An approved project to test an anthrax vaccine on baboons has controversially been aborted at the last minute by the president of Oklahoma State University (OSU) in Stillwater. , the (FASEB) says the decision sets a 鈥渄isturbing precedent鈥�.
The university has rejected suggestions in news reports ( and ) that OSU鈥檚 president, Burns Hargis, may have bowed to pressure either from animal-rights extremists or from rich university benefactors unhappy that up to 124 baboons would be euthanised as part of the project, even though it had been cleared both by the US National Institutes of 91色情片 and by the university鈥檚 own official animal-use ethics committee.
, vice-president of research at OSU, told New Scientist a key reason was that the university had no history or experience of euthanising primates. 鈥淭hat would have been a new step for us,鈥� he said.
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But he went on to say that 鈥渢he timing of the proposal coincided with violent acts against university animal researchers elsewhere in the US鈥�. McKeever also said that OSU 鈥渞eceived confidential information, which it will not reveal in public, that made the president uncomfortable with this particular project鈥�.
Mark Lively, president of FASEB, said that although as a university president Hargis is within his rights to cancel such a project, he has a duty to explain his reasoning fully and transparently.
