On paper, Italian law on animal testing is among the most advanced in Europe. This outcome was made possible by seven years of campaigning by Lav, which secured the inclusion of restrictions and prohibitions unique in the world within the national legislation. These include the ban on the use of great apes, such as chimpanzees, and the ban on breeding dogs destined for laboratories, as had occurred at the notorious Green Hill breeding facility, which was at the centre, in 2012, of the largest liberation operation of animals intended for vivisection.

Unfortunately, however, the rules do not always receive adequate enforcement: inspections continue to be patchy, training for operators is inadequate (despite the fact that they must handle animals in conditions of extreme fragility and suffering), and the animals kept in housing and killed continue to number over 500,000 every year.

Likewise, alternative methods, which should be a priority both from a regulatory and a scientific standpoint, continue to be treated as secondary to the animal model and funded with almost negligible financial support, particularly when compared with the over one million euros allocated to animal testing every year.

Regions can allocate additional resources for alternative methods

Regions, however, have the ability to allocate additional resources for animal-free research and to distinguish themselves through investment in projects that respond to the core principles of international directives: replacing animals and making use of alternative models. A virtuous example is Emilia-Romagna, which has just allocated as much as 100,000 euros for this purpose — a result that Lav has been working towards for years. Specifically, the call for applications awards 10 prizes of one thousand euros each for degree dissertations and six research grants for recent graduates worth 15,000 euros each.

Specifically, the four universities of the region are involved: Bologna, Modena-Reggio Emilia, Parma and Ferrara. Among these, we look positively on Modena, which was involved in the liberation of primates and in the definitive closure of the research line that used these animals. Parma, on the other hand, remains at the centre of a campaign in which it plays an unfortunate leading role, owing to the use of macaques with cranial implants, subjected to surgical procedures for studies on vision. Our hope is that this new call for applications may in some measure influence the University of Parma (where, moreover, laboratories that develop entirely animal-free models are already active) towards a gradual abandonment of animal experimentation.

Emilia-Romagna also has an ethics committee to promote alternative methods

As well as for its allocation of dedicated resources, Emilia-Romagna also stands out for an ethics committee that deals specifically with the promotion of alternative models — models that are scientifically more reliable, faster and, clearly, more ethical than animal testing. The latter, it should be recalled, reflects a nineteenth-century approach to research and has never been scientifically validated.

Far from being an exception, alternative models to animal testing are an imperative established by law — both Italian and European — and not only that: they represent an opportunity for development and a chance for local administrations to give new impetus to Italian research, which sometimes struggles to keep pace with the European context but which, also thanks to alternative methods, can effectively position itself as a model of innovation, even at the international level.

Our hope, for Italian science, for patients' health and for the lives of millions of animals, is that the funds allocated by Emilia-Romagna may become a permanent fixture over time, and that this region's example may soon spread across the country as a whole.