Activists go ape over city milk tests on monkeys

ANIMAL rights activists today hit out at Edinburgh University for using monkeys for research into the long-term effects of soy milk on the health of baby boys.

Scientists from Edinburgh University's Medical Research Council Human Reproductive Sciences Unit are investigating whether feeding the milk to babies could harm their chances of having children of their own.

But animal rights activists, including the Vegan Society and the National Anti-Vivisection Society (Navs), as well as fashion designer Stella McCartney, have condemned the research, which involves clinical tests on baby marmoset monkeys.

Professor Richard Sharpe, who is leading the research, said it was necessary to carry out the tests amid fears a high level of oestrogen in the milk, in the form of hormone-like compounds called phytoestrogens, could interfere with development of the reproductive system in male babies.

Prof Sharpe said: "The long-term safety of feeding human infants with soy formula milk is unknown and there is concern that the high oestrogen content of this milk may interfere with development of the reproductive system in male infants.

"This has been of sufficient concern for the Ministry of Health and the Food Standards Agency to have issued advice that parents should only feed infants with soy formula milk on the advice of their medical practitioner.

But activists have questioned the need to use animals to test a product which they say has been used by humans without any apparent ill-effects for thousands of years. Ms McCartney said: "These experiments are sick. How do they come up with them?"