The Hindu : Animal rights activists, scientists to meet on Oct. 21

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Oct 04, 2002

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Animal rights activists, scientists to meet on Oct. 21

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI Oct. 3. Yet another attempt is on the anvil to resolve the two-year old conflict between medical scientists and animal rights activists over the use of animals for research on new drugs and for production of the various medical products like vaccines and anti-dotes for snake bites.

The Chairperson of the Government's high-powered committee for supervision of experimentations on animals, Maneka Gandhi, has called for a meeting here on October 21 to discuss the issue, which has defied a solution despite several attempts at different levels.

The Prime Minister, A.B. Vajpayee, himself tried to break the deadlock by convening a high-level summit in June.

Apart from Ms. Gandhi, who was then also the Minister in-charge of animal welfare, the meeting was attended by the Science and Technology Minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, and the then Union Health Minister, C.P. Thakur.

But, the meeting failed to arrive at a solution and the only decision that was taken was to have a meeting of the panel for supervision of experimentation on animals.

The bone of contention between the medical scientists and the animal rights activists relates to the interpretation of the law to prevent cruelty to animals.

While the activists argued that it covered all activities that involved animals, the scientists held that the law had specifically excluded medical research from its purview.

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