Month: June 2017

It’s time to stop monkeying around with harmful primate experiments 

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This is a photo of a macaque, imprisoned in a bare cage, and extending her hand out of the bars.

Whenever I listen to debates regarding the ethics and scientific value of animal experiments for medical progress, the justification tends to rely on historical rather than scientific reasoning: Because animals were used in the past, they remain necessary. The end. A recent report by the European Union Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks … Read more

Engineered to suffer

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This picture shows a mouse with ALS, his hind legs are paralysed and curled up and he is small and scruffy.

ALS – or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – is a progressive, fatal, neurodegenerative disease. Only five to 10 percent of ALS cases, called familial ALS, are believed to be inherited; the great majority of ALS is known as ‘sporadic’ with no known genetically inherited component. But the key features of familial and sporadic ALS are the … Read more