Jane’s animal plea (From Bournemouth Echo)

Jane’s animal plea

5:53am Thursday 29th May 2008 in

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BOURNEMOUTH'S renowned chimpanzee expert Dr Jane Goodall has urged Europe to end all research experiments on live animals.

The plea comes on the day it is revealed monkeys have been taught to operate a robot arm with their thoughts, at Pittsburgh School of Medicine in the United States.

Dr Goodall, whose work has revolutionised views on animal behaviour, said we should be able to find ways of conducting research and testing without the use of "live sentient beings".

She was speaking in Brussels yesterday where scientists and animal protection campaigners were discussing how to speed efforts to spare the estimated 12 million animals used in EU experiments every year.

Dr Goodall presented to Euro MPs a 150,000 signature petition supporting her call adding: "The infliction of suffering on beings who are capable of feeling is ethically problematic and the amazing human brain should set to work to find new ways of testing and experimenting that will not involve the use of live sentient beings.

"It is a goal towards which all civilised nations should be moving."

Yesterday's conference was organised by the UK's leading non-animal medical research charity the Dr Hadwen Trust and the Humane Society International which are both pressing the European Commission to update the 22-year-old animal experiment rules which they say give no protection to hundreds of thousands of animals.

The Commission is expected to produce plans in the Autumn for a revised EU Directive on tighter animal experiment controls and Dr Gill Langley, science director of the Dr Hadwen Trust said the move was long overdue.

"Urgent action is needed to improve the protection of animals and to replace unethical and outdated animal experiments with non-animal techniques," she said.

"The revision of this Directive offers us the ideal opportunity to enable Europe to lead the world in humane science. These non-animal techniques are more advanced and relevant to human patients so it is for the benefit of animals and people alike that Europe should focus on a strategy to move away from the era of animal research."

Green MEP and RSPCA vice-president Caroline Lucas called for the EU to establish a "Centre of Excellence" in non-animal experimentation research to speed the development of new techniques.

"Experiments on animals are frequently unreliable as a guide to human biology," she added.

• Monkeys work robot arm

MONKEYS have been trained to operate a human-like robot arm with their thoughts.

Two animals had their own arms restrained while they fed themselves with the arm, using it to deliver marshmallows and chunks of fruit.

The experiment, by a team at the Pittsburgh School of Medicine in America, is seen as a major step forward towards the goal of creating functional artificial limbs that interact with the brain.

Other control systems for prosthetic devices have relied on signals generated by tiny muscle movements.