EU Animal Testing Vote

May 14, 2009 • Posted in Related News

On May 5th the European Parliament voted to ban all research on great apes except in cases when the research would help to conserve the species.  The decision is applauded by all the individual nations worldwide who have already ended or limited the use of great apes in research and is a major boost for current legislative efforts to end their use in the U.S.—the only remaining large scale user of chimpanzees in the world.  However, sadly, in what is being described as a “charter for the multi-billion pound animal research industry to carry on business as usual—with scant regard either for animal welfare or public opinion,” the EU Parliament voted in favor of continuing research involving non-human primates.

The decision revised draft legislation proposed last November by the European Commission that would have severely restricted primate research.  According to a coalition (European Coalition to End Animal Experiments) of animal welfare groups across Europe, including the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV), Parliament has significantly weakened the already inadequate proposals of the European Commission to revise the 23-year-old law.  The proposed legislation still must be approved by the European Commission and the European Union’s Council of Ministers sometime after the June 4-7 European parliamentary elections.

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