Political Challenges

Tuesday, 02, Dec 2008 04:39

Animal Experiments: the political challenge

Around 2.9 million animals are used in scientific procedures in the UK each year – and 10 million across the European Union. Numbers of animals used in experiments in Britain almost halved between the 1970s and the late 1990s but in recent years that trend has halted and there has even been a slight increase in numbers. In addition to the animals recorded in the official statistics, millions more are also bred, confined and killed as surplus to requirements or for the use of their tissues. The legislation which governs animal experimentation in the UK (the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986) still permits procedures such as causing trauma to animals, burning or scalding them, intentionally inflicting diseases such as cancer upon them or poisoning them to death. Animal experimentation is a major animal welfare issue – and for the last twenty years, successive Governments have ducked taking decisive action on it.

Regulation of animal experiments

The 1986 Act requires that all procedures on animals which may cause them “pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm” are approved by the Home Secretary (in practice, by the Home Office Animal Procedures Inspectorate). All people conducting such procedures and the premises in which they are conducted must also be licensed. Finally, before licences are granted, each procedure is supposed to be subject to a cost-benefit analysis, to determine whether it should be approved. This regulatory framework often leads to claims that the UK has the “strictest legislation in the world” but the reality is that this system is permissive, cloaked in secrecy and offers little meaningful protection to animals.

In the UK, for instance, the testing on animals of new household products is still legal, despite these products’ marginal benefit to human beings; information about how the licensing process and cost-benefit analysis are applied in individual cases is almost impossible to uncover as the process is exempt from Freedom of Information requirements; and tens of thousands of procedures inflicting severe suffering are permitted. Most damningly of all, the recent slow rise in numbers of animals used indicates that there is no strategy to control or manage this profound animal welfare challenge.

Science and policy

Animal experimentation is a flawed, unproductive and outmoded scientific technique. Countless physical differences between humans and other animals make the process of extrapolating results from them to us inexact, unreliable and even misleading. According to the US Food and Drug Administration, over 90% of drugs which pass animal trials never reach the market and the increasing sophistication and specificity of many new drugs makes using animals even riskier – as the Northwick Park drug trial incident in 2006 dramatically illustrated. At the same time, new, scientifically-advanced non-animal techniques offer the opportunity to conduct research and testing that is relevant to the human situation, reliable and exact. In the 21st century, the approximations of animal experimentation are no longer acceptable.

Policy and practice in animal experimentation in the UK is often said to be guided by the principle of the “3 Rs”, first described by British scientists Russell and Birch nearly 50 years ago. The 3Rs are replacement (replacing animals with non-animal methods where possible), reduction (reducing the number of animals used in any particular procedure) and refinement (reducing the suffering involved). Unfortunately, however, refinement and reduction do not fundamentally address the ethical and scientific challenges posed by animal experimentation and in many respects their implementation can actually impede progress towards the elimination of animal experiments.

Some money and investment is being devoted to the development of non-animal techniques – but not nearly enough. Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly recognising the limitations of animal techniques but a mixture of institutional obstacles, conservatism, parsimony and dogma have handicapped investment in the academic arena and, in particular, by Government. While the Government did establish a National Centre for the 3Rs in 2004, its responsibility for all 3Rs hampers its effectiveness and its budget is extremely small – indeed it is dwarfed by initiatives which support animal experimentation. More fundamentally, the kind of root-and-branch, systematic, targeted, interdisciplinary strategy required to make significant progress in ending (or even reducing) animal use simply does not exist.

The political climate

The debate on animal experimentation has been dominated in recent years by the issue of animal rights extremism. The BUAV is unambiguously opposed to violent or intimidatory campaign techniques and has taken a consistent and public stand on this issue. At the same time, it is important to note that the extent of this problem is frequently exaggerated by proponents of animal experimentation and has sometimes served as an excuse to withhold information, refrain from legitimate debate or distract attention from the complexities of the issue.

Undoubtedly, the political climate is in some respects unsympathetic to antivivisectionism at present. Identification of bio-tech as an economically valuable enterprise and the political opportunities presented by talking tough on extremism have fostered a robust approach that has often obscured the nuances of debate and made progress in addressing key issue more difficult. Following the publicity generated by new pro-experimentation protests early in 2006, the Prime Minister’s decision to sign the “People’s Petition” in favour of animal experimentation in May was an almost unprecedented political gesture that marked a significant ratcheting up of public political support for the practice. Commentators and some politicians have been happy to adopt simplistically “uncompromising” positions and emboldened proponents of animal testing have been attempting to establish a new orthodoxy that animal experimentation is a near-infallible and ethically-uncomplicated practice.

Fortunately, other commentators, politicians and experts have taken a more nuanced approach and groups as diverse as the Nuffield Council on Bioethics and the government’s own advisory body, the Animal Procedures Committee, have published thoughtful reports acknowledging the complexity of the issue and problems with the current regulatory regime. Similarly, scientific publications such as the British Medical Journal have published papers questioning the relevance of animal experimentation to human health outcomes while MPs have shown themselves staunchly independent – recent EDMs expressing concern about elements of animal experimentation have attracted hundreds of signatures.

The challenge

While views on animal experimentation diverge significantly, almost all commentators agree that avoiding harmful animal use is desirable and ending it a goal to which society should aspire. In those circumstances, there is a responsibility on policy-makers to actively address the challenges posed by vivisection and move from the current position of rhetorical posturing to constructive engagement.

BUAV

The BUAV is opposed to animal experimentation for both scientific and ethical reasons (see our Vision, Mission and Values) and campaigns for the complete abolition of animal experiments. While we recognise that this goal is unlikely to be achieved in the short term, our current campaigning and lobbying work is intended to both press the case for abolition and promote steps which progress our society towards that goal. The BUAV lobbies at both UK and European level and is a frequent contributor to official inquiries and consultations. We use scientific and legal expertise to challenge the use of animals in experiments and are happy to discuss vivisection issues with MPs, their researchers or the media at any time. Our current active campaigns cover areas as diverse as household product testing, the use of non-human primates and the EU’s current revision of the Directive governing animal experimentation.

For more detailed information, see our main website, www.buav.org, or contact our Parliamentary Officer Dave Powell on 0207 619 6970. The BUAV also publishes a monthly digest of relevant news for parliamentarians and policy-makers, Political Update.