Government Cuts Neuroscience Research Funds by £4 Million a Year

The recent announcement at the end of January by the Government’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council that it proposed cutting back on neuroscience research funding could be very good news for laboratory animals, including those imprisoned inside Oxford University.

However, this news on the decrease in neurological research funding will hopefully result in far fewer grants being given to those who make their living cutting up animals, resulting in far fewer animals being used and killed in what is possibly the harshest of research. It is hoped that this might be what finally stops some of those individuals who have caused tremendous suffering to hundreds of animals over decades.

Neuroscience researchers have responded to the proposed cut backs with over 80 of them writing to the council, which is the main funding agency for non clinical life science research, to protest. Speaking at a press briefing called to publicise the letter, Colin Blakemore, the infamous torturer of kittens at Oxford University and former head of the UK Medical Research Council, said that this might mean a loss of about £4m a year in cash terms, equivalent to the running costs of some 30 research groups.