Lega Anti Vivisezione (LAV), Italian members of Cruelty Free Europe, has sadly reported that experiments on the brains of macaques at the University of Parma will resume following a ruling by the Italian Council of State

The tests, authorised by the University of Turin and financed with European Union funds, had been suspended after LAV brought to the authorities attention the fact that the impossibility of using other non-animal methods had not been sufficiently argued.

This is a very disappointing outcome for LAV who have fought a long running campaign to end these tests and received considerable support from many scientific and legal experts, calling to stop the experiments and free the animals.

Michela Kuan, Officer for Animal-free Research at LAV, says: “This is not only a defeat for LAV and the 440,000 plus citizens who supported our call. This is a defeat for the whole research community, for Italy: a country that intends to defend a misleading, expensive study that should belong to the past, and is to the detriment of the right to life of all, and of innovative research methods.

“But we will not give up. We have helped put a spotlight on what is happening behind closed doors at the laboratory. We will continue our campaign to disclose our findings, with support from many voices in the science and legal community, until the Ministry of Health recognises the wrongdoing.”