In the news
21 Nov 2008
29 May 2008
Primatologist Dr Jane Goodall & Dr Hadwen Trust lead call for EU strategy to replace animal experiments
World renowned primatologist and UN Messenger of Peace, Dr Jane Goodall DBE1 made a rare visit to the European Parliament on May 28th, to urge MEPs to support a strategy to replace animal experiments2 . Her call came as the European Commission prepares to publish draft legislation to update the EU’s animal experiments directive (Directive 86/609 EEC3 ). The event highlighted the welfare, scientific, human health and economic benefits of replacing animal experiments.
Dr Goodall is joined by biomedical researchers, MEPs and animal protectionists at the Replace Animal Experiments in Europe4 event in Brussels, organised by the Dr Hadwen Trust and the Humane Society International. Together we are spearheading a campaign to accelerate European efforts to replace animal experiments with more ethical and reliable methods. We are calling for Europe to establish a world-leading Centre of Excellence in non-animal research to speed up the development of new techniques.
As well as causing animal suffering, animal experiments can be very time-consuming and costly. For example, the rodent carcinogenicity test uses 400 – 800 animals per test, takes up to five years to complete and costs more than €1.3 million per test substance. By contrast, many replacement methods, such as cell-based studies, silicon chip biosensors, genomics, proteomics and computer simulations, can provide fast, reliable answers to medical and safety questions that laborious animal experiments cannot match.
Where traditional animal tests have been replaced – such as the mouse convulsion method using 600 mice a time to safety test insulin or the rabbit skin irritation test for chemicals – non-animal test-tube methods have proved more precise, versatile and reproducible than animals. The insulin test was replaced by a method producing results faster and more precisely, and the skin irritation test that took 14 days to complete was replaced by a non-animal test delivering results in 42 hours.
There are also potential economic benefits of European investment in replacement technologies. The Dr Hadwen Trust believes that the EU already has a head start with its expertise in non-animal research, but this must be vastly expanded. For example, new human cell-based techniques to ensure the purity of injectable drugs were recently validated in Europe, greatly enhancing patient safety and replacing thousands of rabbit tests each year. They are also a major commercial success with a worldwide market of €200 million. Ensuring that legislation provides an impetus for further development of these world-class skills in modern, non-animal technologies will facilitate an essential competitive edge for the EU in the fast-moving world of science.
The European Commission has been promising to update the animal experiments directive for years, with publication of the legislative proposal originally expected in 2007. The law is out of date (over 20 years old), with hundreds of thousands of animals currently receiving no protection at all5 . Now delays threaten to prevent Commission adoption before Autumn 2008. The Dr Hadwen Trust believes that further delay is simply unacceptable, and accuses the Commission of deliberately blocking improved standards of animal protection.
“This is a key moment in the history of Europe’s responsibilities towards animals” says Dr Gill Langley of the Dr Hadwen Trust “Urgent action is needed to improve the protection of animals and to replace unethical and out-dated animal experiments with non-animal techniques. The revision of this Directive offers us the ideal opportunity to enable Europe to lead the world in humane science. These techniques are more advanced and relevant to human patients, so it is for the benefit of animals and people alike that Europe should focus on a strategy to move away from the era of animal research and hasten the new era of modern science without animal suffering.”
Dr Jane Goodall, a woman who has, in her lifetime, changed the way that scientists think about animals, presented our 150,000+ signature petition to the chair of the Petitions Committee on behalf of EU citizens supporting such a strategy, across the United Kingdom, Austria, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Portugal and Spain.
“We should admit that the infliction of suffering on beings who are capable of feeling is ethically problematic,” says Dr Jane Goodall, “and that the amazing human brain should set to work to find new ways of testing and experimenting that will not involve the use of live, sentient beings. The scientific establishment should actively encourage such research. More funding should be made available for it. And rewards – such as a Nobel Prize – should be given for it. It is a goal worthy of great energy and scientific ingenuity. It is a goal towards which all civilized nations should be moving.”
The event is supported by: Jens Holm MEP, Chris Davies MEP, John Bowis MEP, Caroline Lucas MEP and Dan Jorgensen MEP.
Click here to download our report Towards a European Science Without Animal Experiments launched at this event, plus speech transcripts and video gallery.
ENDS
Media enquires to Wendy Higgins (Dr Hadwen Trust) on mobile 07989 972 423 or email: wendy@drhadwentrust.org
Notes:
1 Dr Jane Goodall, DBE is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and a UN Messenger of Peace. www.janegoodall.org
2 12.1 million animals were used in EU experiments in 2005; Fifth Report on the Statistics on the Number of Animals used for Experimental and other Scientific Purposes in the Member States of the European Union published 5/11/2007
3 Council Directive 86/609/EEC of 24 November 1986 on the approximation of laws and administrative provisions of the Member States regarding the protection of animals used for experimental and other scientific purposes.
4 Speakers include Dr Jane Goodall, MEPs Dr Caroline Lucas MEP, Jens Holm MEP & Dan Jorgensen MEP, Professor Geoffrey Pilkington, Professor of Cellular & Molecular Neuro-oncology, Portsmouth University; Professor Irene Tracey, Director, Oxford University FMRIB Centre; experts in non-animal alternatives Dr Gill Langley (Dr Hadwen Trust) and Professor Horst Spielmann (formerly of ZEBET, the German government’s alternatives research organisation) and Emily McIvor from the Humane Society International www.hsi.org
5 For example in 2005, there were around 500,000 animals used in basic research in five member states where they are not protected, and it is estimated that over 100,000 sentient foetal animals and invertebrates are experimented on annually but afforded no protection under the existing law.
