Norman Baker MP Member of Parliament for Lewes constituency
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Friendly London "monkeys" and Norman Baker MP protest at Downing Street about primates testing
At 10.00am on 2nd August a troop of suited and booted monkeys accompanied by Norman Baker MP, handed in a petition of 173,000 signatures calling for a total ban on primate testing in the UK.
The petition launches a campaign called Next of Kin organised by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, which aims to achieve this across the EU as well as the UK, and has the additional support of celebrities Heather Small, Alexei Sayle, sports presenter Helen Chamberlain and actress Jenny Seagrove.
In 2003 there were 4,799 experiments on non-human primates in the UK (a rise of 20% on the previous year) with the UK one of the largest users in Europe1. Many of those procedures are liable to have caused “pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm” even though alternatives are available. And, contrary to what those in favour of animal testing would lead the public to believe, less than 20% of medical primate use is for medical research.
Norman Baker MP says:
“I wholeheartedly support the BUAV’s campaign to ban testing on primates and wish them every success. I am appalled at the use of these intelligent and sociable animals who share so many qualities with us. One can only imagine the suffering they endure.
“To use primates for experiments is not only cruel but bad science due to the important physiological differences between humans and other primates as well as differences between artifical ‘models’ and real human diseases. For example, Aspirin causes birth defects in monkeys, while Strychnine is harmless to them.“
Alexei Sayle says “I wish the BUAV the very best for their campaign to ban experiments on non-human primates. These sociable creatures share with us the ability to, not only remember past events, but to anticipate the future. This means they can be harmed, not only by pain, but by the anticipation of pain.”
Next of Kin aims to highlight the ethical concerns over the use of primates, as well as the dubious science involved. Like us, primates are highly intelligent, living in dynamic environments and thriving in complex social systems. Confinement in barren laboratory settings deprives them, as it would do us, of important mental stimulation, while the splitting up of family and social groups and isolation from peers destroys social bonds essential to their wellbeing.