BUAV: UK Universities spend £10m testing illegal drugs on animals

Thursday, 12 April 2007 12:00 AM

BUAV report reveals taxpayers' fund cocaine, ecstasy and cannabis tests on animals

Millions of pounds of taxpayers' money has been used to fund animal testing of banned substances at UK universities in the last ten years, a new report from leading campaigning group the BUAV reveals.

The report - Creatures of Habit, by BUAV scientist Dr Katy Taylor - shows UK universities have repeatedly won licenses from the Home Office to spend public money giving often lethal doses of crystal meth, cocaine, cannabis, speed and ecstasy to animals to test effects already well documented in human studies.

The BUAV's research uncovered that at least £1.6m of taxpayers' money has been spent by scientists conducting illegal drug studies such as addicting rats to cocaine at Cambridge University.

In another study at Cambridge, paid for by taxpayers' via the Government funded Medical Research Council, rats were driven mad through enforced isolation so scientists could then test the effects of speed (amphetamine) on their ability to carry out simple tasks.

A separate set of studies at Cambridge saw researchers conducting frivolous tests including giving a combined lethal dose of crystal meth (full name methamphetamine) and loud music from the composer Bach and the pop group The Prodigy to see if it would induce death.

Meanwhile, the report reveals that Birmingham University gave rats cannabis to see if it increased their hunger - an outcome already well-documented in human evidence and commonly known among students as 'the munchies'.Our estimates show this experiment could have cost the university up to £100,000 to carry out based on average costs of such studies.

The report also reveals that similarly unnecessary and expensive tests have been funded and licenced at Liverpool, Nottingham, Aberdeen and Leicester's De Montfort universities, in which animals have been subjected to a range of bizarre activities such as burying marbles and swimming in vats of milk under the influence of mind-bending drugs.

Very few of the UK studies detailed in the report have ever been 'cited' by other researchers - meaning most were a complete waste of time from a scientific point of view, in addition to a waste of taxpayers' money and a cause of pain and death to animals.

The testing of legal 'recreational' drug products alcohol and tobacco are banned in the UK alongside other products deemed 'non-essential' such as cosmetics.

BUAV chief executive Michelle Thew said:

"I think people will be appalled that public money is being used to fund such
unnecessary and cruel animal tests. Surely public funds would be better spent on relevant, ethical human volunteer research, improving drug rehabilitation centres and supporting families dealing with drug abuse?

"The BUAV is calling on the Government to put an end to this entirely unnecessary animal suffering and divert funding where it is sorely needed."

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