- EU lacks primates for experiments
- Fiji’s Rabuka flirts with Beijing
- European Parliament cracks down on IP transfer
- Covid wave at new high
- Amy Lai receives Voltaire Prize
- Criticism of Xinjiang visit
- US Congress appoints special committee
- Opinion: the risk of joint research
When looking at the picture of our first Feature, the first thing that comes to mind is animal welfare. Why is our closest conspecific suffering behind bars? In fact, from a medical point of view, experimental monkeys are needed for the approval of some important drugs – and many of these experimental animals came from Chinese breeding stations until recently. Since the beginning of the pandemic, however, China has no longer exported any experimental monkeys. And promptly, the Chinese once again realized how difficult it is to replace them as suppliers, as Amelie Richter explains. China sees the bottleneck in Europe as an opportunity to become the leader in primate research. From a German research perspective, these are not good prospects.
The West apparently miscalculated in the Pacific region, as Frank Sieren writes in his Feature. After the Solomon Islands, Fiji now has a prime minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, who allowed himself to be lulled by China. For a long time, these island states were seen by many as exotic South Sea islands at best but otherwise largely irrelevant. But now Beijing’s growing influence in the region is becoming a problem for Australia, New Zealand, and above all for the United States – and thus for the West as a whole. The Pacific has long since ceased to be the “Quiet Ocean,” as it was still referred to in my school atlas from the 1980s, and is now a focal point of global political importance.
Felix Lee
Feature
The EU is running out of experimental monkeys
Biomedical research in the EU continues to test preparations on monkeys. For example, anyone vaccinated against the coronavirus with a vaccine approved in the EU has received a vaccine tested on experimental monkeys. The animals are irreplaceable for some of this biomedical research. Thus, while the search for vaccines and drugs against Covid has been underway, the need for animals has grown rapidly in recent years.
Until 2020, the majority of experimental monkeys was imported from China. However, the People’s Republic stopped the export at the very beginning of the Covid pandemic. At that time, it was not certain whether the experimental primates could also transmit the coronavirus. However, Beijing has not lifted the export ban since. As a result, it has become increasingly difficult for Europe as a research location to obtain suitable laboratory monkeys. A recently enacted stricter EU regulation on which monkeys may be used for research further exacerbates the situation for laboratories.
China wants to dominate primate research
Due to more difficult access to research primates and rising costs, research in the EU could become less attractive in the future – and migrate to China. Even before the onset of the Covid pandemic, China had increasingly focused on primate research. Since about 2015, Beijing has poured massive funding into the field, estimates Kirk Leech. The British scientist is executive director of the European Animal Research Association. With the export ban, he believes China has clearly shown its intention to dominate this research area in the long term.
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