New Swiss Law Delays Primate Experiments

April 2007

According to the March 5, 2007 issue of swissinfo, researchers in Zurich carrying out experiments on primates have encountered problems following the implementation of stricter laws to reduce animal suffering. Two experiments involving macaque monkeys have been delayed as a result of confusion over how the law should be interpreted. Under Swiss law, scientists must submit a protocol involving all animal experimentation to a local evaluation committee.

While the committee is only a consultative body, the cantonal veterinary office (Switzerland is divided into 23 cantons) that delivers the research permits usually follows its recommendations. In Zurich, the head of the local committee is a philosopher. The committee also includes scientists and animal protectors. Some projects have been frozen when their authorizations came up for renewal or when a new request was submitted.

One scientist affected is Daniel Kiper of Zurich’s Institute for Neuroinformatics. His application to use monkeys in his research, which he claimed had the potential to help stroke victims, was rejected, as was his plan to deprive the animals of water before experiments. Water would be used as a reward when the macaques carried out a task properly. How this would help stroke victims is not clear to IPPL.

The reasons behind the refusals to renew Kiper’s authorizations are rooted in revised Swiss legislation, which has reinforced the notion of animal dignity and changed the way the evaluation committees should go about their work.

Previously, committees had focused mainly on reducing the number of experiments, refining and replacing them when possible.

The revised law gives animals’ dignity more weight. According to Klaus Peter Rippe, president of the Zurich committee, using the reward mechanism to get a monkey to carry out a task was harmful to the animal’s dignity. Rippe commented to swissinfo,

The dignity of animals is written into the [Swiss] constitution. The commission is not interested inethical stances, and my own ethical viewpoint is not important. Officials at the Federal Veterinary Office admit there is a problem since there are no clear criteria to what constitutes an animal’s dignity and that they will be probably defined through practice.

Another experiment that included implanting electrodes in the monkeys’ brains for measurements was rejected. Pro-experimentation lobbies are protesting that Swiss animal experimenters may go overseas to perform experiments not approved.