End Animal Testing at Radboud University: Join the Protest!
April 24th is known as World Day for Laboratory Animals. For the past few years, the Vegan Student Association (VSA) Nijmegen has organized a protest on the campus of Radboud University. We want to make it clear to the university that their use of animal testing does not go unnoticed.
Some facts:
- A total of 8648 laboratory animals were tested on and killed in 2022 (most recently available data). This is roughly equivalent to one animal killed every hour for the entire duration of the year. Most of these laboratory animals are mice and rats. However, it also includes 77 pigs, 85 sheep, 13 bats, 145 frogs and 265 zebra fish.
- Due to EU regulation, this number does not account for animals that were killed without being tested on. This adds another 682 mice and 44 rats to the death toll.
- Mice and rats are highly intelligent and can feel pain.
- The Animal Research Facility of RU claims to strive towards ending animal testing. However, they seem to have no specific goals set to actually accomplish this.
In 2021, Radboud University dropped their SYRCLE program. This program aimed to promote animal-free innovation by performing systematic reviews. Systematic reviews are a method proven to be effective as alternatives to animal testing.
We call on Radboud University to end animal testing and to provide more transparency about the steps they are taking to ensure this happens.
Help us to ensure that our message reaches the board of the university by joining our protest!
On Wednesday April 24th, we will gather in front of the Animal Research Facility on campus (Geert Grooteplein Noord 29) at 12:00. We will be there for about 45 minutes.
After this, we will follow the route shown here. This route takes us along campus to the Berchmanianum building, where the Executive Board of the university is located.
We will remain there until the end of the demonstration at around 13:30.
You are welcome to join us at any point during the protest!