Take action – write to Parkinson's UK

Animal Aid has discovered that Parkinson’s UK, through their drug development arm, will provide more than £780,000 for work which will include testing a drug on primates. The work will be in partnership with a drug company – Neurolixis – and with King’s College London, which has a colony of marmoset monkeys.

No details are given about what will be done to the monkeys, but the usual way to ‘model’ Parkinson’s Disease (PD) in monkeys is to inject them with a toxic chemical which results in terrible symptoms. These can include paralysis, total loss (or extreme slowness) of movement, rigidity, loss of vocalisation and uncontrollable tremors.

Please contact Steve Ford, Chief Executive of Parkinson’s UK, to object to them funding experiments on monkeys.

Steve

Ford

Parkinson's UK

Dear Mr Ford

I was extremely saddened to learn that Parkinson’s UK, through ‘Virtual Biotech’, has granted more than £780,000 to develop a drug, NLX-112, which will entail a ‘marmoset model of Parkinson’s’. I understand the usual way of ‘modelling’ this uniquely human disease in monkeys involves injections of MPTP in order to damage their brains and cause terrifying symptoms. These can include paralysis, rigidity, loss of vocalisation, lack of muscle movement and uncontrollable tremors.

The attempt to ‘model’ this disease in intelligent and sensitive monkeys is not only cruel and based on unreliable science, but it flies in the face of the fact that monkeys do not contract PD. As a result, monkeys do not develop Lewy bodies and do not suffer from rest tremors.

It is not only Animal Aid and I who do not believe in the scientific robustness of this work. Dr Marius Maxwell, an eminent neurosurgeon, has said of the MPTP ‘model’, ‘It is widely acknowledged that profound disparities (anatomical, physiological, neurochemical, pathological, and temporal) exist between the MPTP non-human primate model and humans with idiopathic PD. Despite these paramount concerns of human reproducibility, hundreds of studies involving thousands of animals have followed with conflicting and non-predictive results.’

Although I am very much in favour of the support and advice you provide to those living with Parkinson’s Disease, and their families, I am unwilling to donate to you until you focus solely on humane, non-animal research.

Yours sincerely,
{user_data~First Name} {user_data~Last Name}

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Take action – write to Parkinson's UK