In the news
19 Jul 2008
29 January 2008
Risk of 80% cut in animal test data – Home Office decides
Government Ministers are currently deciding1 whether or not to dramatically reduce the amount of information Britain collects and publishes on its animal experiments, to minimal EU standards. The Dr Hadwen Trust warns that this could have catastrophic impacts on animal welfare and deny the British public access to vital information about this controversial issue.
Recommendations to cut back on Britain’s annual statistics on animal experiments2 were contained in the Davidson Review report published in November 20073 , as part of the government’s “better regulation” agenda. Lord Davidson QC concluded that to reduce Britain’s alleged over-implementation of EU legislation, animal research statistics published by the Home Office should be reduced to EU levels.
Dr Gill Langley, Science Director of leading non-animal research charity the Dr Hadwen Trust and an ex-government adviser on animal experiments4 , strongly opposes any reduction in Britain’s animal research statistics. She says we need more, not less information to improve regulation and monitor progress on replacing animal experiments with non-animal alternatives. Dr Langley believes this decision represents a ‘critical litmus test’ of the government’s professed commitment to ending animal experiments5 . Switching to EU-level minimum requirements would mean an 80% reduction in the information available to the British public6 .
“Reducing our animal research statistics to EU levels would be a disaster for animal welfare, public confidence and government transparency” says Dr Langley. “Experimenting on live, sentient animals is understandably a highly controversial issue that greatly concerns many millions of people. Already, insufficient meaningful data is put into the public domain, so any reduction in public access would be a backward step and would seriously compromise government openness and accountability. If Britain undertakes this drastic pruning of information, it will make it more difficult to monitor laboratory animal suffering and to assess the impact of government policies, such as the replacement of animal tests with alternative methods. The government claims to be committed to ultimately ending animal experiments; this is a critical litmus test of that commitment.”
The Dr Hadwen Trust warns that the statistics question is a clear issue of public confidence: of being seen to be open, transparent and willing to provide sufficient information for stakeholders to become fully informed. Minimal reportage of animal experiments will only create an atmosphere of distrust.
The government’s own advisory committee, the Animal Procedures Committee (of which Dr Langley was a serving member for eight years), recommended in its report on openness in 2001: “that the usefulness of the information in [the annual statistics] report should be improved. For example, it should include numbers of animals kept for experimentation in addition to the existing statistics, which detail only numbers of animals actually used in experiments. We also recommend that the report should include fuller details of the severity of experiments. This would assist the public to come to an informed view7 .”
Download a PDF of the Dr Hadwen Trust’s full submission to the Home Office’s consultation, here:
Download here the Dr Hadwen Trust’s summary of animal research statistical information Britain could lose.
Notes:
1 The Home Office Consultation on the Davidson Review proposals on the Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals concluded on 31 December 2007.
2 Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals are published annually by the Home Office. The latest statistics show that over 3 million animals are used in experiments in Britain.
3 Davidson Review: Implementation of EU legislation, November 2006.
davidson_review.pdf
4 The Dr Hadwen Trust is the UK’s leading non-animal medical research charity funding exclusively non-animal techniques to replace animal experiments. www.drhadwentrust.org Dr Gill Langley, Science Director, was a member of the Animal Procedures Committee (APC) for eight years, which advises the Home Secretary on key areas of animal experimentation.
5 7 Dec 2007 the Science and Innovation Minister, Ian Pearson announced increased funds for non-animal research and said “we should always look for alternatives and Government is committed to the replacement, refinement and reduction of animals in research. It is an area where we are leading the world.” http://www.dius.gov.uk/press/07-12-07.html
6 The European Commission requires far less detailed statistics, omitting a total of 26 categories of data currently collected in Britain including the number of individual experiments; sub-categories of animals such as gerbils, deer, species of monkeys; key information on the sourcing of animals; any information on the genetic status of animals; the vast majority of target body systems information (respiratory, senses, skin, musculo-skeletal, reproductive etc); number of procedures by type of designated establishment; key areas of safety testing including all detailed information on pharmaceutical testing by species.
7 Animal Procedures Committee (2001). Report on Openness. Home Office.
