The University of Turin approves and supports vivisection on macaques, this is the terrible news that LAV - Anti-Vivisection League - makes known to the world today.
In fact, the Department of Psychology at Piedmont University has received authorisation and funding for research entitled "LIGHTUP - Turning the cortically blind brain to see" which involves the use of macaques to be subjected to a long training period (with immobilisation in several parts of the body for hours, almost every day, for weeks or even months) and to surgical removal of areas of the visual cortex in order to make the macaques clinically blind. The study will be done in collaboration with the University of Parma where the animals are housed.
LAV appeals to the Minister of Health Giulia Grillo to immediately revoke the authorisation for this research project and allow these animals to be freed to a suitable recovery centre. The law, along with political and scientific context, prioritise non-animal models, a reality sustained and desired beyond our borders. Italy must change course if it wants to have a future.
We ask all citizens to sign the petition on change.org to put an end to this useless whirlwind of morally-unsustainable pain, without delay and before it is too late, because science, like any other human activity, cannot ignore ethics.