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Candidate countries less hostile
The first major European Commission survey of attitudes to science in the candidate countries was published in early April, and showed interesting differences in attitudes to animal experimentation between the candidate countries and existing Member States. While people in the current Member States are completely divided over the question of whether or not to allow scientists to conduct experiments "on animals like dogs and monkeys" (45% agree with this proposition and 41% disapprove), the overwhelming majority (63% v 22%) of the candidate region supported these experiments if they targeted human health problems.
More than half of all people questioned had little interest in science and technology, with young men in Cyprus and Hungary the most likely to value science, and older women in Bulgaria and Turkey the least. However, eight out of ten people believed that science could improve their quality of life and cure terminal illnesses and that generally European research delivered positive results.
Sample questions were fielded in November 2002 to a total of 12,247 nationals in the 13 candidate countries: Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Turkey.
The proportion of opponents of animal experiments in Malta and Slovenia was comparable to the European Union average, but the survey found no country where the majority - either driven by religious conviction, or belief in animals' rights - would oppose experiments on animals. The proportion of opponents was the lowest in Bulgaria with 8%. The attitude that reaching justifiable human goals had priority over the protection of animals was also very widespread in Cyprus (73%) and Hungary (71%).
The analysis also showed that support for animal experimentation was correlated to the degree of scientific knowledge possessed: people scoring high on the scientific knowledge scale were much more likely to find animal experiments justifiable if they were aimed at resolving human health problems (68%), while those who didn't know much about science were much less likely to agree (52%). Men were also more likely to accept experiments on animals (68% agreeing with the question v 58% among women).