After a long legal battle launched in 2022, the Lazio regional administrative court cancels the renewal of the authorization for general toxicology experiments on 800 Beagles dogs at the Veronese APTUIT company, for years at the center of the investigation sights, also seen the kidnapping of animals decided by the Verona prosecutor’s office.
For these dogs the horror was foreseen: the injection or forced administration of molecules at different doses to evaluate their toxic effects, as well as dozens of blood samples, even several times a day, with numerous possible side effects, such as pain, nausea, ulcers, collapse of the veins and behavioral disorders.
A result that comes after the appeal by the Lav, in December 2022, of the first renewal of the authorization, which originally allowed to use 1600 dogs in five years, later again extended with authorization from the Ministry of Health.
And this is despite the fact that it was – and is still continuing – a criminal proceeding against the former CEO of APTUIT and the two veterinarians of the multinational, who just a few days ago asked for a plea bargain for 4 months and the latter the testing.
In his sentence, the TAR said that, despite the Superior Health Council, on behalf of the Ministry of Health, he had authorized the renewal of authorizations for “justified reasons of necessity“, In the reality of the facts these reasons of necessity are not explicit to justify the aforementioned extension.
These reasons cannot be identified in the need to reach the development and registration of new drugs, because, otherwise, it should be considered that such research is always authorized and this in clear contrast with the legislation in question, which requires a particular caution in the use of the dog’s animal species.
Therefore, the Court clearly affirms the failure to renew the authorization.
Finally, in the sentence, it is underlined that ‘It is not given to understand how the competent Administration has not considered to be taken into consideration the results of the investigations carried out in criminal and those deriving from the advice ordered by the Council of State’ and that “a in the face of countless illegitimacy found by the verifier, and even before in criminal investigations, resistant administrations (Ministry of Health) they did not have any specific investigation in this regard but, on the contrary, they considered it all regular“Thus allowing the company to continue as if nothing was with its experimentation activities.
