Animal Alliance of Canada: Primates Subject to Cruel Research in Canada

TORONTO, Feb. 25, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to a National Post article, 1000 macaques were imported from Cambodia to be used for research purposes.

“It is totally legal in Canada to subject our biological cousins to terrible experiments,” said Barry MacKay, of Born Free USA, Director of Canadian & Special Programs. “These animals share much of our DNA and yet we exploit them for our own benefit and allow these experiments to continue behind closed doors with no public oversight.”

“An examination of the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC) animal use data, primates are subjected to some cruel experiments,” said Liz White, Director, Animal Alliance of Canada. “In 2019, Canada used 4,805 non-human primates in research. One thousand, one hundred and forty-five were subjected to more than one experimental procedure. Thirty-nine percent of these animals were subjected to Category D of invasiveness.”

Category D is described as experiments which cause moderate to severe distress and discomfort including major survival surgical procedures under general anesthesia, behavioural stresses such as maternal deprivation, aggression, predator-prey interactions, physical restraint for prolonged periods, exposure to chemical/drugs that impair physiological systems, production of radiation sickness, induction of anatomical or physiological abnormalities that cause pain and distress, exposure to noxious, inescapable stimuli, and procedures causing severe, persistent or irreversible disruption/malfunction of the sensorimotor centres. (CCAC Categories of Invasiveness)

“Subjecting such intelligent and social animals is indefensible and the Canadian government should be ashamed for allowing such atrocities to occur,” said White. “The government hides behind the CCAC and its justification of the cruelty and suffering of non-human animals. If Canadians were allowed to see how these animals are treated, there would be outrage. So the government protects those who conduct such experiments from public scrutiny even though in most cases, these facilities receive public dollars.”

“Even worse, many of the drugs that pass pre-clinical and clinical trials, ultimately fail,” White said. “We urge the federal government, the funding bodies and researchers to embrace new approach methodologies that advance the science of human health without using animals.”   

A publication by the Journal of the American College of Cardiology titled Limitations of Animal Studies for Predicting Toxicity in Clinical Trials: Is it Time to Rethink Our Current Approach? cites an 88% failure rate in pre-clinical trials and 88.3% in clinical trials. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452302X1930316X#undfig1)

For information: Liz White: c) 416-809-4371 or [email protected]