Britain: Law failing animals used in medical research, says scientist who advised on guidelines

The Home Office figures revealed the number of procedures carried out on animals rose 4% to a 15-year high of 3.1m last year, making Britain the most active country in Europe for animal experiments.
In particular, there have been continuing rises in the creation of genetically-altered mice to study gene function, he said.

The majority of procedures involved mice, rats and other rodents, which accounted for 83% of experiments, while 9% were tests on fish and 4% on birds. Experiments on cats, dogs, horses and non-human primates were less than 1% of all procedures. Tests on monkeys and other non-human primates, were down 10% to 4,200.

Prof Balls said he was dismayed that progress in science had not produced more alternatives to using animals in research. "As a scientist I'm entitled to believe in modern technology to deal with these problems, but I'm disappointed that more effort hasn't been put into bringing the numbers down," he said.

Source, and full story, Guardian UK, July 24, 2007


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