Press release

Published: 15 April 2025

Science lobby prepares massive PR push against reduction strategy

In the run-up to the International Day for the Abolition of Animal Experiments on April 24, the nationwide organization Doctors Against Animal Experiments (DAAE) anonymously received an internal document calling for a large-scale, one-sided pro-animal testing campaign. The campaign is backed by high-ranking representatives of academic animal research and supported by the board of the German Neuroscience Society. The apparent goal of the initiative is to deliberately sway public opinion in favor of animal testing — strategically timed to coincide with the planned publication of the reduction strategy by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (Bf3R).

In public discourse, academic animal researchers often present themselves as neutral, objective, and unpolitical. In contrast, members of animal welfare organizations are frequently discredited as "lobbyists" and "activists." However, the newly surfaced documents reveal a very different picture. Rather than promoting scientific information, a deliberately calculated lobbying campaign is being pursued. Particularly questionable is the planned campaign cover, modeled after the iconic Stern magazine cover from the 1970s titled "We had abortions."

“That academic scientists would copy a campaign in which women fought for the fundamental right to make decisions about their own bodies — and now intend to instrumentalize it to retain outdated and cruel research methods — is presumptuous and in poor taste,” said Dr Melanie Seiler, primatologist and Chief Executive Officer of Public Relations and Policy at DAAE.

Particularly alarming: the campaign is playing out at the expense of the German Constitution. The planned cover image makes a provocative reference to Article 5 of the Basic Law (“Freedom of science and research”), as if it granted a carte blanche for animal experiments. However, the constitutional right to academic freedom does not justify the blanket use of animals in research — it applies within the framework of existing laws, especially the German Animal Welfare Act and the EU Directive on the Protection of Animals Used for Scientific Purposes. These explicitly require that animal experiments may only be conducted if no suitable non-animal methods are available.

Scientists such as Professor Thomas Hartung, a long-standing member of several German scientific societies, have already publicly distanced themselves. “I had been a member of the German Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology since 1990. Today, I ended my membership after they joined a very one-sided campaign in support of animal experiments,” Hartung stated on LinkedIn on April 9, 2025.

The Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL), in collaboration with the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), is planning to publish a strategy for reducing animal experiments in the near future — a project explicitly outlined in the 2021 coalition agreement. The reduction strategy was developed through a broad stakeholder process involving representatives from science, industry, and animal welfare organizations — including Doctors Against Animal Experiments (DAAE). The goal was to reach a balanced compromise that would address the needs of both science and animal welfare.

Instead of participating in this democratic dialogue, the animal research lobby now appears to be attempting to publicly discredit the government’s strategy. The campaign leader’s vehement and polemical criticism of the government’s reduction strategy is all the more problematic considering that he himself was involved in its development as a stakeholder.

“This kind of mobilization of researchers employed in the public sector – many of them civil servants – for a one-sided, ideologically motivated campaign is a worrying misuse of public funds,” said Dr Tamara Zietek, Chief Executive Officer of Science at Doctors Against Animal Experiments. “The email that was leaked to us clearly shows an orchestrated effort to agitate against the federal government's reduction strategy and to rally the academic research community in opposition. This is deeply disrespectful to the BfR and the BMEL, who are making sincere efforts to include all stakeholders in the development of the strategy.”

In his email, the campaign leader states that both the German Neuroscience Society and the Alliance of Science Organisations in Germany (WO) have clearly distanced themselves from the reduction strategy. The WO is listed in the lobby register of the German Parliament and has acted for decades as a politically influential interest group in favor of animal research. Among its members are the German Research Foundation, the Science and Humanities Council, and the German Rectors' Conference – organizations that are meant to uphold scientific objectivity and should not support such a dismissive stance toward a federal strategy aimed at reducing animal experiments.

From DAAE’s perspective, these developments highlight a structural problem: in parts of the academic world, animal experiments are still regarded as the gold standard – they yield publications, funding, and prestige. In contrast, modern, human-relevant research methods such as organoids or 3D cell cultures are often dismissed by researchers still reliant on animal research, far removed from scientific facts – with terms like “cell blobs” or “supplementary models.”

DAAE calls on the WO and all scientists involved in the pro-animal experiments campaign to engage constructively in the dialogue around the reduction strategy – together with the many researchers, NGOs, and representatives from industry and government who are working objectively for a responsible and forward-looking scientific future.