About 300 students and members of the Israeli Society
for the Abolition of Vivisection demonstrated today
in front of the Hebrew University campus gates at
Ram Hill in Jerusalem, protesting against primate
experiments conducted at the university's laboratories.
The protest took place following the exposure of
undercover footage showing a primate experiment
that was taking place several months ago at the
university. The footage was exposed last week on
Channel 2. The protesters called for the closure
of the brain research laboratories where the experiments
are taking place and for the immediate dismissal
of the laboratory's managers.
Some of the protesters carried signs saying "Tens
of thousands of animals are tortured and butchered
here in the name of science", "Hebrew
University - a rising house of sadists", and
"We were all monkeys once".
The protesters were joined by government Minister
Dan Naveh (Likud party), head of the opposition
MK Yossi Sarid (Meretz party), and MK Eitan Cabel
(Labor party).
Sarid announced that he intends to introduce a
law proposal next week with the goal of minimizing
the number of animal experiments in Israel, and
for a more strict supervision on them. Medical Doctor
Anya Feigin, a surgeon at the "Shearey Zedek"
hospital in Jerusalem, took part in the protest.
Dr.Feigin is one of the signatories to a petition
by Israeli medical doctors, calling to minimize
the number of experiments on animals conducted in
the country. Feigin claimed that these experiments
are deceiving the public, because most of them are
unnecessary.
"We did all kinds
of nonsense"
In the footage exposed by Channel 2, the researchers
were seen as they were sawing the monkey's skull
and inserting electrodes into the brain, for the
purpose of conducting an experiment testing the
memory activity in the brain. During this surgery,
the monkey was conscious and blinking his eyes,
while his head was locked into a restraining device.
After the surgery, the monkey was transferred into
a cramped cage where he has lived for several months,
in which he was being deprived of drinking water.
In order to get water the monkey has to prove his
visual memory capabilities in various experiments
conducted in the months following the surgery.
The monkey seen in the footage is called "Malish".
Malish is a two-year-old long-tail macaque monkey
and was raised in the Mazor (BFC) primate breeding
farm in Israel, which exports monkeys for experiments.
During the experiment, one of the researches was
recorded talking about the experiment and saying
that "we did all kinds of nonsense, simply
so we can do something", while explaining that
the experiment was actually not documented properly
because of a failure in the laboratories' computer
system, and by that statement expressing a doubt
in the experiment's necessity. The Israeli Society
for Abolition of Vivisection claims that there are
8 monkeys like Malish in the Hebrew University laboratories
at the moment, four of them in the course of a similar
experiment and four others awaiting to take part
in the experiment.
"The researcher's words
were taken out of context"
The Hebrew University said in response: "It
must be emphasized that there is no country in the
world where there is a ban on conducting experiments
on animals for advancing science and medicine. It
is not possible to develop drugs and to save human
lives without conducting research with the help
of animals. The experiment (Malish) that was conducted
at the university was approved only after it was
thoroughly examined by the university's ethics committee,
and found suitable by the harsh requirements of
the national committee for animal experiments."
"To our regret", continues the university's
response, "the researcher's words were put
out of context and were showed in a way that is
deceiving to the public... The experiment was divided
to three stages, while the footage exposed was taken
in the second stage that went according to the plan
and with no failure. The researcher was expressing
her worries from the progress of the computer program
for the purpose of the third stage of the experiment
that was going to take place in the future. Now
it is possible to say that the fear expressed by
the researcher was unnecessary because the compare
program was completed in time.
