Extremists 'a smokescreen' for rise in animal experiments

26 May 2006
NAVS: extremists have become smokescreen as animal experiments rise

The National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS) said today that the activities of a handful of extremists are being used as a smokescreen by the Home Office to hide the fact that animal experimentation is steadily rising in the UK, after animal tests dropped consistently for many years.

As Oxford University goes to the High Court to extend the exclusion zone around its latest laboratory, the NAVS points out that despite claims that researchers are being driven abroad, the UK has now overtaken every country in Europe in animal use.

The NAVS condemns violence and intimidation but sees the issue of law-breaking as an entirely different matter to that of the use of animals in research and medical progress. The Home Office appears to muddle these two issues.

The recent TGN1412 drug trial disaster showed that animal tests are unreliable - with no side effects seen in lab animals, but catastrophic side effects for the volunteers. Yet micro dosing - where ultra-low, safe doses of a drug are given to humans and analysed by an Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) unit, could have been used. It's safer for humans and avoids the problems of differences between species.

Tim Phillips, Campaigns Director for NAVS, asks: "As Oxford University extends their exclusion zone round the new lab, shouldn't we be questioning what will happen inside it? At a time when every other Home Office decision is being questioned, do we really believe animal experimentation is as strictly controlled and regulated as we are always assured?"

A MORI Poll in February 2005 found that 81% wanted to see more research into alternatives and 76% wanted an end to unnecessary suffering for animals.

The public wants safe products and new medicines - but without animal tests - and they can have that with the latest 21st century advances in research techniques and computer technology, using tissue cultures, human data, human & environment studies, MRI scans & micro-dosing on human volunteers.

NAVS has funded a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scanner costing nearly £500,000 at Aston University for more effective brain research into strokes and cancer - an alternative to animal experiments where electrodes are inserted into monkey brains.

Tim Phillips added: "It begs the question why is the UK the biggest user of laboratory animals in Europe at a time when more non-animal research methods are available than ever before and acknowledged to be more reliable."

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NOTES:

· Founded in 1875, the NAVS is the world's first anti-vivisection group and continues to lead the campaign for animal experiments to be replaced with non-animal methods.

· Laboratory animals suffer terribly at every stage of their lives; the law allows the infliction of pain and suffering on animals that would, in other circumstances, be illegal.

· For each recorded use of an animal in a laboratory, a further two to three animals have been killed after a miserable short life, simply because they are surplus to requirements.

· The NAVS spends £300,000 a year on grants to scientists conducting non-animal research, and urges the Government to focus on replacements for animal tests, for the sake of both people and animals.

Examples of medical progress without animal testing

The link between cancer & smoking; the artificial hip; inhalation anaesthetics; drugs for leukaemia, beta blockers for blood pressure, and more. Surgical techniques such as cataracts, appendix, bladder stones, ovarian tumour.

Examples of species differences

Aspirin causes birth defects in monkeys and cats but not in people; morphine calms people & rats but excites cats and mice; penicillin is a useful antibiotic for people but kills guinea pigs; tamoxifen was developed as a contraceptive - worked in rats but opposite effect on women - now a successful breast cancer treatment in women - yet causes cancer in rats.

Anti-Parkinson's disease drug Tolcpone/ Tasmar withdrawn for link with liver disease; anti-depressant Seroxat linked to liver damage.