September 2011
New animal experimentation law: VERO calls for stricter controls
Directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes is due to be transposed into UK law by the end of 2012. The Home Office public consultation on how this should be done has just ended. The standards set out in the Directive would actually allow for (but not require) some weakening of the UK's already disappointing law. VERO has responded to the consultation urging the Government to retain the requirements of UK law where they are stricter than the Directive, while incorporating any new measures conducive to improving animal protection.

Oxford Magazine, No. 289, Trinity Term 2009
Coetzee in Oxford
Matthew Simpson

An Open Letter on Parkinson’s research - Neuroscientist Marius Maxwell sets the record straight on Parkinson's research
Marius Maxwell
In an open letter to VERO, Oxford University alumnus Marius Maxwell MBBChir DPhil (MD PhD) strongly refutes the often repeated claim that the deep brain stimulation technique used to treat Parkinson's disease patients has its origins in primate research. On the contrary, he argues, the technique was first developed in humans decades before the first monkey model of Parkinson's was ever conceived. In a detailed chronology of the research undertaken in this field over the last century, Maxwell demonstrates that all the major advances in the treatment of movement disorders have come about through the study of actual human patients, not contrived animal models. To suggest otherwise is, according to Maxwell, to distort the true historical facts and ignore the key contributions of earlier, pioneering neuroscientists. Worst of all, the continued justification and funding of primate research for Parkinson's disease and similar disorders is hampering the development of other, more progressive and humanly relevant techniques, and hence delaying the discovery of a definitive treatment for the disease. In conclusion, Maxwell therefore calls for an immediate end to such research, in the interests not just of the defenceless animals on whom it is conducted, but of the human patients still awaiting a cure for their debilitating disease.

Cherwell, Thurs 20 November
Tony Benn joins animal lab protest

Oxford Student, Thurs 20 November
Tony Benn joins fight against Oxford's lab

Oxford Mail, Mon 17 November
Tony Benn joins lab protest

"A duty from which I cannot deviate": Bodley's Librarian and the New Laboratory
Matthew Simpson

Oxford Magazine #272, Hilary Term, 2008
The Future Of Food
Paul Freestone

Oxford Magazine, Hilary Term, 2007
A Physiologist comes to Oxford
Matthew Simpson

March 2007 issue of the Parish Magazine of St Giles' and St Margaret's, Oxford
Animal Rights
Martin Henig, Hon. Professor, University College London (Institute of Archaeology) and Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford

The Guardian, 18 February 2007
Experimental Theatre
Marius Maxwell

Oxford Magazine, 12 January 2007
Ethics And The Weatherall Report
Dr Katherine Morris, Fellow in Philosophy, Mansfield College

Press release 24 December 2006
Oxford Vivisectionists are Swimming Against the Tide
Marius Maxwell

Church Times, 8 September 2006, p.13
The sacrifice of animals to save human lives
Dr Martin Henig

Response published in “Oxford Magazine”, Trinity Term 2006
I Protest Against Bad Arguments – Do You?
An Oxford philosophy tutor

Press release 03 July 2006
New group of Oxford academics calls University to account over animal lab

The Independent. 06 March 2006
comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article349525.ece
Sharon Howe: Animal testing is both cruel and unnecessary

The Guardian. 10 March 2006
www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1727750,00.html
We're not terrorists, and we're not against progress.