A SCIENTIST from Comet country has added her voice to the debate on testing on animals. Dr Gill Langley, from Hitchin, is an expert on animal experimentation and non-animal techniques and is scientific adviser to the Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research. S

A SCIENTIST from Comet country has added her voice to the debate on testing on animals.

Dr Gill Langley, from Hitchin, is an expert on animal experimentation and non-animal techniques and is scientific adviser to the Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research.

She spent Monday evening at the Science Museum in London debating with neurologist and animal testing supporter Alex Green about the use of primates in experiments.

The debate was part of a BAUV (British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection) event organised to coincide with a report by Dr Langley called Next of Kin which discusses the use of primates in experiments.

The report is expected to be the definitive resource on primate testing for scientists, media and politicians.

It brings together information about the sentience of primates, current testing practices and their failings, as well as the latest developments in non-animal alternatives.

Dr Langley said: "Experiments on primates are unethical, unnecessary, and their results may be misleading because they were developed at a time when scientists knew little about the effect of stress on the immune system.

"Deeper understanding of their mental capacities reveals a capacity for suffering under confinement and experimentation we had never suspected before.

"So we must recognise that the use of sentient beings for this purpose is essentially unethical, and find new ways forward without their use. We can - and must - create more humane and more effective methods of alleviating human suffering.

"This report is joined-up thinking which points us clearly at the need for a ban."

A summary of Dr Langley's report can be viewed at www.bauv.org/nextofkin/report