2023-12-20 15:15:55
For the neuroscientific experiments, the macaques are fixed to their skulls using a retaining bolt and are supplied with fluid via a tube. Image: Victor Hedwig
The Bremen neuroscientist Andreas Kreiter carries out controversial experiments on monkeys that politicians have wanted to ban several times. But he successfully fights for his research in court.
For 25 years you have been carrying out experiments that have been heavily criticized: “Monkeys do not belong in laboratories,” declare the Bremen Greens. The Bremen Senate recently did not approve the experiments again. Can you understand the criticism?
These are populist-motivated political decisions, coupled with considerable hostility to science. In the last few decades, many claims have been made that are nonsensical – which unfortunately is difficult to recognize without in-depth specialist knowledge. A Bremen-born president of the German Animal Welfare Association also used this to stir up sentiment against us. During the 2007 election campaign, there was a lively discussion in the Bremen parliament as to how my working group, which was funded by the German Research Foundation, could best be destroyed. His decision was aimed at ensuring that the state government should achieve this by 2008 at the latest, for example by refusing approval for experiments.
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