New proposed European laws to harmonize animal research across the EU could seriously hamper biomedical research, according a linkurl:report;http://www.esf.org/emrc/pdpasp published yesterday (Mar. 24) by the European Science Foundation (ESF) and a linkurl:declaration;http://www.understandinganimalresearch.org.uk/policy_issues/european_regulation/uk_bioscience_sector_declaration issued today (Mar. 25) by a group of leading British life sciences organizations.
"We certainly welcome the opportunity to standardize animal care on a Europe-wide basis," linkurl:Roger Lemon,;http://www.imn.ucl.ac.uk/main/Research%20Profiles/Lemon-RP.htm a neuroscientist at University College London and the chair of the ESF's expert group on animal research, told __The Scientist__. "But where we have some difficulty is where some types of research would just be stopped altogether." Last November, the European Commission and European Parliament introduced draft legislation -- called the "Directive on the Protection of Animals Used for Scientific Purposes" -- to update prior legislation from 1986. The proposed directive aims to reduce the number of animals used in research and...
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