Anthrax vaccine mission put to an end over animal rights

vIndianz.com (Nov 30, 2009) — Oklahoma State University has put a end to a venture meant to test anthrax vaccines and cure on baboons. Administrators at OSU decided not to allow the project, funded by the National Institutes of Health, begin as the primates being used would be euthanized. An internal faculty committee spent over a year preparing code of behavior for the care and use of the primates.

Veterinary scientists called the assessment unexpected and subjective and apprehension that other projects concerning animal research will too be ruined by OSU President Burns Hargis.

OSU administrators said in a statement that, “this research was not in the greatest interest of the university. The testing of lethal pathogens on primates would be a fresh area for OSU that is contentious and is outside our present research programs.

“OSU is alert on enhancing and increasing its accessible research strengths including our continuing programs in bioterrorism research. The planned work would have unfocused from those efforts.”

The researchers, however, defensible the project as it could confirm to be essential to finding a cure or vaccine for anthrax that would profit humankind.

Primates are considered the finest animals for the testing of treatments because of their comparable biology to humans. The primates must be destroyed after anthrax exposure, nevertheless, to make sure that they don’t transmit a disease to others.

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