12 million reasons why we ask you to support this campaign

In May, MEPs (voted at the end of the first stage of the revision process) on the European Commission's proposals to revise the animal experiments Directive. We asked them to choose a modern humane vision of science for the 21st century. However, with scant regard either for animal welfare or public opinion, they supported cruel science.

If the Council of Ministers (now considering the European Commission proposals) agrees with the Parliament's amendments, the revised Directive would include the following provisions:

•   Researchers could be allowed to cause animals suffering which is both severe and prolonged, an obscenity in a civilised society

•   Researchers would be allowed to repeatedly use the same animal in painful experiments

•   Researchers would be able to use non-human primates for just about any purpose, not simply life-threatening or debilitating diseases as the Commission had proposed

•   There would be no incentive to stop the capture of primates from the wild, which causes them immense distress, for breeding for research

•   Researchers would in effect be allowed to determine which experiments they need governmental permission for, by deciding how to categorise the level of suffering the animals are likely to experience

•   Researchers would not, in the vast majority of cases, have to carry out retrospective assessments of experiments – whether from the animal welfare or scientific point of view

•   There would be no strategy to bring forward the day when animal experiments no longer take place; something that politicians and researchers claim they want to happen

Source: The European Coalition To End Animal Experiments
For more info see http://ec.europa.eu/food/fs/aw/aw_legislation/scientific/86-609-eec_en.pdf