The Faculty of Medicine at the Technion inaugurated the experimental surgery unit * The dean of the faculty who oppose animal experiments want to set medicine back decades
"Those who oppose animal experiments want to set medicine back decades. Their voices - harsh voices, coming from people who are strangers to research and medical progress." This is what the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the Technion, Professor Raphael Biar, said at the dedication ceremony of the Experimental Surgery Unit named after the late Professor Ami Barzilai.
Professor Biar added that without the experimental research in animals we would not have most of the drugs today, there would be no modern surgical methods and it would not be possible to develop products such as stents for the heart arteries. "Medical research in Israel suffers from abject underfunding, the Ministry of Health's budget for medical research is completely anachronistic and absurd," emphasized the dean. "Despite this, medical research in Israel is among the most advanced in the world, because the universities are educated to develop the field of medical sciences from independent budgets."
Professor John Feinberg, who developed the anti-Parkinson's drug "Resagelin" with Professor Mousa Yodim, said that they would not have been able to develop it without the animal experiments. He emphasized that any experiment on animals requires approval from the Technion's institutional ethics committee, which consists of scientists and public figures. "The animal work practices meet the strictest standards of the health authorities in the United States and Europe in terms of the need for the experiment," he said. "A skilled team, which includes veterinarians, supervises the experiment in all its stages."
The pioneer of liver transplants, Professor Yigal Kam, said at a seminar held before the ceremony that liver transplants would not be performed today in humans, if they had not previously been performed in dogs. He and the late Professor Ami Barzilai conducted animal transplant experiments at the Technion already 30 years ago and more.
More than three million dollars were invested in the experimental surgery unit at the Technion, and it is one of the most advanced in the country and meets all the strictest standards. It has modern operating rooms and spacious storage places for hundreds of animals.
