Vote brings new law on animal experiments
one step closer
This week, Members of the European Parliament voted to update the 20-year old EU law on animal experiments (Directive 86/609).

The European Commission published a number of forward-thinking proposals, but sustained lobbying by pharmaceutical and other animal research industries has had a devastating impact. While many MEPs did their best to protect animals, it is particularly disappointing that the Parliament as a whole fell short.

The Parliament voted against restricting scientists' freedom to experiment on monkeys, even for experiments with no direct application to improving human health, and against a phase-out of 'F1' generation primates (off-spring of wild-caught primates).

Press releases

EU Parliament vote May 09

Virtual march launched April 09

AGRI Committee vote March 31 09

ITRE Committee vote March 09

EU Environment Committee Feb 09

A great big thank you to every single one of you on our Make Animal Testing History virtual march, it's great to be marching with you! At the time of writing this campaign update we have nearly 20,000 people marching which is a fantastic start. But we need thousands more if we are going to demonstrate to EU policy makers that they need to listen to our calls for humane science. Please do everything you can to promote the virtual march to friends, family, colleagues, blogs, social network pages, your local animal protection group - we need as many people marching as possible.

Join our virtual march