Simon Festing is operations director of the

CIBSE The Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE; pronounced 'sib-see') is an international professional engineering association based in London, England that represents building services engineers. It is a full member of the Co ...

Education

Festing graduated in 1987 as a

Bachelor of Medicine Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery ( la, Medicinae Baccalaureus, Baccalaureus Chirurgiae; abbreviated most commonly MBBS), is the primary medical degree awarded by medical schools in countries that follow the tradition of the United Ki ...

from the

London Hospital Medical College Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, commonly known as Barts or BL, is a medical school, medical and dental school in London, England. The school is part of Queen Mary University of London, a constituent college of the federal Un ...

. He worked as a medical doctor for three years before leaving medicine in 1990 to study Environmental Technology at Imperial College, graduating with an MSc in 1991.

Career

Festing did voluntary work for Greenpeace from 1992 to 1994, before joining Friends of the Earth in 1994, where he was employed as their transport and wildlife campaigner until 1998. He worked as a campaign leader for

Help the Aged Help the Aged was a United Kingdom based international charity founded in 1961 by Cecil Jackson-Cole and Hugh Faulkner to help disadvantaged older people who were affected by poverty, isolation and neglect. It merged with Age Concern in 2009 to f ...

from 1998–1999, then became Director of Public Dialogue for the Association of Medical Research Charities, an umbrella group representing 100 medical-research charities, a post he held from 2000 until 2004, when he joined the Research Defence Society (RDS). He was chief executive of

Understanding Animal Research Understanding Animal Research (UAR) is a British membership organisation formed in late 2008 through the merger of the Research Defence Society and the Coalition for Medical Progress. Its main aims are to "explain why animals are used in medical ...

(formally RDS) from 2004 until June 2011, when he joined the Society for General Microbiology.

Personal life

Simon Festing is the son of Michael Festing, a member of the UK Animal Procedures Committee, and former trustee of the

Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments (FRAME) is a charity based in Nottingham, UK. FRAME promotes consideration of the ethical and scientific issues involved in the use of laboratory animals for medical research, and the a ...

. He is divorced and has two children. His former wife is author Ismat (Issy) Festing, who is also a dentist.

Public profile

In December 2005, Festing appeared on a British reality TV show, ''The Devil's Challenge'', in which he was subjected to procedures used in animal labs, later engaging in an online debate with John Curtin, an

animal-rights Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding suffering—should be afforded the sa ...

activist.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Festing, Simon Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Alumni of the London Hospital Medical College Alumni of Imperial College London English activists Animal testing in the United Kingdom