Abstract
Non-human primates (NHP) occupy a special place in the relatively new Directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes. As a matter of fact, the word “primate” is the most frequently used in the text of the Directive, and some articles are specifically dedicated to these animals. The first part of this chapter will provide a brief history of the normative treatment of NHP, followed by a description of the normative passages in the Directive 2010/63/EU which deal with the use of NHP in Europe. A comparison among the member states which carry on research using primate models and their implementation of the EU Directive in national terms will be presented as well. Furthermore, an overview on the use of NHP in European biomedical studies and toxicology, both in terms of numbers and kind of studies, will be followed by a comparison with data coming from Japan and the USA. Then, the possible reasons why NHP represent a special case, in terms of their use in laboratory research, will be discussed: Are there justifiable reasons why NHP should be considered more valuable in moral and then legislative terms? The last part will offer some considerations on the day-by-day reality of working with NHP in biomedical research, trying to understand whether the relationship between a laboratory monkey and the laboratory staff (researchers, technicians, students, etc.) is different from the one established with, for example, a laboratory rodent.
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- 1.
Although the categorisation of procedures in “basic” or “applied” research can be blurred and arbitrary, here we refer to the text of the Directive 2010/63/EU in which a distinction is made between “Basic Research” and “Translation or applied research” (see article 5—“Purposes of procedures” and the Commission implementing decision of 14 November 2012 on the common format for the submission of the information pursuant to Directive 2010/63/EU).
- 2.
“Procedure” means “any use, invasive or non-invasive, of an animal for experimental or other scientific purposes, with known or unknown outcome, or educational purposes, which may cause the animal a level of pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm equivalent to, or higher than, that caused by the introduction of a needle in accordance with good veterinary practice” (Directive 2010/63/EU, Article 3, “Definitions”).
- 3.
These statistical data on the number of animals used for experimental and other scientific purposes in the EU were collected under the provisions of Directive 86/609/EEC, which required to present data collected from the member states every 3 years. This Directive has been replaced by Directive 2010/63/EU, and the submission and publication of data have been completely revised, in particular, Article 54 (“Reporting”) of the Directive requires that member states collect and make publicly available, on an annual basis, statistical information on the use of animals in procedures.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Simone Pollo for the stimulating discussions on the use of animals in research. The collection of data that led to the writing of part of this chapter has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-HEALTH-2013-INNOVATION-1) under grant agreement no 602616 (Project ANIMPACT).
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Vitale, A., Borgi, M. (2018). The Special Case of Non-human Primates in Animal Experimentation. In: Di Paolo, L.D., Di Vincenzo, F., De Petrillo, F. (eds) Evolution of Primate Social Cognition. Interdisciplinary Evolution Research, vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93776-2_10
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