Keith Taylor, Green MEP for South East England, will speak this afternoon in the European Parliament at a debate organised in response to a European citizens’ initiative petition to scrap animal research in the EU. The petition was signed by 1.2 million people.
According to the ‘Stop Vivisection’ initiative the best way to proceed is “to make non-animal alternative methods, wherever applicable, compulsory, and to encourage their further development, in a concerted drive towards the rapid abolition of the useless and risky practice of animal experimentation.”
Keith supports the principle of scrapping animal testing but not the proposals which have been put forward. Speaking in the debate this afternoon, he will say:
“I signed this ECI because I support the objective of replacing animal tests with alternative test strategies that are directly valid for humans. However, I should clarify that I don't believe that the abrogation of Directive 2010/63/EU is necessarily the best way of doing this.”
He will also say:
“I agree about the need to continually advance our scientific understanding of disease and illness. But we can do this without the need to experiment on animals.”
In a media statement, Keith Taylor, Green MEP for South East England said:
“I support the call to replace animal experiments with other research methods because animal testing is unethical and unscientific. There are research approaches and methods that are far more relevant than animal testing in terms of assessing the potential impact on human health. I urge the Commission to set up a working party with relevant organisations to identify concrete revisions of EU law to advance this process.”
