Meeting on 28 November: Humane Alternatives to Animal Research

Voice for Ethical Research at Oxford (VERO) invites you to a PUBLIC MEETING on
“HUMANE ALTERNATIVES TO ANIMAL RESEARCH: THE WAY FORWARD FOR 21ST CENTURY MEDICINE”

Oxford Town Hall
Tuesday 28th November, 7.30pm

* Is over-reliance on animal data putting human lives at risk?
* How could the Northwick Park drug trial tragedy have been
avoided?
* What are the alternatives to animal testing, and how can they
be better promoted, at Oxford University and elsewhere?

Speakers to include:
PETER TATCHELL, human rights campaigner and Green Party member
DR. GILL LANGLEY, Scientific Consultant to the Dr Hadwen Trust for
Humane Research
DR. RICHARD RYDER, former Senior Clinical Psychologist at Warneford
Hospital, Oxford

Come along and find out why VERO are calling on Oxford University to
abandon its controversial “animal house” in favour of a centre of
excellence for state-of-the-art, human-based research.

ALL WELCOME!

About Us

We are a new group of Oxford University members established to
oppose the University’s construction of a new animal research
laboratory, and to campaign instead for a more ethically responsible
approach to biomedical research at Oxford. Our membership comprises
past graduates in a broad range of disciplines from Classics to
Experimental Psychology, as well as current fellows, lecturers and
other employees and academics with links to the University. We are
emphatically in favour of medical progress, but believe that the
ethical principles underpinning it should be agreed by society as a
whole based on an open and informed public debate.

VERO is committed to peaceful, lawful campaigning, and to defending
the tradition of intellectual freedom which has allowed enlightened,
humane thought to flourish at Oxford through the ages.

We are concerned that efforts to further the cause of humane
alternatives have been undermined by an unhelpful polarisation of
the issue of animal research, to the exclusion of any objective
discussion of the real issues. We feel it is time to call a halt to
this confrontational approach.
As members of Oxford University, we are strongly opposed to the
University's construction of a new animal research laboratory on
both moral and scientific grounds. Such research can subject animals
to considerable pain, stress and lasting harm. Equally, a growing
body of evidence demonstrates that animals are neither safe nor
suitable models for studying human diseases. Given the increasing
availability of more sophisticated modern alternatives, we call on

* Oxford University to redirect the funds earmarked for the
animal laboratory to much-needed human-based research, thus
enhancing the University's reputation as a centre of enlightened and
progressive thought
* The Government to conduct a genuinely independent evaluation
of the scientific validity of animal experimentation. Such a course
has been called for by 240 MPs (signatories of Early Day Motion 92)
as well as by 83% of GPs, according to a recent poll.

Voice for Ethical Research at Oxford