The German auto industry has been breathing exhaust fumes at monkeys
Tue 30/01/2018 - And to men!
It's a new dirty story that the New York Times revealed. In 2014 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute, a laboratory several times convicted of animal abuse, brought together in one room a Volkswagen diesel car and a dozen monkeys. The objective was to measure the effects of exhaust gas emissions on the health of these animals, since the car engine was running in this closed room, with the monkeys locked up. What seems absolutely horrible, but there is even more horrible, since it was not medical research, but a study funded by the German automotive industry, to establish the non-dangerousness of exhaust gases modern cars.
We should be able to ask the monkeys what they thought of the experience, but we know that it was not conclusive (are they all dead?), Since no results have been published. And because of this, the laboratory would not have been fully paid ...
Closer to home, in a town that was French even, in Aachen, the Stuttgarter Zeitung tells us that a medical institute made a group of 25 men breathe nitrogen dioxide (NO2) to different concentration levels, to measure the effects on their health. This second experience was comparable to classical medical research, where the guinea pigs had been informed of what they were going to be asked, and of the risks they would run. The troubling point is that in Aachen as in New Mexico, the sponsor of these experiences is an organization called Europäische Forschungsvereinigung für Umwelt und Gesundheit im Transportsektor e. V. (EUGT), which was funded 100% by German car manufacturers.
So we wonder. Do German manufacturers plan to diversify into medical care? When we get indigestion or the flu, will we go to the garage? Unfortunately, it was pure lobbying, with the objective of building arguments for if someone came to accuse the industry, in this public health problem that is air pollution. It is therefore very ugly, and we can only rejoice that the EUGT was put into liquidation in the course of 2016. It does not prevent that at a time when the industry is trying to recover from the discredit thrown by the cheating of Volkswagen, this new scandal, even if it is closed, falls to the worst.
Hypocrisy or unconsciousness?
All drugs and vaccines are tested on animals then on humans: where is the difference since it is a question of verifying a possible toxicity of a product?