Goldsmith backs NAVS Air France protest

Sustainable investor Ben Goldsmith has said ‘Non!’ to Air France monkey shipments as part of a week of action organised by the National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS) during its annual Lab Animal Week, now in its 35th year.

Lab Animal Week runs from 21st-27th April and was founded by the NAVS to highlight the suffering of animals used for unreliable and unnecessary tests. Air France became the last remaining passenger airline shipping monkeys to laboratories when China Southern Airlines updated its policy earlier this year.

NAVS chief executive, Jan Creamer commented: “We are very glad of Ben’s support to raise awareness of the cruel lab monkey trade. Our investigations show that lab monkeys endure brutal lives on breeding farms. When the day comes, they are placed into tiny boxes and flown to laboratories; many have died en route.”

In 2012, the number of monkeys experimented on in the UK rose by nearly 50% to over 2,000. In the same year, 1,500 monkeys were imported into the UK for experiments; two out of three came from Mauritius.

NAVS highlights the fact that there are a growing number of alternatives to using monkeys in experiments. These provide data based on likely effects in humans, rather than in monkeys, therefore avoiding the misleading results and past disasters when results from monkeys have been applied to humans.

Read more about NAVS' campaign here.