Will there soon be more primates in laboratories?

Will there soon be more primates in laboratories?
03.10.2022
International
Will there soon be more primates in laboratories?
Animal testing

While China has not exported monkeys to laboratories for two years, Air France predicts the end of them being transported to be any moment now and the European Union is ready to ban the use of primates born to parents that have been captured in the wild. Changes that are not to everyone’s taste…

Friday 18 June in Marseille. The international FELASA Congress 2022 has finished and it leaves us with a bitter taste in our mouths. Among the latest responses to the congress, the President of the European lobby on animal testing made a point of talking about the threat weighing on the use of primates for laboratories. A bad thing according to him.

First generation primates in captivity soon to be banned

In fact, the use of new primates from the first generation born in captivity (‘F1’, meaning those whose parents were captured in the wild) will theoretically be banned from November 2022, according to a report by the European Commission from 2017 following a feasibility study.

At the congress the reactions were mixed at best. After all, “what is the difference between F1 and F2+, since they are all born in captivity and have never known anything else?”. As if this justifies anything… And “if the regulations were concerned by captures and wanted to discourage them through these measures, they should have specified”! Which they do, explicitly, since we read in the report from the European Commission that these measures aim to “put an end to the capture of non-human primates in the wild for scientific and breeding purposes”.

Lastly, it should not be necessary for researchers who are very concerned by the ‘welfare’ of ‘their’ animals to export to China, where the conditions are “deplorable”, if the European Union starts to over-limit their source of supply or pose overly strict limits on what they can inflict on primates. Is the concern for this ‘animal welfare’ therefore only valid if the local regulations require it?

We talked about ethical short-sightedness in the previous bill, but here it reaches a completely different level and it would be hard to believe that it is not voluntarily maintained by the industry.

The problem with capturing

We even heard from a researcher that the difficulties with cohabitation could justify individuals being captured by breeding farms who supply laboratories. Still a rhetorical fallacy for which the reasoning is contradicted by a recent webinar organised by the Asia for Animals coalition (which One Voice is part of).

It is true that cohabitation between the human population and primates is sometimes difficult – which implies safety issues to humans, and mistreatment and regular violent trafficking for non-human primates (macaques in particular). But specialists on this subject emphasise that it is the education of human populations on waste management and sharing spaces with other species that is vital in resolving cohabitation conflicts, alongside neutering campaigns aimed at female macaques.

Capturing has never resolved anything and has even created a new problem: despite localised growths, long-tailed macaques are threatened with extinction on a global scale nowadays. Since the 2000s, a report by CITES has mentioned the risk represented by capturing for these macaque populations. And they were not wrong: this species was classified as ‘vulnerable’ in 2020, then ‘endangered’ in 2022 on the IUCN Red List.

A classification which echoes the ban on exportations of primates from China since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, but also the recent decision by Air France to soon stop transporting primates to laboratories.

The media battle

Faced with this combination of factors which could speed up the end of the use of primates in experimentation, the media is dealing with two sides of the story.

On one side, those who defend animal testing structure themselves at the centre of their inter-professional organisations to convince the public and politics that the use of primates is absolutely indispensable in the discovery of new treatments – setting aside the epistemological hindsight that should be standard in all scientific research work.

On the other, the associations and people who want to see the end of animal testing try their best to have a say in the matter, through platforms or letters addressed to the media to condemn the one-sided treatment of the subject.

Journalistic work is very complex. But democratic work is even more complex when public establishments and private companies come together to defend practices criticised by the public that are based on a fundamental injustice.

We invite journalists to contact us to balance the debates on the basis of sourced information that is sometimes difficult to access.

This article is the last in a series which will present different aspects of the FELASA 2022 congress:

1. Transparency and communication strategies in animal testing
2. Language elements and rhetorical fallacies in animal testing
3. The animal testing industry makes propagand
4. The ethical short-sightedness of animal testing
5. Will there soon be more primates in laboratories?

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

There are 240 Indonesian monkeys currently in the hold of Maleth Aero flight DB3004

There are 240 Indonesian monkeys currently in the hold of Maleth Aero flight DB3004
24.09.2022
International
There are 240 Indonesian monkeys currently in the hold of Maleth Aero flight DB3004
Animal testing

We were telling you about it yesterday: Maleth Aero flight DB3004 has now left Indonesia for the United States. On board, 240 long-tailed macaques can be found shut in small travel carriers, shipped as freight. Transported as cargo, from Jakarta to Houston with a stopover in Tbilisi, in Georgia, these monkeys will never see their families or homes again. They are destined to suffer and die in a laboratory. According to a source from the airport who alerted our partner, Action for Primates, the exporting company is CV Primaco in Jakarta and the final destination is the well-known Charles River, a global testing company under contract.

In 2020, Indonesia exported 2,913 long-tailed macaques for research purposes and for toxicity testing (poisoning), mainly to China but also to the United States.

This imprisonment and continuous transportation of primates is terrible and must stop. These sensitive beings, victims of global trade, are subjected to stress, distress, and trauma from separation, imprisonment, and the terror of an unknown environment, with suffering and inevitable death at their destination.

Several airline companies who were significant transporters of primates have put an end to their involvement in this trade this year. Unfortunately, Maleth Aero, whose parent company is AELF FlightService, got involved to resume a part of this trade in monkeys’ lives. The airline company continues to ignore the warnings expressed by Action for Primates, One Voice, and StopCamarles in Europe, and PETA in the United States, as well as the thousands of voices throughout the whole world on the cruelty and inhumanity of this trade resulting from animal testing. You can continue to urge them to put an end to their involvement.

Send an email to:

Stephen Haire, Head of the Sales Department at Maleth Aero, email stephen.haire@maleth-aero.com

You can copy in: Lee Jones, Maleth Aero Chief Executive, and Michael O’Brien, Maleth Aero Founder & Managing Director, emails: admin@maleth-aero.com, charter@maleth-aero.com

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Animal testing management: a Maleth Aero flight is going to transport monkeys from Indonesia to the United States

Animal testing management: a Maleth Aero flight is going to transport monkeys from Indonesia to the United States
23.09.2022
International
Animal testing management: a Maleth Aero flight is going to transport monkeys from Indonesia to the United States
Animal testing

Maleth Aero, an airline company based in Malta, has a flight currently en route to Jakarta in Indonesia. We are worried that it has just collected monkeys destined to be used for research and toxicity testing (poisoning). In recent weeks, Maleth Aero has already transported several hundred long-tailed macaques from Cambodia and Vietnam to laboratories in the United States.

This year, Action for Primates has published poignant images revealing the cruel capture of wild macaques in Indonesia for the global animal testing trade. Wild monkeys who, a few hours earlier, were living freely with their familial group in the Indonesian forests. They were brutally captured, the babies taken away from their mothers, and the ‘”undesirable” alpha males beaten and killed.

Maleth Aero, whose parent company is AELF FlightService, is the latest airline company to date to be implicated in the brutal global transport of monkeys. It is a terrifying and traumatising ordeal for sensitive and intelligent animals, and it is harrowing to know the horrendous fate that awaits them on arrival.

Action for Primates (UK), One Voice (France), and Stop Camarles (Spain) in Europe and PETA in the United States are calling on Maleth Aero to stop transporting these endangered macaques for laboratories, and to join the numerous other airline companies who refuse to play a role in this cruel and immoral trade. To date, we have not had a response to our previous messages; we are therefore chasing it up. Add your voice to ours to put an end to this cruel trade in monkeys’ lives by sending an email:

Stephen Haire, Head of the Sales Department at Maleth Aero, email Stephen.Haire@maleth-aero.com
You can copy in: Lee Jones, Maleth Aero Chief Executive, and Michael O’Brien, Maleth Aero Founder & Managing Director admin@maleth-aero.com, charter@maleth-aero.com

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

The ethical short-sightedness of animal testing

The ethical short-sightedness of animal testing
19.09.2022
France
The ethical short-sightedness of animal testing
Animal testing

Last June in Marseille, the FELASA 2022 congress assembled many people together who practice animal testing. Between a fish angling, an international accreditation association that assesses laboratories “by feeling”, and an ethicist who especially does not want to think beyond regulations, the animals are not out of the woods.

Thursday 16 June in Marseille. Lynn Sneddon is one of the main speakers at the international congress dedicated to communication in animal testing. Sneddon has led profound research on analgesics for fish. She recognises the importance of their ‘welfare’ and has even written to her government and spoken with the aquaculture industry to try to improve practices.

She goes so far as to quote Gandhi: “Greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” Will someone opposing animal testing therefore be able to push boundaries to put an end to these practices? Unfortunately, no.

Animals suffer—but each to their own

When it comes to talking about political and moral decisions, there is no one left. While she herself has participated in the discovery of the existence of pain in fish, Sneddon complains that the media have said that line fishing should be banned. After all, she has fishing friends who do not want to stop. In short, each to their own—and never mind the fish.

If the irony was not obvious enough so far, the photographs of the congress shared on Twitter allows a better measure as to what extent these people can be disconnected from the bad things that they do to animals: on one side, Lynn Sneddon with Florence the Fish (the congress mascot); on the other, Florence the Fish… angling.

Ethical evaluation in question

We can therefore legitimately ask if the ‘ethical’ evaluation, regularly alluded to by public authorities to defend animal testing, rests on a solid foundation.

Even the representative from AAALAC International (an association that accredits animal laboratories worldwide) recognises that the evaluation process is varied and that its result cannot be estimated. The evaluation is therefore done “by feeling”, on the basis of what is seen on the day of the inspection (planned well in advance).

Cost-benefit analysis at the heart of the rhetoric…

However, this same representative underlines the importance of the ‘cost-benefit’ analysis, comparing the true cost for the animals (stress, suffering…) and the potential benefits (generally for the human species). But when we ask them how to evaluate if this analysis has been done well by ethical committees, they evade the issue: “we do what we can”, “we need a more holistic view”.

To the more specific questions on the verification on possible benefits, another speaker responded that the funding of a project signifies in itself that the project will have benefits. It is a beautiful utopia to believe that funding is only based on the scientific merits of the projects… unless it is still a rhetorical fallacy.

The ethical committees’ evaluation methods and the results exist, however. A study published in 2001 even systematically compared the results of the evaluation with the same project by several US committees… leading to the conclusion that the evaluation is not reliable. This perhaps explains why such attempts have never been reproduced—either in the United States or in France, where the function of ethical committees in animal testing must be reformed in a radical way.

Ethics or regulations?

To finish, we remember a nice surprise during this congress: a contribution by Penny Hawkins from the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), who dared to challenge the very notion of ‘ethical consideration’. Hawkins also reminded everyone that ethics must go further than applying regulations and the eternal 3Rs (Replacement, Reduction, Refinement), ‘animal welfare’, or cost-benefit analysis to guide the way in which we should lead our lives.

According to her, “an ethical committee must be able to decide that a technique should not be used, or that a research domain should not be explored”. Unfortunately, the only response to this proposition came from an Austrian ethics professor who felt the need to state that ethics should never go further than the law in order not to encroach on academic freedom.

A freedom in which Penny Hawkins does not believe, particularly when the research teams are funded by public money. We can easily follow her on this point.

This article is the penultimate in a series which will present different aspects of the FELASA 2022 congress:

1. Transparency and communication strategies in animal testing
2. Language elements and rhetorical fallacies in animal testing
3. The animal testing industry makes propaganda
4. The ethical short-sightedness of animal testing
5. Will there soon be more primates in laboratories?

Translated from the French by Joely Justice