Great news this week from our Italian members - Lega Antivivisezione (LAV) - as the University of Verona announces it is abandoning tests on monkeys forever.

Thanks to an agreement between the local municipality and the University of Verona, signed in February, the University is releasing the three remaining macaques held at its laboratory, who will be taken to LAV’s rescue centre to undergo rehabilitation with veterinarians and primate specialists.

Verona follows in the footsteps of other Italian universities, Modena and Padua, in ending monkey tests at its laboratories for good. The three macaques released from Verona will join almost 50 other primates rehomed by LAV from Modena and Padua, as well as nine primates from the Italian National Health Institute.

We congratulate LAV who were integral to all these negotiations and have the facilities to be able to safely care for these precious animals. We urge other universities throughout Europe to join Verona and put an end to cruel and outdated animal experiments in their laboratories, which are often funded, directly or indirectly, by the taxpayer.