National Anti-Vivisection Society Urge Prime Minister To Save Hundreds Of Beagles Destined For The Lab
11 years ago
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Posted
23rd January, 2013 11h26
The National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS) is calling on the Prime Minister to help save hundreds of beagles being sent to the UK for cruel and painful experiments. The dogs, housed at an AstraZeneca research facility in Sweden which is earmarked for closure, are destined to be sent to AstraZeneca labs in Cheshire and, it has been reported, Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) for research.
Working alongside
Swedish campaign group Djurrättsalliansen (Animal Rights Alliance), the
NAVS is urging AstraZeneca to allow the beagles to be rehomed and is urging David Cameron to intervene to help save the dogs. Although AstraZeneca has argued that the beagles are “purpose-bred for research”, there is no reason why the dogs cannot be successfully rehomed.
The
Laboratory Animla Science Association (LASA) Guidance on the Rehoming of Laboratory Dogs states that “Some establishments have successfully rehomed laboratory dogs over many years”. The NAVS has personal experience of rehoming laboratory animals, including the rescue of six beagles from UK breeder Interfauna.
The NAVS can only imagine the suffering that awaits these animals in the laboratory. An NAVS report into the contract testing laboratory Inveresk in Scotland exposed how AstraZeneca commissioned unnecessary and painful animal research, despite being in possession of information from previous experiments in the same species.
HLS is contracted by pharmaceutical, chemical, industrial and other companies to perform toxicology (safety testing) and other tests on their products, one of the most secretive areas of animal experimentation. As part of our campaign to end primate experiments across Europe, the NAVS spent over a year inside the primate toxicology unit of HLS in Cambridgeshire and witnessed tests on monkeys, involving physical restraint which caused the animals great distress.
Jan Creamer, NAVS Chief Executive: “The public will be horrified that these gentle and loving dogs may be heading to our shores to be subjected to unnecessary experiments which will cause them pain and distress, and ultimately their death. Homes can be found for each and every one of them and we urge the Prime Minister to do everything in his power to put pressure on AstraZeneca to release these animals.”
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