In the news
6 Sep 2008
23 January 2007
Government must do more to replace animal experiments
Government must do more to replace animal experiments, say campaigners as National Centre for the 3Rs holds annual stakeholder meeting today.
Today (January 23rd 2007), as the Government’s National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement & Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) held its third annual Stakeholder Meeting1, a leading non-animal research charity warned more must be done to swiftly replace animal experiments.
The NC3R’s Chief Executive, Dr Vicky Robinson, announced that the majority of the Centre’s research budget in 2006 had been awarded to non-animal replacement projects (totalling £1,009,721 since 2004). This was welcomed by the Dr Hadwen Trust, the UK’s leading non-animal medical research charity, but the charity warned that far more needed to be done.
Says Dr Gill Langley, the Dr Hadwen Trust’s Science Director2:
“This funding is to be welcomed but only as a good start. It is just a fraction of what is needed and still pales into insignificance compared to the many millions of pounds this government gives to animal research. To realise the goal of swiftly replacing animal experiments with more relevant and reliable non-animal methods, the Government needs to provide a far more ambitious budget than this. The Centre has still not committed to prioritising replacement as the focus for all future funding. Reduction and refinement of animal experiments are merely a stop-gap measure; only replacement has the potential to end the suffering of laboratory animals and advance medical progress.”
A closer look at the figures reveals that non-animal replacement funding is still a low government priority despite today’s progress report. The Dr Hadwen Trust itself awarded £767,509 to non-animal replacement research in the same period3. That means the government’s primary national contribution to replacement research is only one third more than that of one relatively small charity4.
The Dr Hadwen Trust believes that a substantial increase in funding needs to be at the heart of any government strategy to replace animal experiments, together with a clear commitment to a targeted timetable for total replacement.
ENDS
Notes to the Editor:
1 The Government announced the establishment of the NC3Rs in May 2004.
2 Dr Gill Langley is Science Director at the Dr Hadwen Trust and one of the world’s foremost experts on non-animal replacements. She served for eight years as a member of the British government’s Animal Procedures Committee which advises the Home Secretary on animal experimentation and is currently a member of the Replacement Advisory Group of the NC3Rs.
3 The Dr Hadwen Trust is the UK’s leading medical research charity that funds and promotes exclusively non-animal techniques to replace animal experiments. Our vital work benefits humans with the development of more relevant and reliable science whilst also benefiting laboratory animals. We believe that excellence in medical research can and should be pursued without animal experiments.
www.scienceroom.org
www.drhadwentrust.org
4 Since 2004, the NC3Rs has contributed only £242,000 more to replacement research, than the Dr Hadwen Trust.
