Lost it!

ASA rules in favour of Europeans for Medical Progress

Pro-Test, which describes itself as ‘an Oxford-based group campaigning in favour of continued animal testing and in support of scientific research’, really needs to do its own research a little better!

Apparently, the group had complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) about a leaflet produced by patient safety charity Europeans for Medical Progress Trust (EMP Trust). Pro-Test disagreed with the assertion on the leaflet by Mike Hancock, CBE, MP: ‘It is astonishing that animal testing has never been scientifically evaluated and the process is long overdue.’

Today, however, the ASA rejected Pro-Test's claims and agreed with EMP Trust that the three previous inquiries cited by Pro-Test had focused on ethics and legislation and did not constitute scientific evaluation.

Pro-Test had also complained about a statement on the leaflet that: ‘Hormone replacement therapy increases women's risk of heart disease and stroke. Millions of prescriptions were based on monkey data, which predicted the opposite.’ After EMP Trust produced more than ample evidence to support its statement, the ASA's draft recommendation was to reject this complaint as well - at which point Pro-Test decided to withdraw the complaint. Interestingly enough, the initial complaint and today's ruling by the ASA does not appear anywhere in Pro-Test's news section. Clearly, the group seem to be to limiting their embarrassment on the publication of the ASA's decision to one rejection rather than two. Or could it be that perhaps Pro-Test "wisely" does not wish to draw attention to the abundance of scientific research highlighting the futility of vivisection?

You can read the full news article on EMP's website by visiting http://www.curedisease.net/news/071107.shtml.