The COVID 19 pandemic has changed the way we all live our lives for an indefinite period. We wish all our friends and supporters well in this uncertain time.
Please be assured that HRA will be continuing our work to bring animal experimentation to an end. There will be limitations to face to face outreach, as well as on our ability to engage with our valued volunteers. However, we will continue unabated to challenge unethical and unscientific animal research.
With our staff now working remotely, please be aware that there may be delays in processing correspondence by mail. Calls can be taken remotely, but we ask that you leave a voicemail if unanswered and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
With some ‘non-essential’ research being cancelled or postponed in Australia due to reduced on-site personnel, we are contacting the relevant regulators to seek clarification on how laboratory animals will be impacted, and what steps are being taken to protect their well-being.
There are no vaccines for any of the coronaviruses that have caused outbreaks in the past 20 years, despite extensive animal research. We share international aspirations for a vaccine for COVID-19 as soon as possible; but we need to move away from the current reliance on animal models in biomedical research. The coronavirus pandemic presents an important opportunity to reassess the way we do medical research. With animal models not representative of the human pathology of this virus, and the need to fast-track progress, we are seeing research bypassing animal testing, which offers both hope of a cure, and evidence that we do not need animal models for human medicine. We will be profiling such research on social media so please follow HRA on facebook if you do not already.
It is time to change the current paradigm in biomedical research if we want to preserve our health in the face of emerging diseases of the 21st century. Perhaps the COVID-19 epidemic will prompt questions on some of our outdated scientific practices as well as the obsolete regulations that still impose them. We thank everyone for their support and for enabling this goal to be reached.
