Posted: 19 July 2018. Updated: 19 July 2018
Campaigners call for greater transparency to facilitate adoption of advanced non-animal methods.
Home Office figures released today reveal that 3,721,744 mice, fish, rabbits, dogs, rats, monkeys and other animals were used for research in UK laboratories last year. With the full extent of their suffering unknown, and whether modern non-animal methods could have been used in their place, the National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS) is calling on the UK Government to end the secrecy and open up animal research to public scrutiny.
The NAVS has long held concerns about the secrecy surrounding animal research and the process of licensing tests. And it is not alone. The most recent Ipsos Mori poll (2016) found that nearly half (42%) of the public think animal research organisations are secretive, with one third not trusting the regulatory system.
Attempts by animal researchers to be more “open” are little more than a PR exercise, failing to show the reality of how animals really live and die in the laboratory, and the more invasive procedures they are subjected to. Meanwhile, evidence suggests that the UK Government continues to sanction these outdated tests without sufficient justification being provided by experimenters, causing unnecessary suffering and hindering science.
To address the issue, the NAVS is calling for the licence applications, that must be submitted by animal researchers, to be made public before their experiments are given the go-ahead, omitting personal or intellectual property. ‘Non-Technical Summaries’ from such applications are currently published by the Home Office only after licences have been granted; they are one of the very few ways to find out what actually happens to animals in laboratories, and to see where replacements could be implemented.
The NAVS has been analysing these summaries and, with further information requests, has shown that assessment of project applications by the Home Office fails to acknowledge current scientific evidence on the validity of animal experiments; in addition, animal researchers and regulators lack awareness of the non-animal methods that could replace them. These are just three examples from their findings:
The UK law on animal experiments, the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, was revised in 2012 to implement the new European Directive 2010/63/EU. When the UK leaves the European Union, it is expected that the Directive will continue to be incorporated within UK law. It is unknown however whether the Directive’s aim to make a “step towards achieving the final goal of full replacement of procedures on live animals for scientific and educational purposes” (Recital 10) will be included. The UK was the highest user of animals in the EU in 2016.
A summary of the latest Home Office figures on the use of animals in research: