Dog breeding in Gannat for the laboratories: the administrative tribunal have cancelled planning permission!

Dog breeding in Gannat for the laboratories: the administrative tribunal have cancelled planning permission!
02.11.2021
Allier
Dog breeding in Gannat for the laboratories: the administrative tribunal have cancelled planning permission!
Animal testing

Humiliation for the municipality of Gannat. Beagle breeding in Gannat cannot be expanded. The Clermont-Ferrand administrative tribunal have ruled in favour of One Voice and their partner, FNE Allier [France Nature & Environment Allier], who filed a joint appeal in 2019. It is a truly great victory against one of the links in the animal experimentation chain in France, and especially for the many beagles who will avoid having to suffer in this place void of love. We never gave up on them.

Photo : Jenny, Charlotte, Linda et Zoé, saved by One Voice from the Gannat breeding facility in 1999

The breaking point of an expansion with detrimental consequences for the environment

Since animal advocates such as ourselves weren’t heard in ethical arguments linked to animal experimentation, we criticised the prefectural decree on the ecological aspects that such an expansion would have on the environment. In fact, our association defends all animals: those found inside breeding farms such as wild animals, as well as nature and humans. Pollution is a major problem which we must counterbalance by combining all of our efforts. However, the Marshall BioResources (MBR) project backed by the municipality of Gannat was not precise or protective enough for the surrounding ecosystem.

According to Muriel Arnal, founding president of One Voice: « Dogs suffer martyrdom in laboratories. And breeding in Gannat is no exception. The obscurity of this sector is deliberately retained; there is a need for more transparency and controls. France would do well to fund research into alternative methods. In the meantime, we are fighting for these dogs being used as guinea pigs. Obtaining a ban on the expansion of this breeding farm signifies thousands of lives spared. »

A matter of money where dogs are the product

In 2017, the American giant Marshall BioResources took over the breeding of beagles destined to suffer and die on tiled laboratory benches, before this year buying a breeding centre in Yonne, Mézilles (the reputation of which was already badly damaged by associations such as ours) to avoid the inconveniences linked with transporting animals to laboratories by air and to cut back on costs. The aim? To keep making more money from dogs in France, knowing that our country is one of the three biggest users of dogs for animal experimentation within the European Union.

France leads in animal experimentation obscurity

There is a serious problem with transparency in the animal experimentation sector. There is no exception here, where the beagles are hidden from public view in ultra-secure locations of which images are rare. In that case, how can the public be incensed by their fate? Those who are on occasion born with genetic conditions to test this or that product. Those which we know so little about… in these conditions that they are born into, will they grow up? How are they treated? All we know is that they will never set foot on a blade of grass, or run on the beach, or roll onto their backs to be given a belly rub, or warm themselves in front of a fireplace… instead, they will be inoculated with toxic products until their organs can take no more and they fail one by one, causing them excruciating pain before they die and are dissected.

A long-term battle

One Voice’s battle in Gannat and against MBR is nothing new. Since the end of the 1990s, our association (then named Talis) has prevented the construction of a breeding farm in Montbeugny. We have also fought against Harlan in Gannat when this company owned it…

We will never give up on the animals who are victims of animal experimentation, whether in France or in Europe

In September, we took part in a rally, organised by Animal1st, outside the Gannat breeding farm following the movement that was started in Great Britain: Free the MBR Beagles, and in one on 16 September in front of the MBR headquarters in Lyon. We started a petition for transparent research and for replacing animal experimentation with alternative methods. Speaking of which, the European Parliament has just voted for a plan of action to put an end to animal experimentation in Europe. We are also part of the coalition that set up the European Citizens’ Initiative, which is working towards the same goal.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

France, champion of animal experimentation: grey mouse lemurs in sight

France, champion of animal experimentation: grey mouse lemurs in sight
04.10.2021
France
France, champion of animal experimentation: grey mouse lemurs in sight
Animal testing

Researchers in France are still conducting experiments on primates. Specifically, in its branch in Brunoy (Essonne), the French National Museum of Natural History has the largest breeding centre for mouse lemurs in the world. The animals are kept purely to be cut up for science.

Photo: © Gerald Cubitt / Photoshot / Biosphoto

France is renowned for its culture, its intellectuals, its historic towns and villages and its beautiful landscapes… Take Brunoy, in Essonne, for example. Although tensions in some of the surrounding housing estates can sometimes lead to unrest, the centre of this residential suburb retains at least part of its historic heritage, with magnificent buildings and plenty of green space giving rise to its reputation and its charm.

A centre of excellence

This is the setting within which scientists from the National Museum of Natural History (Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle – MNHN) have, for some fifty years, been carrying out specialist research in the fields of forest ecology and adaptive strategies of living organisms, on the site of the Petit Château, an 18th century mansion.

Primates destined for experiments

It is a fine programme – on paper! However, the walled grounds, now closed to the public, are currently home to the largest primate breeding centre in the world, a community of nearly 500 small lemurs. Their name in English is ‘grey mouse lemur’; in French ‘microcèbe mignon’, meaning ‘charming lemur’, while the Latin name is ‘microcebus murinus’. They are kept for use in animal experiments. Mixed teams of scientists from the MNHN, the CNRS and other research institutes really love these descendants of animals caught in Madagascar, particularly because their small size makes them as easy to handle as mice while they have ‘much more in common with humans than the classic rodent models’.

From observation to euthanasia

This represents a great opportunity for laboratory technicians, who subject them to batteries of tests. These include ‘simple’ behavioural studies, which nevertheless sometimes, as here, consist of leaving the animals in darkness or making days and nights shorter in order to reduce their lifetimes. However, other experiments can be much more invasive, as part of research on inflammation of the eyes, pancreatic lesions, or the development of tumours as part of ageing. Research in neuroscience, in particular on the structure of the brain, cognitive abilities and Alzheimer’s disease, causes terrible suffering to the subjects, which are usually put to sleep afterwards.

Ill-treatment before decapitation

One of the worst studies our team of scientists knows of focused on the ability of grey mouse lemurs to enter torpor to adapt to their environmental conditions. Apparently harmless on the face of it, in practice this study involved keeping individual animals in isolation without enough food for several days. They were then all decapitated and samples were taken from their corpses, frozen and sent to Canada. This is because the MNHN, not content with conducting its own experiments, also offers its ‘materials’ (in this case, lemurs) and its ‘services’ to scientific researchers throughout the world. It even has a website, called IBiSA, which offers ‘services and equipment’ useful to foreign laboratories keen on small lemurs.

An insatiable appetite

So, France is once again standing out as a result of its ferocious appetite for animal experiments, especially on primates. It makes every effort to increase its reputation in this respect at international level. The MNHN has even stated its ambition to renovate its premises and to take early action to extend its animal house to house 800 lemurs. There are more studies and more suffering to come… We have recently written three letters, to the President of the MNHN, the Director of the Essonne department DDPP [whose responsibilities include animal protection], and the Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, asking them to disclose all documents relating to the MNHN centre for the breeding and use of animals for scientific research in Brunoy. A spotlight needs to be shone on what is happening there, and on the suffering of the grey mouse lemurs.

Sign the petition

European Parliament votes in favour of a comprehensive phase-out of experiments on animals!

European Parliament votes in favour of a comprehensive phase-out of experiments on animals!
16.09.2021
European Union
European Parliament votes in favour of a comprehensive phase-out of experiments on animals!
Animal testing

MEPs call on the European Commission to draw up an action plan to speed up the reduction and replacement of animal experiments

Picture copyright: Md Hasnat Shahriar Shanto

Yesterday evening, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling on the European  Commission to establish an EU-wide Action Plan for the active phase-out of the use of animals in experiments. MEPs specify that the plan should include milestones and targets to incentivise progress towards the reduction and replacement of animals with non-animal and human-based methods. The votes were clear: 667 in favour, 4 against and 16 abstentions.

The Parliament stressed that the Action Plan should not be the responsibility of a few but instead should be spearheaded by a high-level inter-service taskforce, involving all key Commission Directorates-General and EU Agencies, with the aim of working with Member States and other relevant stakeholders to ensure that changes happen across all sectors.

The need for preferential funding and training for non-animal methods across all EU research and innovation initiatives has also been recognised.

Nearly 10 million animals are used in invasive experiments in EU laboratories every year, including monkeys, dogs, cats, rabbits, mice and rats, a huge number of animals that has remained relatively unchanged in the last decade.

Whilst acknowledging existing EU initiatives, MEPs recognised that an active, coordinated approach for reduction and ultimately full replacement of animals has not been achieved.

By requiring an EU-wide action plan with an ambitious timeline, European parliamentarians want to see the phase-out of the use of animals in science driven and accelerated.

Eurogroup for Animals, Cruelty Free Europe which One Voice is the French representative, Humane Society International/Europe, the European Coalition to End Animal Experiments which One Voice is also taking part to, and PETA, representing over 100 organisations across Europe, have campaigned for the adoption of the resolution (One Voice wrote to every French MEP) and are now calling on the Commission to make it a priority.

Opinion polls show that ending animal experiments is a priority for EU citizens: nearly three quarters (72%) agree that the European Commission should set binding targets and deadlines to phase out testing on animals. This is echoed by the recently launched European Citizens’ Initiative European Citizens’ Initiative (europa.eu), which has already collected almost 120,000 signatures in less than three weeks.

Over one hundred members of the scientific community, as well as the European Consensus Platform on Alternatives, support the position, believing that an action plan can facilitate the transition to non-animal science through the definition of common priorities, allocation of funding and multidisciplinary and inter-service collaborations.

«The vote is an historic moment for the animal protection movement. Finally, the demand of European citizens for a concerted phase-out of animal experiments and a transition to human-relevant science has been heard. New advanced methods based on human biology are not only about protecting animals – they are also fundamental to achieving the Union’s goals of environmental protection and human health. With the Parliament’s vote today, we advance on all three fronts»commented the group of NGOs.

Tilly Metz MEP (Greens/EFA, LU), Chair of the Animals in Science working Group of the Intergroup on the Welfare and Conservation of Animals, said: «The European Parliament understands that the time is right for this action plan because of the work that scientists have been doing to better understand the limitations of animal studies and the potential of non-animal models. There are no excuses to perpetuate the current level of reliance on animal experiments. It is clear that an ambitious phase-out plan, with clear milestones and achievable objectives, is the next step needed to start significantly reducing the use of animals in science.»

«It is now in the hands of the European Commission to establish this EU-wide Action Plan, and we expect the Commission will make this a high-level priority – Because if the Commission is serious about its commitments to EU citizens, it needs to start now the dialogue with all parties to effectively coordinate funding, education and milestones to accelerate the transition to non-animal science”» added Jytte Guteland MEP (S&D, SE).

«This action plan to phase out animal experiments is a win-win situation for humans, other animals, and the environment. The European Commission and Member States urgently need to increase their efforts to reduce, replace and end the use and misuse of animals for scientific purposes. Animal experiments are still used in many different areas of the Commission’s responsibilities, therefore a coherent approach is essential to achieve safety and sustainability, without animal testing. We need to use science. Not animals.» concluded Anja Hazekamp MEP (The Left, NL), Chairwoman of the Intergroup on the Welfare and Conservation of Animals.

Notes:

• Concerted plans and actions to transition to innovation without the use of animals in the EU
• MEPs say now is the time for a comprehensive plan to end European animal experiments and transition to human-relevant science
• Save Cruelty Free Cosmetics – Commit to a Europe without Animal Testing

The rapid emergence of advanced non-animal models such as organs-on-a-chip, pathway-base approaches and computer models offer immense opportunities to replace animals and improve research, but the number of animals used for scientific purposes continue to show a stand-still. The shortcomings of animal models are well documented, while advanced non-animal models are game-changing technologies. They have the potential to significantly improve our understanding of human diseases by producing data based on human biology, leading to considerable benefits for public health in terms of preventing and curing diseases. These new models can also accelerate the pace of chemical assessments and reduce the failure rate during drug development. In addition, advanced non-animal methods represent a new, but already booming market for innovative products and services with an annual growth rate of 12% per year. The Environmental Protection Agency of the USA has already committed to reduce its requests for, and funding of, mammal studies by 30 percent by 2025, and eliminate all mammal study requests and funding by 2035. This was followed by a strategic roadmap to move towards animal-free safety testing.

New unpublished images of CEDS dog farms in Mézilles!

New unpublished images of CEDS dog farms in Mézilles!
02.09.2021
Yonne
New unpublished images of CEDS dog farms in Mézilles!
Animal testing

We have received exclusive new images of dogs being bred and experimented on at the Breeding Centre for Biological Matter [Centre d’élevage des Souches (CEDS)] in Mézilles, Yonne. The whistle-blower wanted to highlight the way the golden retrievers and beagles were being detained in the biggest dog farms for laboratories in France. It’s a done deal: the farm recently acquired by Marshall BioResources (MBR) has not finished making a name for itself; we cannot give up on these dogs who are being surrendered to the scalpel.

A breeding centre where dogs are nothing but products

The numbers are indeed astronomical: there are more than 1500 there. The bitches are used for breeding for their entire lives, kept in tiny cells; the babies that are born are often sick and so many of them die prematurely; the young dogs that are separated from their mothers to live in a cage outside are left to battle in a survival of the fittest in unnatural packs and plagued by boredom. Eventually, they are experimented on directly on site or sent in lorries to laboratories where they lose their lives, not without having suffered and, for the majority of them, without ever having received a single affectionate gesture – it’s forbidden at the farm.

At the time of their visit in 2018, our specialist, veterinarian André Ménache, exchanged a few words with the CEDS veterinarian. According to her, at least at the time, she was cited as saying that “these dogs are different, they are no longer like pet dogs”.

Buying with lucrative prospects

The farm was bought in Spring 2021 by the sadly infamous American ‘bio resources’ brand (which means animals as products): Marshall BioResources, formerly Marshall Farms. The two farms for beagles destined for laboratories in Gannat and Mézilles in France therefore now belong to this giant which is centred more around profit than animal welfare. It’s a way for Marshall to evade customs charges and to avoid the costs of transporting the dogs in aircraft cargo and the commercial ‘losses’ linked to the animals which do not survive. According to the buyer,

«One in two Beagles used in Europe [in laboratories] is imported from the United States… The majority of these Beagles are Marshall Beagles. Currently, logistics are becoming a major issue since, under pressure from activists, the possibility of importing is becoming more and more difficult. And more and more costly.»

We had access to a one-off videoconference

The Carré couple, to whom the farm initially belonged and against whom we won the battle to ban their expansion, have consequently sold their flourishing farm to the highest bidder. During this one-off videoconference, to which we were given access, they are proud to showcase to their buyers: various clients, dog ‘users’, and those who use their on-site test service Bio 2M. They wanted to be reassuring: everything is going to continue as it was before at CEDS, or perhaps even intensify with Marshall, and just as much on the breeding side as on the experimentation side at Bio 2M. According to the head of Marshall Europe, located in Lyon:

«The idea throughout the acquisition, you will have gathered, is not only to sustain activity but to develop it… At present, I would say that the Mézilles site is one that is almost unique in the world, capable of combining canine breeding and a provision of services for studies related to canine activity… I don’t know of any facility which is organised in this way currently. And so the idea behind this is essentially to continue to, naturally, offer a provision of services which is currently available at Bio 2M, with the idea of being able to develop and diversify them.»

We are terrified for the dogs.

France is in fact one of the countries that tests on dogs the most in Europe. The numbers are increasing! But we will not let MBR torture them to death without saying anything, even with scientific backing; we have never done so, neither for them nor those who preceded them for over 20 years.

The dogs need you more than ever. Join us at the protests set for the first weekend of September! We are organising the protests in Auxerre and joining the efforts of Animal1st in Gannat!

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Sign for a Europe without animal testing

Sign for a Europe without animal testing
31.08.2021
Europe
Sign for a Europe without animal testing
Animal testing

The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) is calling for new animal testing on ingredients that have been safely used by consumers for many years. One Voice, as the French representative of Cruelty Free Europe, and the European Coalition to End Animal Experiments, is working together with all its partners and Eurogroup for Animals, HSI/Europe and PETA to end animal testing in the EU. We’ve joined forces with Dove, The Body Shop and over 100 animal protection organizations to sound a rallying call for consumers to sign the European Citizens’ Initiative. Muriel Arnal is part of this ECI Commitee. We need to get one million validated signatures. For the animals, there musn’t be any coming back.

Across Europe, millions of animals are used in science each year in tests that frequently inflict suffering, which can be severe, but seldom deliver on their main promise, which is better health for humans. They include mice, fish, rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, cats, dogs and monkeys.

We need this suffering to end
– for the animals and for better medicine, better product safety and better environmental protection.

We want to see humane, human-relevant, animal-free science properly funded and fully utilised.

That’s why we need you to join us and sign a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) calling on the European Commission to:

• Protect and strengthen the cosmetics animal testing ban
• Transform EU chemicals regulation
• Put forward a concrete plan to transition to non-animal science

Did you think that animal testing for cosmetics was already banned in the EU?

Tests on animals for cosmetic products and their ingredients were banned in Europe in 2009, and a ban on the sale of animal-tested cosmetics has been in place since 2013. We fought hard, with you and Members of the European Parliament, for those bans. However, despite the bans, the European Chemicals Agency is demanding new tests on animals for ingredients – even those used exclusively in cosmetics and ingredients with long-established safe use. Help us protect and strengthen the cosmetics animal testing bans by signing the ECI. 

Did you know that the EU’s new Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability could mean millions more tests on animals?

The new Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability includes revising European chemicals laws. Its goal is a toxic-free environment. But using animal tests to fill information gaps about chemicals will just lead to even more cruel animal testing and unreliable results that will not benefit human health or our environment. Help us transform European chemicals regulation by signing the ECI.

Are you one of the 72%* of Europeans who agree that Europe needs a concrete plan to bring animal experiments to an end?

Thank you! The number of experiments on animals has not changed by much over the past decade, despite incredible advances in science and assurances from Europe’s decision-makers that their goal is to replace animal tests. In all sorts of other important policy areas that citizens care about – climate emissions, for example – the EU has set bold and ambitious targets to drive change. That’s what animals need too. Help us modernise science in the EU to phase out animal experiments by signing the ECI. 

One Voice, as the French representative of Cruelty Free Europe, and the European Coalition to End Animal Experiments, is working together with all its partners and Eurogroup for Animals, HSI/Europe and PETA to end animal testing in the EU. But we need you and all your compassionate friends – a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) needs over one million valid signatures to succeed. An ECI shows the European Commission that citizens care and want change – it is a mechanism for people to demand new legislation. Thank you for making your voices – and the voices of animals in laboratories – heard.

*comresglobal.com