By an action of protest organized this August 30th, One Voice reiterates its call to Air France to put an end to the aerial transportation of monkeys intended for the laboratories. The association is launching a mobilization campaign against these transports imposed on primates, who are piled into the hold of the plane under the feet of holidaymakers on regular flights ...
According to the information gathered by the association and its partners (One Voice represents in France the ECEAE, European Coalition against Animal Testing), 120 long-tailed macaques were sent by Air France from Mauritius to Chicago (United States USA), via Paris, April 26th, 2017. The monkeys, from a local breeder were piled into wooden crates, then transported on the AF 463 and AF 6730 flights: nearly 16 000 km, enduring a 30 hours flight before arriving at Charles River Laboratories. This Lavatory performs preclinical toxicology tests on animals for pharmaceutical, chemical or agrochemical products.
Air France is the last major airline in the world to accept this type of freight from Mauritius, but also from the main exporting countries of Southeast Asia. In 2016, some 8,425 monkeys were exported from Mauritius to laboratories in Europe and North America. Internationally, this trade in animal life involves tens of thousands of individuals according to CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wildlife) and long-tailed monkeys (Macaca fascicularis) are the first victims.
In the name of science ?
Torn from their families and imprisoned in tiny wooden boxes, suffering in the dark, cold and noisy hold of a plane, these intelligent and sensitive animals are destined to spend the rest of their lives in metal cages and to be subjected to painful experiments. Some supply routes from the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean or Asia, involve journeys of several tens of hours, under terrible conditions for animals, handled like ordinary goods: separated from their own kind, confined in narrow cages, with no access to water or food. Experiencing uncompromising exposure to changes in temperature, humidity, light, pressure, noise and vibration during travel, and the stress of taking-off and landing.
Several times questioned by One Voice, including letters signed by the famous primatologist Jane Goodall, Air France remains in hiding behind the authorization and regulations in force to justify this activity. The company is even the spokesperson for their clients, the laboratories, ensuring that animal experiments on primates are necessary for scientific advances.
One Voice points out here that the European Commission has, however, recognized its objective, eventually, the replacement of animal testing by other research methods. The association, which itself promotes humane alternatives based on epidemiology, computer models and in vitro experiments, refutes that the scientific community is unanimous on an inescapable need for animal experimentation. And remember that 8 out of 10 French people are opposed to experimentation on primates, according to an Ipsos / One Voice poll conducted in December 2016.
For a new model, without animal suffering
According to Dr. Gill Langley, biologist: "Trade to laboratories around the world is an important source of stress, suffering and death for these animals. They are raised in their countries of origin under conditions that would not be tolerated in the European Union. [...] Keeping confined wild primates inevitably leads to psychological, if not physical suffering."
Citing a variety of scientific studies, Dr. Langley notes that the abnormal behaviours and high levels of stress that primates develop during rearing, air transport and laboratory manipulation are factors that can distort experimentation results.
Muriel Arnal, President of One Voice, calls on Air France management: "In June 2017, Jean-Marc Janaillac, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Air France-KLM, signed a declaration on modern day slavery. Based on the principles of the UN Global Impact Charter, Air France is committed to fighting all forms of slavery and human trafficking. We invite it to go further: we must stop these primate transports intended for laboratories all over the world. The suffering caused by the uprooting and transport by long-haul of these living beings so close to us is immense. Justifying these practices with so-called scientific advances no longer holds: modern science and human health do not need monkeys to make progress, but many new replacement models are available which are ethical and responsible !"
Very committed to the field of animal experimentation, One Voice, launches a new campaign on this theme - relayed on social networks by the hashtag #PasDeSingesEnSoute - and publishes on its website (www.one-voice.fr) a report unpublished entitled "Replacing the use of non-human primates in research and safety testing in France: improving science and ending suffering".
This document describes the state of research currently conducted in France on nonhuman primates, examples highlighting the limits of this model for human health, new approaches and associated case studies, from around the world.
One Voice also invites each citizen, user or not of the company, to directly address a protest message to the Air France-KLM general management.
