University to reveal primate experiment data (From Oxford Mail)

University to reveal primate experiment data

8:30pm Thursday 18th June 2009 in News

OXFORD University has agreed to release information about primate experiments, following a challenge by an animal rights organisation.

The university initially refused to release the information following a 2007 request under the Freedom of Information Act by members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta).

But it has now released some of the information after an informal resolution brokered by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) during an appeal.

An ICO spokesman said: “Oxford University has disclosed some of the requested information at an informal resolution level. Some elements of the request are still being investigated and we will be ruling on that at a later date.”

A spokesman for Peta said the organisation asked for details of experiments performed on Felix, a macaque monkey who had appeared in a 2006 television documentary.

He said: “We hope this decision will allow a concerned public to learn not what researchers decide it should know but what it has a right to know.”