Numbers from England Show That Animal Testing Hits a 14-Year High: Even With Viable Alternatives to the Use of Animals

These numbers are from England but it points to a general trend. Astonishing numbers when you fully consider it. Astonishing also after the years of work that have gone into slowing it down.

For information on the many alternatives to animal testing, see http://www.geari.org/alternatives-to-animal-testing.html


Article:

Animal testing hits a 14-year high

Activists' backlash expected as number of experiments rises to 2.9 million

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1827041,00.html

Robin McKie and Mark Townsend
Sunday July 23, 2006
The Observer

The number of scientific experiments on animals has risen to a 14-year high, the Home Office will announce tomorrow.

Scientists carried out thousands more tests on animals last year, with the total reaching 2.91 million laboratory experiments, the highest since 1992. Despite bitter opposition from animal rights protesters, almost 60,000 more experiments were carried out during 2005 compared with the previous year.

The government will defend the 2 per cent increase by insisting that such tests are vital for medical advances.

The latest Home Office figures reveal that most of the tests were on mice, rats and other rodents. Most of the remainder involved fish and birds, with only a fraction on dogs, cats and primates. However, the figures are expected to show an increase in experiments using genetically modified animals. Home Office Minister Joan Ryan will argue that the figures demonstrate the government's transparency over the controversial issue. She will add that Britain has some of the strictest regulations for animal testing in the world.

However, the latest rise is certain to spark a backlash from animal rights activists, who believe other methods should be used. A 'funeral procession' of humans dressed as 'mourning animals' will gather outside the Home Office before the statistics are released.

The government spends £10m a year on research into alternatives to scientific procedures involving animals, but says they cannot be wholly replaced.

This week's disclosures will be made just as anti-vivisection campaigners launch a judicial review in the High Court that will attempt to overturn the government's ban on political advertising on broadcast media. Animal Defenders International (ADI) will claim that under human rights legislation it has a right to promote its views on radio and television.The Observer has discovered that at the same time as this group of anti-vivisectionists press for these rights, the Advertising Standards Authority will heavily criticise them for promoting misleading information in their pamphlets. On the cover of one of its leaflets, the National Anti-Vivisection Society, which is part of the same organisation as the ADI, claimed that laboratory animals suffer 'terribly' at every stage of their lives. The pamphlet displayed pictures of rabbits and monkeys in distress.

The Research Defence Society (RDS), an organisation set up by scientists to defend the use of animals in experiments, challenged the claim and the advertising watchdog has upheld the complaint.

This decision has been welcomed by Simon Festing, the RDS's director. 'Over the last 15 years, 65 complaints about leaflets and advertisements by anti-vivisection organisations have been upheld by the advertising authorities,' said Festing. 'These groups make all sorts of unsupportable claims about animal experiments, how evil they are and how little good they do, but they can never substantiate them. Yet now they want to use human rights legislation to promote these ideas on television and radio.'

These criticisms were rejected by Jan Creamer, the chief executive of ADI. 'The case is about the exercise of free speech, which there is no justification in prohibiting,' she said.