Protesters Take a Wounded, Tormented ‘Monkey’ to the European Commission
Alongside a lifelike mutilated “monkey”, a group of PETA supporters gathered outside the European Commission today and delivered a petition calling for an end to the use of primates in experiments.
Around 10,000 monkeys are used in experiments every year in the European Union. But as the European Commission questions the continued use of primates, PETA has delivered a petition demonstrating that compassionate Europeans want the cruel tests to end.
With more than 160,000 signatures from supporters of PETA France, PETA Germany, PETA Netherlands, and PETA UK, the petition comes hot on the heels of the European Commission’s release of a scientific opinion on non-human primate testing which ignores modern science, endorsing cruel and archaic experiments on non-human primates. In response, PETA’s petition points out that tests on non-human primates frequently lead to results that do not translate to humans, are inferior to new, cutting-edge forms of research technology, and are cruel to the animals who are caged, drugged, infected with deadly diseases, and cut open.
There’s no scientific justification for current regulations that stipulate, for example, that new pharmaceuticals must be tested on large mammals. In one sobering illustration, TGN1412 – a new drug that was found to be safe in macaques, who were given a dose 500 times higher than the human dose – led to multiple organ failure and disfiguring injuries in six human clinical trial participants. This is just one of many instances in which experiments on monkeys have yielded unreliable or misleading results for humans.
There are other better ways to develop new medicines and treatments, such as epidemiological studies, human tissue– and cell-based research methods, cadavers, sophisticated human-patient simulators, and computational models. These are often more efficient and precise than testing on animals as well as ethical, and European scientists should be focusing their efforts on them – not on archaic and cruel experiments on monkeys.
Caging, mutilating, and poisoning monkeys is cruel, not scientific. As the European Commission reviews laws relating to animal experimentation, PETA is calling on its legislators to move towards effective research methods that will not only spare sensitive, intelligent primates immense suffering but also increase the likelihood of medical breakthroughs for humans.
Approximately 11.5 million animals are used in experiments in Europe every year. They feel pain and fear just as we do, and their overwhelming natural instincts – like ours – are to be free and to protect their own lives, not to be locked in a small cage inside a laboratory. Learn more about the ways in which animals suffer in experiments and join us in taking action to help them:
