing this post and asking you to give a small donation to the organizaiton (click here). It’s the right thing to do, given all they have done for us.