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Ad campaign against German researchers

Read German translation


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On 16 April 2014, whole-page adverts by the Tierversuchsgegner Bundesrepublik Deutschland E.V. (German Association for Opponents of Animal Research) appeared in several national newspaper including Die Zeit, FAZ and Der Tagesspiegel. These adverts accuse Professor Andreas Kreiter, who works with macaques at the University of Bremen, of applying “medieval methods of torture” in his “barbaric experiments” before manipulating the final results. Researchers who work with animals, like Andreas Kreiter, the advert continues, are “creatures of a special kind and should not be called human lightly”. This line has caused considerable controversy in some newspapers such as Spiegel.

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Andreas Kreiter is doing basic and applied research, including working towards treatments of epilepsy and improvement of controlling technics for prostheses. Kreiter had previously received death threats and had to be placed under police protection. The animal protection agency of Bremen has repeatedly attacked his research as “unethical” but lost their case in court cases all the way up to the top level of jurisdiction, the Bundesverwaltungsgericht which decided on 4th February 2014 that the experiments of internationally respected Professor Kreiter can go on as guidelines for animal protection are kept and his macaques are only moderately burdened.

Prof Kreiter has been fighting back. In an interview with BILD (22nd April), he explains that the animals are trained and receive adequate pain relief.