Politician makes protest in EU's "Great Apes Debate"

By Pete Harrison

BRUSSELS, Feb 24 (Reuters) - A leading European politician has taken an unusual stand against what she describes as excessive lobbying by the drugs industry in the European Union's heated "Great Apes Debate" over animal testing.

Slovenian liberal Mojca Drcar Murko said she was unsure she would achieve anything by withdrawing her backing for proposals she guided through the European parliament, but she wanted to highlight the unbalanced influence of lobbyists.

Europe's environment chief last November proposed banning laboratory tests on mankind's closest relatives -- chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos and orangutans -- in a clampdown on testing.

The proposals must now be approved by EU nations and the European Parliament, where Drcar Murko was put in charge of drafting changes in one of three committees.

But last week, fellow politicians in parliament's environment committee threw out almost all her amendments, aimed at further cutting the suffering of animals in laboratories.

In protest, Drcar Murko voted against the committee's conclusions and took the unusual step of disowning them in a letter to the committee's chairman, Miroslav Ouzky.

"The industry and research community were lobbying intensively against several crucial parts of the proposal," she said on Tuesday, adding that some rival politicians had accused her of endangering sick children by clamping down on research.

The EU's "Great Ape Debate" has already sparked controversy, with researchers arguing tests on primates are indispensible for finding cures for diseases including HIV, Alzheimer's Disease, SARS, cancer, hepatitis and malaria.

Drcar Murko said most of her proposals to toughen up animal protection had been replaced with proposals giving the industry more freedom in how it uses animals -- and it was clear lobbyists had played a major role.

"A lot of colleagues were repeating the same arguments I heard all the time from the research community and pharmaceutical industry -- the same arguments, and even the same words," she added. (Reporting by Pete Harrison; Editing by Giles Elgood)