The medical & scientific community represented within the BioMed Alliance has published a new statement expressing its strong concerns about the consequences of the European Citizens Initiative ‘Save cruelty free cosmetics – Commit to a Europe without animal testing’ for biomedical research. While the first two parts of the Citizens’ Initiative refer to protecting the animal testing ban for cosmetics and to transforming the chemicals regulation (the BioMed Alliance has no official position on this), the third part on modernising science could affect the European health research sector.
This Citizens Initiative calls on the Commission to introduce a ‘legislative proposal plotting a roadmap to phase-out all animal testing in the EU before the end of the current legislative term’ and is currently being considered by EU policy makers. The initiative was also discussed in a hearing in the European Parliament on 25 May and the Commission is preparing a response.
The proposed phase-out will have a detrimental effect on biomedical research and will significantly hinder the search for new insights into the characteristics and progress of diseases and the development of life saving treatment options for patients.