German animal welfare act in breach with Directive 2010/63/EU.

The German Federal Administrative Court recently announced an order (finalized on January 20, 2014) on the neurobiological experiments on primate brains of Prof. Kreiter at the University of Bremen. With this order, a preceding court decision by the Higher Administrative Court of Bremen was established as final and absolute and the last glimmer of hope to end the suffering of the primates in Bremen was extinguished.

Guidance on determining indispensability and balancing potential benefits of animal experiments with costs to the animals with specific consideration of EU directive 2010/63/EU.

Within the context of a workshop, a concept and practical guidance were developed that seek to balance potential benefits of animal experiments to humans, other animals, and the environment against the pain, suffering, and distress caused to the experimental animals. The aim was to achieve transparent decisions that can be communicated in a concise manner that is accessible to a layperson and is in accordance with German national law and EU Directive 2010/63/EU. The steps of the resulting decision process deal with the classification of procedures into the four severity levels, the consideration of humane endpoints, determination of the indispensability of the procedure on the basis of sound scientific argument, classification into applied or basic research, determination of the probability of success in the case of applied research, and the cost-benefit analysis, culminating in a decision on the approval or denial of the procedure.

A roadmap for the development of alternative (non-animal) methods for systemic toxicity testing.

Systemic toxicity testing forms the cornerstone for the safety evaluation of substances. Pressures to move from traditional animal models to novel technologies arise from various concerns, including: the need to evaluate large numbers of previously untested chemicals and new products (such as nanoparticles or cell therapies), the limited predictivity of traditional tests for human health effects, duration and costs of current approaches, and animal welfare considerations. The latter holds especially true in the context of the scheduled 2013 marketing ban on cosmetic ingredients tested for systemic toxicity.

A survey concerning the work of ethics committees and licensing authorities for animal experiments in Germany.

In 2006, the German Animal Welfare Federation started its 3rd survey since the establishment of ethics committees for animal experiments according to the German Animal Welfare Act in Germany in 1987. As animal welfare has been included as a "state goal" in the German constitution in 2002, the present survey aimed at an analysis of specific changes within the licensing process. A series of other aspects of the work of ethics committees and licensing authorities was also examined.

[Revision of the EU Directive 86/609/EEC: results of the Internet consultations of the European Commission].

In the context of the process of revising EU Directive 86/609/EEC on the protection of animals used in experiments, the European Commission conducted a public internet consultation for EU citizens in mid-2006. Simultaneously, the Commission requested opinions from experts on specific animal welfare issues. The results of both consultations were published in the internet in December 2006.

[EU-Cosmetics: timetables for the replacement of animal experiments].

According to the 7(th) Amendment of the Cosmetics Directive the European Commission had to establish timetables for the phasing out of the various animal tests for the safety evaluation of ingredients used in cosmetics. However, the published timetables do not reflect the objectives of the 7(th) Amendment but contain longer deadlines for the ban on animal experiments of several endpoints. The European Commission also had to draw up a Directive for establishing an Annex IX that should list validated alternative methods which are not already listed in Annex V of the Dangerous Substances Directive.

EU sales ban on new cosmetics tested on animals: impact on alternative methods, WTO implications and animal welfare aspects.

In 1993, the European Union (EU) adopted Directive 93/35/EEC, calling for a sales ban on new cosmetic products containing ingredients tested on animals after 1 January, 1998, provided that alternative methods had been developed by then. In May 2000, for the second time, the European Commission postponed that ban. The Commission justified the repeated postponement of the sales ban by saying that no animal-free methods were available, although three in vitro methods were scientifically approved in 1997.

[About animal experiments for a face without wrinkles].

Botulinum toxin, a nervous poison produced by bacteria, is increasingly being used - besides its medical application - as a beauty product for smoothing facial wrinkles. It is unknown in public that each batch of the toxin has to undergo a quality control before marketing. The test used is a LD50 test using mice that is very animal consuming and causes extreme suffering.

Monoclonal antibodies: in vivo- and in vitro-production in laboratory scale with consideration of the legal aspects of animal protection.

Monoclonal antibodies are valuable tools in medical and biological research which can be used for identifying, characterizing and purifying medically and biologically important substances. Due to their high specificity monoclonal antibodies are more and more used in the diagnosis and therapy of infectious diseases and tumor illnesses. Large amounts of antibodies are needed for use in these areas and this necessitates mass production (g - kg range).