On June 3rd, the European Commission rejected the Stop Vivisection Initiative, which asked to abrogate Directive 2010/63/EU1 on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes and to put forward a new proposal aimed at phasing out the practice of animal experimentation, making compulsory the use - in biomedical and toxicological research - of data directly relevant for the human species.
Perlman S, McCray PB Jr. N Engl J Med. 2013 Aug 1;369(5):466-7.
Approximately 1 year ago, a novel coronavirus, the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), was first identified in the Journal as the causative agent of a lethal pneumonia in several patients in the Middle East. In this issue of the Journal, Assiri et al.4 describe the largest outbreak of MERS-CoV infection thus far, showing that the virus is transmitted from human to human.
