Officials from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals had the appropriate reaction of “Wow” this week when a federal agency apologized for barring a top vice president of the animal rights group from speaking at a recent meeting.
“I apologize,” said Dr. Michael Lauer, the deputy director for Extramural Research at the National Institutes of Health, in a letter to PETA’s legal team.
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Here’s what happened: PETA Vice President Dr. Alka Chandna had been invited to speak at an NIH conference in February but was stopped by the police on the Bethesda, Md., campus.
PETA said Chandna was blocked because she had previously posted, in public spaces on the campus, fliers that were critical of the agency’s unethical treatment of monkeys, including keeping them in solitary confinement for years, frightening them with fake snakes and spiders, and inflicting irreversible brain damage on them.
A week later, in a legal threat, PETA said in a letter to NIH that Chandna’s First Amendment rights to speak at the mental health meeting were threatened by being barred from speaking.
Expecting a legal battle, NIH instead apologized and blamed a “miscommunication” between agency executives and NIH police.
“I apologize for the miscommunication between the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the NIH police,” Lauer wrote in an April 13 letter. He added, “We did include Dr. Chandna’s written comments in the record of the meeting, but at the same time we understand that Dr. Chandna was looking forward to the opportunity to offer remarks in person. At this time, Dr. Chandna is not banned from entering the NIH Bethesda campus.”
