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FRANCE AND BRITAIN BIGGEST LABORATORY ANIMAL USERS IN EU

New statistics on animal use in the EU for 2005 show that France and Britain are still experimenting on more animals than any other EU country. The statistics show that France uses the highest numbers of animals, but in the EU statistics the use of GM animals are not included. The UK statistics show over 3 million procedures including GM breeding animals.

Primate use went up slightly (over 10,000 in total of which one third used in France) and the number of dogs as well. Over 6 million mice were used and the number of hamsters used increased by 40%. The only country in the EU that does not carry out any animal experimentation is Malta.

Dr Hadwen's Trust Ms Wendy Higgins commented 'with over 12 million laboratory animals still dying, this is a wake-up call to European politicians that urgent action is needed. We need a Europe-wide strategy for replacing animal experiments with more advanced, reliable, human-relevant research techniques.'

The UK often prides itself for the most stringent legislation on the use and protection of laboratory animals in the world, and the Home Office assures that tests are only carried out on animals when alternatives are not available. However, in practice most research proposals involving animals are accepted by the Animal Ethics Committees and shockingly, a study shows that many researchers don't even know that by law they have to demonstrate that an alternative method was not available.

Animals Count wants the UK Government to:

Immediately ban the harmful use of all non-human primates in experiments.

Ban all harmful use of animals in scientific research, toxicity testing and education.

Establish an independent transparent scientific inquiry to thoroughly review the ethical, scientific and economic implications of scientific research, toxicity testing and education.

Facilitate increased funding for the development, validation and implementation of non-animal alternatives.

10 November, 2007

UK ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION FIGURES EXCEED 3 MILLION

On 23rd July the Home Office released animal experimentation figures for 2006, which exceeded 3 million 'procedures'. Most of the increase was due to wider use of genetically modified (GM) mice.

The creation (for each unique genetic 'line' at least 150 individuals are used in the breeding process to obtain the right genetic traits), destruction and use of GM mice has continued to increase for more than a decade in an attempt by scientists to create 'better' animal models of human disease.

The number of animals used has steadily increased since the mid nineties after it had stabilised since the introduction of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act in 1986.

Just over 3.01 million scientific procedures were started in 2006, a rise of about 115,800 (4%) on 2005. The number of fish used also increased, while dogs, cats, horses and non-human monkeys, afforded special protection by the Act, were collectively used in less than one percent of all procedures. However, the number of primates used was still more than 3,000, despite huge public and political opposition.

The release of the figures happened around the same time as the news that the BUAV won a court case which found the Government guilty of misleading the public over animal suffering. Apparently, the Home Secretary acted unlawfully in licensing invasive brain experiments on marmosets at Cambridge University as ‘moderate’ rather than ‘substantial’ suffering.

Animals Count applauds this victory by BUAV and hopes that tax payers, many of whom are against the suffering of laboratory animals, will be better informed about the true costs to animals.

The alleged benefits to medical progress are minimal and animal models are ineffective and unethical models to investigate human diseases. For an overview of scientific peer-reviewed articles demonstrating the lack of predictivity of animal experimentation see: www.animalexperimentfacts.info. As for the so-called improved (GM) animal models, a scientific report commissioned by Animal Aid reveals that GM animals have made no tangible contribution to human health and medicine.

4 August, 2007