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Cambridge University Cancels Controversial Monkey Lab England's Cambridge University announced on January 27 2004 that it is withdrawing its proposal for a new primate brain research centre. The news was welcomed by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV), Animal Aid, and the National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS), all of whom had been campaigning against the proposed monkey lab. Animal Aid and NAVS had even taken the case to the High Court. The announcement that the lab plans have now been dropped - before the case even came to court - has been hailed as a significant victory for the animal rights movement. "We are delighted and very much welcome this long-awaited news as it will save thousands of monkeys from a grim and painful death in the laboratory," said BUAV Campaigns Director Wendy Higgins. "It is the right decision but we shouldn't have had to wait this long. Animal rights campaigners already achieved victory at the public hearing last year when the planning inspector recommended at that stage that the University's proposals should be denied, but John Prescott rode rough-shod over that democratic process." The BUAV warned, however, that the Government may plan to build the primate lab in a more secret location. "We have been afraid for some time that if the University withdraws, the Government will simply build the monkey lab somewhere else," Higgins said. "Last year there were rumours that the MoD site at Porton Down might be chosen, and if that were true it would mark a truly worrying development," she said. "It would symbolise the Government's total lack of willingness to engage in the debate and take on board the up-swell of public concern about vivisection, choosing instead to simply hide controversial animal experiments behind razor wire on military protected land where animal testing is shrouded in even more secrecy than it is now." The news comes just as the BUAV launched Judicial Review proceedings against Home Secretary David Blunkett for breaking the law on animal experiments by routinely underestimating the level of suffering laboratory animals endure in UK testing laboratories. Much of the evidence for the BUAV's legal case, backed by a number of distinguished experts, is taken from the BUAV's shocking undercover exposé of monkey brain research at Cambridge University in 2002. However, the BUAV argues that the problems with the Government's regulation of animal experiments identified by the exposé are widespread. The BUAV's investigation showed that the Government licensed highly invasive brain-damage experiments on marmoset monkeys at Cambridge University under only a 'moderate' instead of a more appropriate 'substantial' suffering banding despite the fact that (for example):
The BUAV states that the Government's position of underestimating lab animal suffering is not only morally wrong, it serves to mislead the public about what animals suffer in UK labs and it is also against the law. The BUAV contends that in the case of the Cambridge experiments the Home Secretary clearly ignored obvious suffering - such as water deprivation and distressing training tasks - and downplayed other suffering, with the result that he breached the key cost:benefit test in the 1986 Act. Particular animal experiments, including primate experiments under a 'substantial suffering' banding, must go through additional ethical & scientific review before being licensed. The BUAV is concerned that the Government may be deliberately avoiding this extra scrutiny by passing controversial experiments under a lower category severity banding. Other undercover investigations show that the problem of underestimating suffering is not confined to the Cambridge research. "The BUAV's Cambridge exposé and the Government's whitewash response to it confirms what we have long suspected - the Government plays down the suffering lab animals experience and in the process deceives the public," Higgins explained. "It is able to do this because it runs a highly secretive system, denying information even to Parliament," she said. "It is high time the whole system was opened up to public scrutiny so that people can see the appalling suffering that animals are forced to endure in UK labs. The BUAV fully supports research into debilitating diseases, but only using non-animal methods that are both more humane and scientifically relevant."
British Union for the Abolition
of Vivisection
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