News

14/12/2015

Animals in Science Policy Institute

Animals in Science Policy Institute - homepage

Great news to launch the holidays and new year!

We have an important development to report concerning animals used in scientific research, testing and education in Canada. At long last, Canada has an independent body to advocate for these animals. Last week marked the launch of the Animals in Science Policy Institute based in Vancouver, under the direction of Dr. Elisabeth Ormandy. (Our readers may remember Dr.Ormandy as a recent participant in our Hidden Costs/ Hidden Potential poster campaign. She was also a speaker at the 2014 Queen’s conference on “Thinking Outside the Cage: Towards a Non-Speciesist Paradigm for Scientific Research”. The conference report is available here.)

AiSPI envisions “a society where the public ethic, and technological advancements and global communication strategies in the scientific community have made the use of nonhuman animals in science obsolete“. The Institute’s mandate is to:

  • conduct research projects into the efficacy of non-animal alternatives
  • provide up to date resources and information about non-animal alternatives
  • collaborate with stakeholders in science and policy
  • liaise with researchers, governing bodies and other decision-makers about the importance of non-animal alternatives
  • encourage transparency and meaningful public engagement about the use of animals in research, testing and teaching in Canada

Check out AiSPI’s informative and up-to-date website. And read about their recently completed project on “Non-animal alternatives in UBC undergraduate teaching“, and their current project on “High School Dissection“.

Bravo to our Vancouver colleagues!

21/04/2015

Nonhuman Rights Project, First Step: Judge Recognizes Two Chimpanzees as Legal Persons

This is a breaking news for the animal rights movement, as the Nonhuman Rights Project issued the following press release this afternoon:

BREAKING NEWS

First Time in World History Judge Recognizes Two Chimpanzees as Legal Persons, Grants them Writ of Habeas Corpus

April 20, 2015 – New York, NY – For the first time in history a judge has granted an order to show cause and writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a nonhuman animal. This afternoon, in a case brought by the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP), Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe issued an order to show cause and writ of habeas corpus on behalf of two chimpanzees, Hercules and Leo, who are being used for biomedical experimentation at Stony Brook University on Long Island, New York.

Under the law of New York State, only a “legal person” may have an order to show cause and writ of habeas corpus issued in his or her behalf. The Court has therefore implicitly determined that Hercules and Leo are “persons.”

A common law writ of habeas corpus involves a two-step process. First, a Justice issues the order to show cause and a writ of habeas corpus, which the Nonhuman Rights Project then serves on Stony Brook University. The writ requires Stony Brook University, represented by the Attorney General of New York, to appear in court and provide a legally sufficient reason for detaining Hercules and Leo. The Court has scheduled that hearing for May 6, 2015, though it may be moved to a later day in May.
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07/02/2015

Mini “Organism in a Chip” is an Award-Winning New Technology

Grimm - Against Animal Testing

According to this press release, “researchers at the Dresden-based institute, working jointly with the Institute for Biotechnology at the Technical University (TU) of Berlin, engineered a new kind of solution that could render the use of animal-based experiments superfluous in medical research: a multi-organ chip that faithfully replicates complex metabolic processes in the human body with startling accuracy.” (our emphasis)

Using the compact multi-organ chip (comparable in size to a one-euro piece), and those of three separate microcircuits, researchers can study the regeneration of certain kidney cells. © Fraunhofer IWS

Using the compact multi-organ chip (comparable in size to a one-euro piece), and those of three separate microcircuits, researchers can study the regeneration of certain kidney cells.
© Fraunhofer IWS

See also the Dodo’s article on this exciting new technology.