On Saturday the 21st of March, about 300 people marched in the streets of Leuven demonstrating against the experiments on monkeys by the Katholieke Universiteit of Leuven (KUL) in its Neurophysiology laboratories. The iniciative has been carried out by the organization Anti Dierproeven Coalitie (ADC) and the student association Studenten tegen Onderzoek op Primaten (STOP).
Mayu ||
It was a nice and sunny Saturday, the 21st of March. Probably most of the people that went out to the streets and parks of Leuven to enjoy the weather and shopping had not expected to be shocked by the pictures that demonstrators were showing them: monkeys with tubes all around their body, hands in sterilized gloves with a syringe ready to be injected on them, harnesses and small cages where the animals are keept in laboratories.
The march against the experiments on non-human primates in the Neurophysiology laboratories of the Katholieke Universiteit of Leuven (KUL) got together about 300 people and brought the issue to the streets of Leuven in a peaceful but, nevertheless, strident way. Along with the bloody images, the demonstrators’ megaphones didn’t stop to alternate slogans such as KUL apenhel! (KUL apes hell) or KUL bloed aan je handen (KUL blood on your hands), that were echoed collectively by the participants – youth, elderly, children –. Their meeting point was the Railway Station, at 2pm. On the square in front of the Station, some stalls were placed to serve food, sell t-shirts and give information about the action by the Anti Dierproeven Coalitie (Coalition against Animal Testing). Heading to the center of the city by Maria Theresiastraat and surrounding the Stadspark, the demonstration advanced through a part of Naamsestraat and through mostly secondary streets until Ladeuzeplein, where the organizers read their manifesto to the audience. After that, the march continued by Diesestraat to end at its begining point, the Station square, where some organizers showed their gratitude for the support and pointed out the victories that ADC has already achieved concerning animal rights; mainly by demonstrating regularly, such as the abandonment of the ScienceLink project in Limburg or the banning of tobacco testing on animals as a result of its campaign against Philip Morris.
KUL REASONS
The KUL is using about 25 primates for Neurophysiologic research in its laboratories in Gasthuisberg. There, professor Peter Janssen, researcher in that Divison, has given us his point of view about the subject. What they do concerning experimentation on monkeys is basic research, which is without any application in mind but with the possibility of perhaps being used in future investigation. According to Janssen, these monkeys are not going to cure the brain diseases of the current patients at the Hospital, but the basic research they do on them can have unknown applications in years and it is only possible using monkeys. Being so close to the human being, they can develop concepts such as association as no other animal can do, after the training to which they are subjected. Janssen declares that the same results can not be achieved by alternative techniques such as computer simulation within the areas of neuro-sciences and toxicology. For him, the animal activist are lying on that point. «If there would be other alternatives, I would be the first to use them, so we could save money, time...». What about the monkeys? They have to be well treated, Janssen says, oterwhise they would not ‘collaborate’ in the experiments. For that reason, due to their social nature, they can lay in small cages in groups of two or three. He says he has a clear conscience about it, and that an ethical comission checks the installations where the monkeys are going to stay for experimentation during 3 or 4 years, untill they are killed.
In Europe, the animal testing is subjected to Directive 86/609 from the European Council made in 1986 which, among other indications, restricts the use of animals to just in the case of no other possible alternatives. Peter Janssen explains that recent comissions have decided that there are no alternatives and that the law must remain as it is.
ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS
However, that paragraph in the Directive is a key for activists to force a change, as Andre Menache marked at his speech after the demonstration. Veterinarian and nowadays Scientific Consultant to Animal Aid UK, Menache is convinced of the existence of alternatives. The spokesperson of ADC, Danny Flies, reflects on it: «If you use animals in the experiments, you have animal results. So you have to investigate the human brain to obtain results that can be applied to humans».
Peter Janssen expresses his opinion about the activists, whom he considers fascists because they would like to test on handicapped people instead of animals. He quotes philosopher Peter Singer as an inspiration to them: «He says that a healthy animal is more important than a sick individual». Danny Flies protests: «This is rubbish. We defend the monkeys because they are living beings and because they are indefense to those experiments, as we would defend a handicap person that is also indefense — He supports the experimentation on human volunteers, such as the one done by scanner —. The volunteers that allow experiments on them are responsible of what they are doing». Flies says that the members of the ADC are conscious of the human diseases which a cure is needed for (Alzheimer, AIDS...), but he points out that the so-called “curiosity research” made on monkeys has not obtained any remedy for these: «Why don’t the scientists look to other alternatives and ways of research? They are using the same techniques as 30 years ago».
Despite of that, is there also an important ethic component to bear in mind, which is the pain inflicted to animals and the way they are treated. For instance, the monkeys on the Neurophysiologic laboratories are in need of training before to be used, as they are born from monkeys caught in Thailandia — where they live in groups of about 30 and jump from one tree to another, explains Flies — and brought to the installations. There, to make them ‘participate’ in the experiments they have to understand that the food is given once they are quiet and collaborating. In the experiments, they would have a hole in the top of their head where a tube is installed for making electrons reach the brain, fixed by a kind of paste that makes the skin very dry and hot, so that is why is so-called «smoking brain». Those comissions that are suposed to control the installations and proceditures mentioned by Peter Janssen, are according to Danny “top secret”, because no information is available about the results: «They are formed by 5 or 6 people who are animal testers themselves».
Anti Dierproeven Coalitie will continue fighting for the end of the use of monkeys in the experiments in KUL. The 1st of april another action has taken place in front of the University Hall, Naamsestraat 22, with a group of 20 people holding banners up and repeating the slogans once again during one hour and a half. Then Danny Flies explained us that they are planning to repeat it until they achieve their aim, either in the center of Leuven or in the campus in Kortrijk or even outside Belgium, in universities that are related to the KUL. «Yes, KUL is going to have a hot summer with us».
SOME OTHER CLUES
Experimentation on animals is a very touchy issue. What is clear is that there is an increasingly growing conscious movement among the people who feel disgusted by a questionable ethic that allows to maltreat animals (maltreat asin that they are denied their freedom and taken out of its environment) and more and more centers around the world end the use of animals for research and educational purposes. Nowadays, the Katholieke Universiteit of Leuven is the only one in Flandres that continues using animals in its laboratories.
We all know the ethical argument against this kind of experimentation (so easy as to take a look to the pictures on Internet), but we can also know about the scientific arguments of numerous centers of investigation and development about alternative methods to the use of animals1. There is not only loads of information about scientific alternatives but also arguments that numerous associations and campaigns for animal protection and etichal medicine2 point out against experimentation on animals. For instance, the insuperable difference existent between animals and humans and their dynamics, a great factor that makes numerous products fail on humans while succesful on animal testing. Also those who experiment on animals are inducing disease to them in a artificially way, not contempling the natural course of an human disease. And we should not forget that animal experimenters find in animals a “research subject” that can be manipulated as desired, while the ethic of the clinicians is not to do harm to their patients or study participants.
It is our choice to attain a position about this issue once we have consider bouth sides. The experimentation on animals will continue being a common practice until the regulations change, until the responsibles of the centers stop allowing those practices. Until the people become conscieous that there are reasons to think about better ways and support an important step forward a more ethical, rasonable and efficient medical science.
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