A twenty scientists from various countries and five NGOs have published this friday an open letter addressed to the Government of Catalonia, the Government and the University of Barcelona to demand that they stop the experiments with 38 beagle dogs, of which 32 will be sacrificed after testing a new drug on them.
The group of scientists, including Dr. Luis Falcon, president of GNU Solidarityand the NGOs Research Without Animal Experimentation (ISEA), GNU Solidarity, Franz Weber Foundation, Animal Free Research Y Plant-Based Health Professionalspropose open a public debate with representatives of the university and the Generalitat.
In their letter they denounce that every year they use over a million animals in all kinds of trials, where “cruel, ineffective and unreliable” acts are practiced, which end up generating “physical and emotional trauma”, with a high death rate, and ensure that “around 96% of these experiments are a failure” .
“Science must realize that humans are very different from other species,” states the letter, which questions the position of the University of Barcelona on the alleged need to use live animals for this research with 38 ‘beagle’ dogs, and the hiring of a company, Vivotecnia, involved in an investigation in its laboratory in Madrid, in which “acts of extreme cruelty were documented”.
Faced with the continuation of tests with animals, the undersigned researchers defend the “great advances in research methods without animals that are designed to benefit humans” and give as an example “computer models, artificial intelligence and organs in a chip”.
“More Reliable Research”
They also claim to “invest in these methods” to produce “more reliable biomedical research, but also a healthier, more humane, respectful and empathic society.”
The letter recalls two important milestones regarding animal sentience: the Cambridge Declaration of 2012, which affirms that humans are not the only ones that possess the neurological substrates that generate consciousness; and the 2019 Toulon Declaration, which stresses that animals must be universally considered as people and not as things.
both manifest, also signed by professionals from institutions such as MITthe California Institute of Technology or the Max Planck Institute serve the signatories of the letter to claim the stoppage of the experiment promoted by the Ministry of Science from a company based in the Barcelona Science Park and which will take place in March at the Vivotecnia laboratories in Madrid.
They also ask for the release of the dogs and the conversion of the University of Barcelona “into a reference institution in adopting advanced and open science and human-relevant technology without the use of non-human animals.
Request for public debate
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Luis Falcón, one of the signatories of the letter, raises the need for a public and open debate. “To us,” he says, “they won’t be able to tell us that these experiments are necessary from a scientific point of view, they may be in a bureaucratic sense, but unscientific, let alone ethical“.
The president of GNU Solidario proposes an open debate between the heads of the UB and the Generalitat to “talk about experiments with animals and without them, con society and the press as witnesses.” “Let’s see how the public money and what impact these experiments have on human health and non-human animals, and after that we decide if we want to continue down this path,” he concludes.