Belgium Group Challenges Primate Tests

For media interviews please contact:

Andre Menache, MRCVS
Scientific Advisor, ADC
+44 (7906) 446-889 Danny Flies
Chairman, ADC
+32 (479) 851-519

September 21st, 2009
Belgian group challenges primate experiments

The Coalition Against Animal Experiments (ADC) today staged a peaceful demonstration outside the Catholic University of Louvain to mark the launch of a daring legal challenge against primate researchers at this Belgian university.

The group has carefully put together a dossier to expose a series of invasive brain experiments on primates. ADC charges that the suffering caused to the animals as a result of the unnatural laboratory conditions and invasive brain experiments is out of all proportion to the information obtained from the studies. In addition, the group has obtained expert witness testimonies suggesting that the results of these experiments could just as easily have been obtained through observational studies on human volunteers.

This legal challenge represents a first in the history of the 23-year legislation relating to the protection of laboratory animals.

Article 7.2 of Directive 86/609/EEC states: "An experiment shall not be performed if another satisfactory method of obtaining the result sought, not entailing the use of an animal, is reasonably and practicably available."