CONTACT INFORMATION + SAMPLE LETTER
Mr. Stavros Dimas, Commissioner for Environment
European Commission, Environment DG
Information Centre, Office: BU-9 01/11
B - 1049 Brussels, Belgium
Head Of Cabinent phone: +32 2 29.61.989; fax: +32 2 29.82.099
email: stavros.dimas@ec.europa.eu
SOURCE: ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/dimas/
index_en.htm
ec.europa.eu/environment/contact/contact_en.htm
Dear Commissioner Dimas,
Experimentation upon primates has failed to produce tangible data for AIDS, Alzheimer's, stroke, cancer, and other diseases. Still, taxpayers annually subsidize redundant studies.
Electrodes are lodged in primates' brains and spinal cords. Seizures and infections are artificially induced. Toxic substances are injected. Babies are forcibly separated from "breeding" monkeys. In a world defined by metal bars and cement floors, animals display aberrant behaviors such as repetitive banging, spitting, and feces smearing.
I respectfully ask you incorporate a ban on primate experimentation within the revision of European Directive 86/609.
Science derived from distressed animals does not result in accurate extrapolation to humans. Though primates possess physiological and psychological instincts as intricate as our own — lab variables such as pain, injury, confinement, loneliness and repeated handling generate misleading data. Findings published in Contemporary Topics in Laboratory Animal Science show researchers are unable to separate the effects of stress hormones from the drug or disease under analysis.
There are too many physiological, cellular, genetic and psychological disparities between species for predictive conclusions about humans. For example, researchers have conceded primates do not contract human AIDS or develop its clinical symptoms. Their immune system encounters the virus in a different manner than the human immune network.
Animal-to-human imprecision is behind the rise in ADRs (adverse drug reactions), the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S. In Canada, more than 16,000 seniors died from ADRs over a five-year span from 1999 to 2003. The British Medical Journal reported in 2004: "[Animal] research is poorly conducted and not thoroughly evaluated." Scientists described contrived illness or injury in animals as incongruous with humans and said drug doses differ substantially from those administered to humans.
I urge the European Commission to lead the way in progressive, animal-free research. Rather than expend time, money and lives on old-fashioned animal experiments, please advocate in vitro methods that utilize cells, cell lines, or cellular components of HUMAN derivation. A combined approach — including such human-focused options as genetic/protein analysis, epidemiology, videos and mathematical modeling, virtual organs, 3-D models, autopsy/biopsy studies, advanced MRI imaging, etc. — can better evaluate risks people face, instead of primates or other animals.
Please incorporate a ban on primate experimentation within your revision of European Directive 86/609.
Thank you,
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