Green MEP calls for EU-wide primate test ban
25 April 2007
GREEN Euro-MP Caroline Lucas has called for an immediate EU-wide ban on allscientific experiments on primates.
Speaking at the launch of a parliamentary bid to replace all primateexperiments with non-animal alternatives, Dr Lucas said: "Primates are ourclosest animal relatives yet we continue to subject them to cruel,unnecessary and outdated laboratory experiments.
"The EU is currently reviewing its rules of laboratory animals, and we mustuse this opportunity to immediately ban the use of primates in experimentsanywhere in the EU, in favour of more modern and effective alternatives likecomputer modelling, tissue or cell cultures and micro-dosing."
Dr Lucas made her comments at a Strasbourg reception to launch a WrittenDeclaration - the European Parliament's equivalent of an Early Day Motion inthe House of Commons - calling for the EU to set a timetable for thereplacement of all primate tests with non-animal alternatives.
The MEP, who is Vice President of the European Parliament's cross-partyanimal welfare 'intergroup', said more than 10,000 primates are subjected tolab experiments in the EU every year. Some are caught from the wild beforebeing sold to the vivisection industry, undermining conservation efforts,encouraging local poaching and threatening some species with extinction.
Dr Lucas also said that the test results were often misleading anddangerous, citing the example of the disastrous Northwick Park Hospital drugtrial, in which six healthy humans suffered severe illness after ingesting adrug found to be harmless in laboratory primates, even at a dose 500 timeshigher than that given to the human volunteers.
The Written Declaration calls for all EU institutions and membergovernments to use the revision process of rules on lab animals (containedin Directive 86/609/EC) to make ending the use of apes and wild monkeys inscientific experiments an urgent priority and to draw up a timetable forreplacing such tests with alternatives.
It notes the overwhelming public opposition to the use of primates inexperiments (80 per cent, according to the European Commission's own publicconsultation), the fact that a quarter of all primate species are in dangerof extinction and the availability of more efficient and reliablealternatives.
The declaration will become the official position of the European Parliamentif is attracts the support of half its 785 members.
Dr Lucas added: "This Written Declaration depends on MEPs' support - so Iurge anyone who wants to take a real step towards banning this unnecessarycruelty to call on their local MEPs' to sign it before the deadline onSeptember 6th."
ENDS
Notes to Editors:
1. Pictures available on request, of Dr Lucas speaking at the launch of theWritten Declaration, or of Dr Lucas with Jan Creamer, Chief Executive ofAnimal Defenders International, which has sponsored the declaration, outsidethe European Parliament's Strasbourg building.2. The Written Declaration in full can be viewed atwww.europarl.europa.eu-DCL-2007-0040+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN
