Animal tests get renewed backing
More than 500 UK scientists and doctors have pledged their support for animal testing in medical research.
They have signed a declaration stating that a "small but vital" part of medical research involves animals.

The statement, which was drawn up by the Research Defence Society (RDS), has disappointed animal welfare groups.

On Tuesday, a Staffordshire farm which breeds guinea pigs for medical research said it was to stop after intimidation by animal rights activists.

Death threats

The animals bred on family-run Darley Oaks Farm, in Newchurch, are used in developing treatments for respiratory diseases, such as asthma.

Its owners and workers have been targeted, with some receiving death threats, during a six-year campaign by activists.

Wednesday's declaration, which is not linked to Darley Oaks' decision, comes 15 years after a similar declaration by the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA).

Campaigners say it fails to acknowledge the "pain and suffering" animal experiments cause.


Signatories to the Declaration on Animals in Medical Research include three Nobel laureates, 190 Fellows of the Royal Society and the Medical Research College, as well as 250 university professors.
Dr Simon Festing, executive director of RDS, said: "We are delighted to have gathered over 500 signatures from top UK academic scientists and doctors in less than one month.

"It shows the strength and depth of support for humane animal research in this country."

Seeking alternatives

The declaration states that researchers should gain the medical and scientific benefits that animal experiments can provide.

However, it also points out that scientists should make every effort to safeguard animal welfare and minimise suffering.

Wherever possible, the statement continues, animal experiments must be replaced by methods that do not use them, and the number of animals in research must be reduced.

Known as the "three R's", the concept of "replacement, refinement and reduction" forms the backbone of the UK government's policy on animal research. All the signatories have vowed to adhere to these principles.

"We would rather not use animals and we try hard to find alternatives," said geneticist Robin Lovell-Badge, of the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) in London.

"However, without the research we do there would be no progress in finding cures that alleviate pain, suffering and disease in animals as well as humans."

'No progress'

The statement also promises to be more open about animal experimentation, urging research establishments to "provide clear information and foster rational discussion".

"We have seen a mood of increased openness amongst researchers over the last two years," said Dr Festing. "We are building on that and the declaration will help."

Professor Nancy Rothwell, vice-president for research at the University of Manchester, added: "It's vitally important that the research community sends the message that animal research is crucial to medical progress, that it is conducted humanely, and that we work within strict regulations."
However, animal welfare organisations have reacted with outrage to the declaration, arguing that it represents a lack of progress since the statement 15 years ago.

"We are concerned that in 15 years, doctors and scientists still appear committed to the unethical and potentially dangerous use of animals for medical research," said Adolfo Sansolini, chief executive of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (Buav).

Mr Sansolini also disagrees with the assertion that there is a greater degree of transparency within the field of animal research.

"We had high hopes with the Freedom of Information Act coming into force in January that animal experimentation would finally become more open, but this has not been the case," he said.

Brian McGavin, of the RSPCA, told the BBC News website: "The RDS declaration does not acknowledge the pain, suffering and distress that animal experiments cause, nor does it require any positive actions by the researchers who signed it."


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/4178166.stm

How much animal testing is done?
More than 500 academics, scientists and doctors in the UK have signed a declaration supporting the use of animals where necessary to advance medical research.

The statement comes 15 years after a similar initiative, and just one day after the closure of a farm's programme to breed guinea pigs for research, following a sustained campaign by protesters.

The animal experimentation debate remains hugely polarised.

How much work involving animals is still carried out in the UK and has it changed since the last declaration of support by scientists?



The number of animals used in experiments dropped away steadily between the 1970s and 1990, but has more or less levelled off in the past 15 years. Since 2001 the number of procedures using animals has risen slightly every year.



The latest figures available show 2.8 million procedures using animals were recorded in 2003 - about half the number carried out in the early 1970s.

The vast majority - 85% - used in tests are specially bred rats, mice and other rodents.


Campaigners criticise the lack of detailed information on animal tests and say scientists are reluctant to share data.

While the number of normal animals used in experiments continues to drop, since 1990 there has been an increase in animals bred with genetic modifications or defects, from around 200,000 to more than one million.

This, says the Research Defence Society (RDS), is because with the mapping of the human genome - which began in 1990 - scientists have identified important genes but do not yet know their functions.




The only way to find out what those gene functions are is to "knock them out" (remove) or add them to a mouse, said an RDS spokesperson.






But according to the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (Buav) genetic engineering has a "unique capacity to cause immense suffering and harm to animals".


Sustained campaigns


Their campaigners say techniques used are often poorly understood and produce unpredictable results. Animals develop tumours, brain defects, limb and skull deformities, infertility, arthritis, diabetes and other metabolic disorders, they say.



But RDS says the practice is "more precise" in terms of modelling a particular human condition.


A report this year into the ethics of animal testing in the UK - drawn up by scientists, animal rights groups, philosophers and a lawyer - said the true effects of genetic modification could be difficult to assess.




The panel, set up by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, said more effort should be made to assess and monitor the welfare of animals used in genetic experiments.


Earlier this year the government gave an extra £3m funding to a centre set up for the replacement, refinement and reduction of animals in research - known as the three 'Rs'.

The law governing animal experiments in the UK is widely regarded within the scientific community as one of the strictest in the world, although Buav argues this does "not necessarily equate to better protection for lab animals".

Professor Ian Jackson, of the MRC human genetic unit in Edinburgh, holds a licence to experiment on mice. The unit's purpose is to understand genetic factors involved in human disease and development.

"There may be a burden of administration within the law, but it makes you think about the work you are doing. For every experiment that is licensed you have to state explicitly why the benefits to medical, and veterinary, research outweigh the cost to animal welfare."

Scientists 'may leave'


Every project also has to go through an ethical review, he added.

"Scientists and some animal welfare groups believe it is better the work is done here, under strict regulations, than abroad. Sometimes when you look at experiments done elsewhere in the world you wonder about their particular regulations," he said.

But pharmaceutical companies and research scientists would consider moving their work abroad if animal rights activists made it too difficult to stay in the UK, said Prof Jackson.

The fact that scientists wishing to do stem cell research were coming to the UK from the USA - where there is no government funding for research on new stem cell lines - "proved scientists were mobile," he added.


Meanwhile animals rights groups have sustained their fight against any experiments being carried out on animals, and have claimed some successes.

In July 2004 a building firm abandoned a contract to build labs at Oxford University after its shares fell 19% in one day when animal rights campaigners wrote to shareholders threatening to publicise their investments.




Earlier that year plans to build a controversial centre for experiments on monkeys were shelved by Cambridge University.


And a campaign waged against vivisection lab Huntingdon Life Sciences, aimed at hitting it in the pocket, has meant a string of companies have severed ties with the firm.


This week Darley Oaks farm in Staffordshire said it would stop breeding guinea pigs for medical research after action by animal rights activists, including the theft of a body from a grave.

But professor of political sociology at Reading University, Dr PAJ Waddington - who has studied protests - said auditing success and failure of animal rights groups was "far from straightforward".

"Effectiveness is a complex issue - in what respects have they been effective? Closing down a farm breeding guinea pigs is a scalp, but if fur has returned to fashion, for example, then an advance on one front will be offset by a retreat on another.

"Then there is the issue of time span: because a farm appears to go out of business doesn't mean that the business will not continue to be done elsewhere."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk/4177200.stm

I am a member of animal rights charities (peaceful ones I might add) and I get to see the evil and horror done to the animals in these labs, I live near to Huntingdon life sciences, one of the most evil and sickening labs on earth. I have seen the barbarity and cold hearted depravities that go on in these places, that is kept from the public. I have known endless amounts of people that bring up the boring arguments of how science needs to do it for humanities good, but I am and so are most of the people i know willing to die of cancer and have a cure slowed down, if it means that animals do not have to go though the evil that they have to endure.

Most of these people that bring up these arguments and support this cruelty soon changed there minds after they see videos of just what happens in these places and become less ignorant. A few years ago I watched a pro animal testing women change her mind in just 10 minutes, she sat and watched a video with a cocky look on her face a video that effected me for months after, she watched monkeys having there top skulls sawn of so, the brain was exposed, and electric probes where stuck into the brain why the monkey was fully conscious, all the time the money was peeing its self, and pooping it self, and screaming a sound that will haunt me all my life. She saw dogs skinned alive and given drugs to stop them from passing out, so the scientists could study the stress and pain levels on the animals, chemicals where put onto the dogs skinless bodies and where making screaming noises again that are making me shake and tear up as I write this, the evil these soulless scientists do, out does the evil that most human beings could even imagine, and all this happened in Huntington life sciences, and it happens ever day, something the British governments supports. I say to anyone that supports this evil have a look at the things that go on in these places, then comment, if you have one bit of compassion within you, you will not support it any longer.

If you think this is just animal rights propaganda, as I said have a look at what they do your self.

all the best
Faeden