Europe Funding Illegal Israeli Lab

Critics are shaming the European Commission for directing research funds to a laboratory operating in the occupied West Bank.

Written byBob Grant

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A Palestinian boy and Israeli soldier in front of the Israeli West Bank BarrierJUSTIN MCINTOSH

The European Commission should stop funding a research project coordinated by the United Kingdom's Natural History Museum (NHM) because of the involvement of an Israeli laboratory that operates in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, according to a letter written by more than 20 British scientists and other public figures. The 5-year, €5.19 million project, called NanoReTox, began in 2008 and is seeking to elucidate the environmental and health impacts of nanoparticles used in cosmetic products.

"We find it almost inconceivable that a national institution of the status of the Natural History Museum should have put itself in this position," wrote the authors of the letter, which was published in British paper The Independent last week. "We call on the museum to take immediate steps to ...

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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