Learn what highly-esteemed global experts in the fields of neuroscience, animal welfare, conservation, primatology and pharmacology have to say about primate experiments. These experts not only oppose them on ethical and moral grounds, but further explain how the majority of experiments on primates contribute very little towards advancing health outcomes for humans.
Dr Jane Goodall
Zoologist, Primatologist & Ethologist
“I think it is morally wrong. And the great thing is, there are now alternatives to animal experimentation. The problem is that animal experiments are a part of a huge economic issue. There are people making their livelihoods out of looking after animals in cages. There’s a whole mechanism that makes money out of testing on animals. There are now so many alternatives that are much cheaper. And much more relevant to human health. Because even chimpanzees with whom we share 98% of our DNA. Even they, although we can infect them with our diseases, they don’t respond in the same way.”
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“Once we admit that animals have personalities, minds and emotions and above all that they can suffer, both mentally and physically, then we must also admit that our use of animals for medical experimentation is, in almost all cases, ethically unacceptable. This view has led scientists to invent many medical tests that replace the use of animals. And for the most part such procedures are safer and more reliable. The main difference between humans and other animals is our sophisticated brain: let there be increased funding that we may use this gift for innovative research that will, and must, result in retiring all laboratory animals from lives of fear and pain as soon as possible. We need to move on.
“The amazing human brain has already discovered astonishingly innovative ways of improving medical research by replacing animals. Let science direct its collectively awesome intellect toward finding alternatives to the use of live animals in ALL procedures – as soon as possible. This should be supported by the scientific establishment and vastly increased funding should be found for it. It should be a goal for all civilised societies.
I am against animal testing. It is morally wrong and unacceptable and there are NOW better methods of testing that do not involve using live animals. Primate testing is occurring in Australia at major centres and universities such as the University of Melbourne, Queensland and Monash and we ask for your support to end this cruel practice.”
Dr Garet Lahvis
Behavioural Neuroscientist
“Globally, scientists use approximately 100,000 non-human primates at any given time, often to explore highly nuanced questions, like finding risk factors and treatments for mental health challenges — autism, ADHD, schizophrenia, addiction, anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder. And here, we mostly fail. Most drugs showing extreme promise in animal studies fall short in human trials. We haven’t developed a new category of drugs for treating psychiatric illness in more than 50 years; new psychiatric drugs introduced over the same period have been modified versions of existing drugs.”
Read his full article here.
Dr Andrew Knight
Veterinary Professor of Animal Welfare
“Primates appear to be able to experience emotions similar to those we label happiness and sadness, fear and anxiety, irritation, rage, and despair, and they appear able to suffer emotional, as well as physical, pain. Their relatively advanced capacities to understand and remember that certain people, equipment, or procedures are likely to cause pain and distress, and their ability to anticipate future aversive experiences, are likely to compound the distress such events may cause.
The effects on primates can be profound – many, including those recently retired from laboratories, show severe behavioural abnormalities such as stereotypies, self-mutilation or other self-injurious behaviour, inappropriate aggression, fear, or withdrawal. Published systematic reviews have demonstrated that invasive research on primates rarely, if ever, produces substantial benefits for human patients. Accordingly, the conclusion is inescapable: subjecting primates to invasive research is highly unethical, as well as inefficient for advancing human healthcare. It should be prohibited.”
Read more here.
“In one of my studies, I looked at all invasive chimpanzee research conducted around the world during a recent decade. I found that around half that research never went on to be used by any subsequent research, as far as we could tell. A minority of the research did go on to be used, but almost all of that did not provide the contributions to the advancement of human healthcare that had actually been hoped. Other systematic reviews have found similar results since then. The vast majority of non-human primate research unfortunately doesn’t go on to produce the human healthcare benefits that have been hoped for.”
We are proud to have Professor Andrew Knight as a member of AFSA’s Scientific Advisory Panel.
Sir David Attenborough
Broadcaster, Biologist & Historian
“[Non-human primates] are sentient beings that have mental lives comparable to ours, and sensitivities, and pain and deprivation mean things to them, just as they mean things to us.” This statement highlights his stance on primate experiments. There are now more ethical and human-relevant ways to do research.”
Read the full article here.
Dr Richard Miller
Professor Emeritus of Pharmacology
“As opposed to humans, monkeys don’t suffer from Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s diseases, or most other uniquely human neurological disorders. This means scientists must attempt to artificially induce these disorders in animals to “model” them for research purposes.
“Because the pathophysiology of these diseases is often poorly understood, generating such models in animals is basically impossible and inevitably produces few translatable results. This applies especially to diseases like schizophrenia and depression, for which there is no clear neuropathology to model. Animal models for these disorders are basically scientific malapropisms.
“As a result, while drug development using animal models has a 90% failure rate, it’s even worse for neurological diseases. For example, the current failure rate for Alzheimer’s drugs is 99.6%.”
Read more here.
Dr Lawrence Hansen
Neuropathologist
“Continuing to use primates in scientific research is like sticking to alchemy centuries after the advent of modern chemistry. And the worst of the worst-ablating neuroanatomic structures in primates to mimic human brain disease-is like removing someone’s kidneys and claiming you have created an experimental model for diabetic glomerulosclerosis causing renal failure.
Less than a 2% difference in genomes accounts for the differences between a chimpanzee and an Albert Einstein. It is therefore patently absurd to contend that non-human primates can serve as surrogates for investigating the biochemical post-translational perturbations of normal CNS protein metabolism and degradation that produce the abnormally folded filamentous forms of proteins that cause human neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Besides its scientific futility, however, a deeper, more human objection to primate research is that it is morally wrong. If cruelty to animals is not wrong, then nothing is wrong. An enlightened man was asked, ‘How are we to treat others?’ And the response was, ‘There are no “others.”‘ Treat all primates as you—another primate—would want to be treated.”