In Turin, macaques blinded by continuous brain operations

The Department of Psychology at the University of Turin has approved and even financially supports a program called "Lightup - Turning the cortically blind brain to see", carried out in collaboration with the University of Parma where animals are locked up as well as Oxford and Hartelust in the Netherlands where they were purchased.

After long months, even years of terrible training, after cutting the skull to expose the brain or inserting rods to block the head from moving during the recording and stimulation sessions, the researchers will tackle "real" research. This study will therefore consist of subjecting macaques, initially in good physical shape, to numerous excruciatingly painful surgical procedures, the removal of parts of the brain in the area of the visual cortex, and even making them blind.

One Voice joins the call of LAV, its European partner, to ask the Italian Minister of Health to immediately revoke the authorization of this project, and allow the macaques to be placed in a rehabilitation centre in the shortest time possible.

Like its partners, One Voice calls for an end to animal testing. This practice has shown again and again that its results are insufficient to justify all the suffering it imposes on sentient beings, moreover primates. The European Union has demanded a drop in the number of animals tested, yet it is almost impossible in Italy or France to have access to reliable consolidated figures. This is unacceptable.

We must all sign urgently a petition before it is too late for them (in Italian) so that the mutilation of these macaques stops immediately. Science, like all human activity, cannot absolve itself from all things ethicall.

Photo : Essere Animali