A large animal-rights protest outside Oxford University last weekend was somewhat thwarted by a band of eight patients who turned up to explain how animal research had helped them personally. Mike Robins - who had had his Parkinson's treated with deep brain stimulation by Oxford-based neurosurgeon Tipu Aziz - ensured that all the news cameras were on him instead of the antivivisectionists when he switched off the neurostimulator (which was first tested on monkeys) implanted in his chest and began to shake uncontrollably. It seems the animal-rights campaigners are not the only ones who can pull clever emotional tricks out of the bag.