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Lush Prize: Biggest promotion against animal testing in science
In London, the Lush Prize will be awarded on 20 November. This year, the SOKO Animal Protection is also nominated for the prize against animal testing.
It's time again next Friday: The Royal Institute of British Architects in London opens its doors to honor animal-free science around the world. The Lush Prize is awarded annually by the cosmetics company Lush and the organization Ethical Consumer.
A total of 51 scientists, organizations and activists from nine countries applied for the animal welfare award. Among the winners will be a prize money of 450, 000 pounds, converted over 640, 000 euros, distributed, the largest funding so far for the abolition of animal experiments in science.
Three of the animal experiment opponents come this year from Germany: nominated is among other things the SOKO animal protection. The nonprofit association has been nominated for the Lush Prize in the public relations category and is distinguished by its outstanding commitment to animal, environmental and consumer protection. Spokesman Friedrich Mülln is pleased about the nomination: "We think it's good that companies publicly comment on topics such as animal experiments and thus become important drivers for ethical progress and support structures for this change."
The SOKO Animal Protection caused a sensation especially through its educational work and background reports on brain research on primates. In the largest ever undercover research of the association, frightening conditions were uncovered in an animal testing laboratory of the Max Planck Institute in Tübingen.
Also nominated for this year's Lush Prize are the young German researchers Ilka Maschmeyer and Laura Bray. The former is conducting research at the TU Berlin on possible alternative methods for animal experiments. The 29-year-old could well use the promotion - so far, only little money flows into the alternative research.
27-year-old Laura Bray is working on a solution to replace animal science in the long term. The researcher is nominated for the prize because of her outstanding further development of the InVitro test methods at the Leibniz Institute Dresden.
The Lush Prize Project is already in its fourth round. The initiators hope that their prize will raise awareness of the relevance of research and thus abolish animal experiments in science in the long term.
(ww4)
