Tomorrow the antivivisectionists are gathering in Strasbourg to issue yet another declaration on the use of monkeys in research.

Of course it’s UK activists (it was ever thus) in the form of NAVS and its ‘youth’ wing Animal Defenders International who are leading the charge. Their European Parliament Declaration 40/2007 calls for ‘a ban on the use of Great Apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans) and wild-caught primates, together with a commitment for a phase-out of all primate use within the EU.’

This demand is quite moderate – deliberately and stealthily so. 

The more MEPs that NAVS & Co can get to sign up, the more support they can claim for their abolitionist cause. The commitment for phase-out doesn’t have a timetable, but no doubt NAVS sees that as the next step if the support is there.

Nowhere does the Declaration or the NAVS press release acknowledge that the UK has not used apes in research for decades, and that their use is now banned. And all monkeys used in UK research are purpose-bred, unless there is exceptional justification to use wild-caught animals.

The rest of the NAVS press release is the usual nonsense about monkeys being too dissimilar to humans to produce meaningful results, but similar enough to have human-like emotions. Very similar genetically, yet somehow not when it doesn’t suit the antivivisection argument.

RDS issued a statement today in response, emphasising the medical benefits of animal research and the conclusions of recent independent Weatherall Report on primate research, that there is a strong scientific case for the carefully regulated use of non-human primates when there is no other way.

Despite the best efforts of the antivivisection groups, expert and independent opinion is moving in the opposite direction.