France s Bardot appeals to Croatia to stop cruel dog testing
Mon Jul 18, 2:01 PM ET
ZAGREB (AFP) - Former French movie star
has appealed to Croatia s president to help stop cruel testing of
health products on dogs, an affair which has shocked the Balkans
country.
"I would like to appeal to President Stipe Mesic to personally
intervene in this affair to save all those miserable dogs," Bardot
wrote in a letter on behalf of her animal welfare foundation, a copy of
which was obtained by AFP.
"The details which have been reported to me on the experiments led at
the (Zagreb veterinary) faculty of shame are horrifying and absolutely
revolting."
Bardot was referring to a recent discovery by a local animal rights
group that the veterinary faculty in Zagreb in cooperation with the
faculty of medicine is to perform gruesome tests on some 30 beagle
dogs, for which the authorities have apparently not given authorization.
Tests on the dogs, which were imported from Italy, were to be done for
an osteoporosis drug, and the animals were to be killed in a brutal way
after the tests are over. Local media reported that testing was ordered
by a US pharmaceutical company.
The Prijatelji Zivotinja (Animals Friends) group demanded a probe into
the legality of such testing, calling for experiments to be cancelled
and dogs given for adoption.
The affair sparked a vivid public debate and the prosecution
authorities launched an investigation while it has been discovered that
the tests -- including breaking of paw bones -- have already started on
most of the dogs, although researchers were trying to cover it up.
Head of Zagreb university Jasna Helena Mencer announced Monday that the
main researcher in the project was to be suspended from the veterinary
faculty over the affair.
Bardot, 71, retired from movie-making 30 years ago and has since devoted herself to animal welfare.
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