Moi, j'ai peur d'être un peu trop dans ma "tour d'ivoire".
Extrait de l'article de Nature ci-dessous.
Pour les non-anglophiles, pression du lobby écologiste, victoire électorale, retrait par les autorités de la licence de travailler sur le macque devant les "changements des valeurs sociales".
La décision reconnait l'interet scientifique du sujet, mais souligne que les bénéfices attendus ne seront pas "immédiats".
Published online 27 October 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/4551159
German authority halts primate work
Licence for macaque experiments will not be renewed.
Quirin Schiermeier
Andreas Kreiter plans to appeal the controversial decision to stop his studies of cognition in macaques.J. Sarbach/APGermany's constitution guarantees its citizens the freedom to conduct research — but local authorities in the northern city of Bremen are forcing a leading neuroscientist to halt his primate experiments. (...)
Andreas Kreiter at the University of Bremen uses 24 macaques to study cognitive processes in the mammalian brain. Germany's largest animal-protection group, the Animal Welfare Association, has for years campaigned against the experiments, claiming that they are intolerably painful and have no short-term therapeutic use.
Local politicians have become increasingly sympathetic to that view. Last year, in a move criticized by scientists as a grab for votes, Bremen's parliament called on the state government to ban Kreiter's primate research (see Nature 446, 955; 2007). After regional elections in May 2007, the newly formed Social Democrat–Green coalition government agreed not to reapprove his experiments when his current licence expires later this year.
On 15 October, Kreiter was officially informed by the senate of health — the local authority in charge of approving animal experiments — that his licence will not be renewed. Referring to "changed societal values", the authority argued that the experiments were "ethically unjustified" because they address long-term scientific questions rather than help develop specific medical therapies (...)
