http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2012/10/protests_gather_outside_northe.html

Protests gather outside Northern Biomedical Research in Norton Shores

By Megan Hart, MLive.com, Monday, October 8, 2012

NORTON SHORES, MI – About 10 people gathered Monday afternoon along Pontaluna Road in Norton Shores to protest animal research. 
 
Protesters gather near Northern Biomedical Research in Norton Shores Monday afternoon to demonstrate against the use of animals in medical research.

Organizer Kara Moon said she planned the protest near Northern Biomedical Research to coincide with Primate Liberation Week, a push to end the use of primates in medical research. Protestors gathered in the public right-of-way near a private drive off Pontaluna.
 
Northern Biomedical Research uses primates, dogs, guinea pigs, rabbits and sheep for research on neurological illnesses. The company moved into a facility in the Norton Shores Industrial Park earlier this year. Officials at Northern Biomedical Research couldn’t be reached for comment after business hours Monday.
 
Moon said she had been involved with protests at another Northern Biomedical Research facility on Sherman Boulevard in December 2011 and animal rights activists will continue to protest at least twice a month until something changes.
 
“We want to make people aware of what’s going down this private drive,” she said.
 
Moon said the protestors, who have created a group called Speak Up on Facebook, intended to stand outside for about two hours Monday. Norton Shores police stopped by the protest for a time, but there were no signs of disorder or a counter-protest. A few passing motorists honked at the protestors and a woman the protestors said was unknown to them gave them hot chocolate from Speedway.
 
Protestor Tom Lyon emphasized that he wants to see the neurological diseases Northern Biomedical Research is researching cured, but said animals aren’t a good model of how therapies will affect humans and that animals suffer unnecessarily during research. Research using human cells or computer models would better serve humans without harming animals, he said.
 
“They are deprived of everything that is normal and comfortable and natural to them,” he said. “We don’t care more about animals (than people), we just don’t care less about them.”  

See also:

• Northern Biomedical Research, Inc., Muskegon, MI

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