Scoop Link: Human/Pig Gene Experiments Exposed

Tuesday, 10 October 2000, 4:10 pm
Article: Alastair Thompson

The following is a link to: Dairies of Despair – “The Secret History of Pig-to-Primate Organ Transplants” - the contents of a website containing confidential Novartis papers which have been protected against publication in the UK by a court order.

The orginal website put up by an activist group containing these papers has been censored but the full text (more than 2000 pages of information on secret pig-human experiments) can be found at…

http://www.xenotransplantation.org.uk/

This website mirror site has been posted by a group who are opposed to internet censorship.

The following is a copy of a threatening letter recently sent to a number of activists around the world concerning the court order against publication of the Diaries of Despair…

Dear Sirs,

We understand that you have recently received material from Uncaged Campaigns Limited, an organisation opposed to xenotransplantation.

That material has been compiled from a large amount of confidential documents and, in many instances, from documents protected by copyright, that have been stolen from Imutran and its commercial partners by persons as yet unknown (though we emphasise that we do not suggest they were stolen by Uncaged Campaigns). The documents contain commercially sensitive scientific data and other commercially confidential information. In addition, they contain the names of a number of our employees, ex-employees and associates and we are concerned for their personal safety as result of this.

On Tuesday 26 September 2000 our lawyers obtained a Court Order preventing the publication of our confidential information and infringement of our copyright. The purpose of this letter is to notify you of that Order, and to inform you that we will take whatever steps are necessary to prevent further illegitimate dissemination of our confidential information and infringement of our copyrights.

You are hereby put on notice of that Court Order and further dissemination by you could be treated as contempt of Court.

Please note that the only exceptions to the protection granted by the Court Order relate to the republication of information contained in articles in the Daily Express on Thursday and Friday of last week, and the provision of information and documents to the relevant authorities. We do not seek to stifle public debate about xenotransplantation, or proper investigation by the appropriate authorities of allegations which have been made about this company's activities. We do however need to protect commercially sensitive scientific data, other commercially confidential information and the safety of our employees.

Yours faithfully,

Corinne Savill
For and on behalf of
IMUTRAN LIMITED
Registered Office:
Douglas House
18 Trumpington Road
Cambridge CB2 2AH

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Alastair Thompson

Scoop Publisher

Alastair Thompson is the co-founder of Scoop. He is of Scottish and Irish extraction and from Wellington, New Zealand. Alastair has 24 years experience in the media, at the Dominion, National Business Review, North & South magazine, Straight Furrow newspaper and online since 1997. He is the winner of several journalism awards for business and investigative work.

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