Stop Vivisection!
The hugely successful European Citizens Initiative (ECI) "STOP VIVISECTION" reached an important milestone on Monday 11th May, as witnessed by the hundreds of citizens who attended the public hearing at the EU Parliament in Brussels.
A FIRST HEARING (behind closed doors) was held at the offices of the EUROPEAN COMMISSION, which was represented by Vice President Jyrki Katainen, Director General of DG Environment Karl Falkenberg
and several other senior Commission executives, all of whom expressed a
shared consensus on the goals of STOP VIVISECTION (the end of animal
experimentation).
The ECI organisers were represented by Professor Gianni Tamino, Dr Andre Menache, Adriano Varrica, Vanna Brocca, Dr Fabrizia Pratesi and Flavien Deltort.
Despite some differences with respect to a definite timeline in
achieving this goal, an atmosphere of goodwill pervaded throughout this
historical meeting, which brought the issue of animal testing to the
attention of the heads of European decision makers.
The
promoters of STOP VIVISECTION proposed a transition period of five
years, culminating in the total abolition of animal testing (in the
field of human biomedical research). During this transition period all
available non animal test methods would be made mandatory, all
validations, whenever possible, would be done, as well as the
correction of the validation procedure, not possible if based on the
comparison with the animal model (that never was validated !!) but
should be based on the comparison with results obtained on the human
species.
The Commission expressed its appreciation to those who have completed an ECI and its desire that such an instrument of democracy be more often used.
A SECOND HEARING (attended by several hundreds of persons) was held at the EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT in the afternoon of Monday, May 11. The
hearing was organized by four parliamentary Committees (AGRI,
agriculture and animal-welfare / ENVI, environment and health / ITRE,
industry and trade / PETI, petitions).
After the greetings of the Presidents of ENVI and AGRI Committees and introduction of the Commission (Jyrki Katainen and Karl Falkenberg) the first to speak were the scientists of the Promoters' group: Gianni Tamino, Claude Reiss and André Menache.
All three explained the scopes of the Initiative and the reasons for
the actual very widely spread opposition to animal testing in the world
of science.
The followong debate, entitled "Prospects
for the current legislative framework, the value of the animal model
for predicting human responses and alternatives to animal testing."
was
divided in three "rounds". Each opened with the statements of one of
the three experts (chosen by AGRI) in animal experimentation.
These
were:
Ray Greek, president of the American "Americans For Medical Advancement" (AFMA), Francoise Barré-Sinoussi, on behalf of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries (EFPIA), and Emily Mc Ivor, for the Humane Society International.
Ray
Greek and Emily Mc Ivor strongly supported STOP VIVISECTION. Ray Greek
with a very precise explanation of the scientific reasons behind the
Initiative. Not so - obviously - Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, who,
referring to her life's work, stated that the animal model should not be
abandoned. The debate held in each of the rounds was fed with numerous
interventions of Deputies (the only ones who were authorized to speak
from the audience). Figures show the weight of a quite tangible success
for STOP VIVISECTION in Parliament: out of 29 interventions of deputies 16 were in favor, 10 against and 3 neutral.
The
CONCLUSIONS of the long afternoon meeting (3:00 pm to 6:30 pm) were
drawn by Gianni Tamino. He asked the Commission to be given precise and
trustworthy answers, and to reject the strong contradictions existing in
Directive 2010/63.
A
full awareness, he said, now exists in society that defending the
rights of science, defending the rights of humans for health and a sound
environment, and defending the rights of animals requires us to go in
the very same direction: the end of animal testing. He asked that the
period "Animal testing is still necessary for the protection of human
health" be deleted from the 2010/63 directive and from any other
European law.
An
overall evaluation of the results obtained with the Initiative "STOP
VIVISECTION" can be made within a month when the official response of
the EU Commission will be given to the ECI proponents.
However,
at present, at the date of May 11, 2015, the STOP VIVISECTION
proponents are happy to say that a positive change seems to be happening
, and that they have high hopes that the decisions of the EU
Commission, in June, will welcome their issues in a satisfactory way.
To continue to be informed in the next few months about STOP VIVISECTION
go to the site
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