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Emeritus Professor in Neuroscience, Anne Beuter and Dr Andre Menache explain why monkeys fail Parkinson’s research

Emeritus Professor in Neuroscience, Anne Beuter and Dr Andre Menache have published a commentary in Frontiers of Human Neuroscience, explaining why non-human primate models for Parkinson’s disease research fail human patients. The so called ‘monkey model’ was developed long after the disease was observed and studied in human patients, but still animal modelers, with their financial vested interest, continue to falsely claim monkeys are indispensable to finding cures for Parkinson’s.

To read a very detailed peer reviewed paper proving that such monkey models for Parkinson’s a) were not responsible for the breakthroughs we benefit from today and b) mislead human outcomes please visit Drs Greek and Hansen’s Development of Deep Brain Stimulation for Movement Disorders  .

Also available is the Open Letter to VERO from Dr Marius Maxwell, an American Board of Neurological Surgery-certified neurosurgeon who was educated at Cambridge, Oxford, and Harvard. Dr Maxwell’s Open Letter is titled Lies, Damned Lies and Monkey Science and opens with the following:

‘The abuse of primates in medical research for Parkinson’s disease lies at the very epicenter of the debate about the scientific relevance of vivisection to human health today. Time and time again, I read the extraordinary misstatement that the MPTP-primate model demonstrated the pivotal role of the subthalamic nucleus and has led to the development of deep brain stimulation in Parkinson’s disease’.

To read Dr Maxwell’s letter in full, please visit this link.

The UK’s main public proponent of monkeys for Parkinson’s research, Prof. Tipu Aziz, has never agreed to debate his scientific opposition.