These points have been drawn up to provide an accessible resource for anybody discussing the use of animals in research. We are happy to take your suggestions to add to our list.

 

 

Why Animals Are Needed

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• Animal research has played a vital part in nearly every medical breakthrough over the last decade.

• Nearly every Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine since 1901 has relied on animal data for their research.

• We share 95% of our genes with a mouse, making them an effective model for the human body.

• Animals and humans are very similar; we have the same organ systems performing the same tasks in more or less the same way.

• Animals suffer from similar diseases to humans including cancers, TB, flu and asthma.

• All veterinary research has relied on the use of animal research.

• While non-animal methods play an important part of biomedical research, they cannot replace all use of animals.

• In vitro methods, such as cell cultures, and computer modelling play an important part complementing data from animal models.

• Many veterinary medicines are the same as those used for human patients: examples include antibiotics, pain killers and tranquillisers.

• Modern anaesthetics, the tetanus vaccine, penicillin and insulin all relied on animal research in their development.

• Modern surgical techniques including hip replacement surgery, kidney transplants, heart transplants and blood transfusions were all perfected in animals.

• Scanning techniques including CT and MRI were developed using non-human animals.

• Cosmetic testing is banned in Europe since 2004.

• The European Union (EU) has banned the sale of any cosmetics or cosmetics ingredients that have been tested on animals since March 2013.

• Research on great apes (orang-utans, bonobos, gorillas and chimpanzees) is banned in the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany and Austria.

• Dogs, cats and primates altogether account for less than 0.2% of research animals

• Mice, rats, fish and birds account for more than 90% of the animals used in research.

• 5 million animals were used for animal experiments in Europe in 2011 (4) while the food industry produced 44 million tonnes (44 billion kilograms) of animal meat for consumption (5).

• Household cats kill approximately 5 million animals every week – more than the total number of animals used in medical research every year.

• There has been a decrease in the use of dogs (16%), rodents (7%), cats (9%), pigs (17%) and non-human primates (36%) from 2008 to 2011 (5).

 

 

 

Examples of medical research​

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• Thanks to animal research, primarily in mice, cancer survival rates have continued to rise.

• Herceptin – a humanised mouse protein – has helped to increase the survival rate of those with breast cancer; it could not have been attained without animal research in mice.

• Thanks to research on animals leading to the development of Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapies (HAART), AIDS is no longer the death sentence it was 30 years ago.

• While Fleming discovered penicillin without using animals, he shared the Nobel Prize with Florey and Chain who, by testing it on mice, discovered how penicillin could be used to fight infections inside the body.

• Animal research is responsible for the development of asthma inhalers. Around 30 million people in Europe are affected by the condition (1) and around 15,000 people die each year from asthma attacks in the continent (2).

• Animal research has helped develop modern vaccines including those against Polio, TB, Meningitis, human papillomavirus (HPV), which has been linked to cervical cancer, and recently an Ebola vaccine is being developed from a modified chimpanzee-cold virus and an Ebola protein.

• The development of Tamoxifen in animals led to a 30% fall in death rates from breast cancer in the 1990s.

• Patients with type I diabetes, whose incidence is estimated to rise 3% annually worldwide, rely on Insulin – which was developed through experiments in rabbits and dogs (3).

• Smallpox has been eradicated from Earth thanks to research in animals.

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Regulation of research

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• The standards of laboratory animal welfare in Europe are outlined in the Directive 2010/63.

• All animal researchers, projects and facilities doing, or related to, animal research must be authorised by national regulatory bodies.

• Ethics committees exist to ensure that the potential benefits of research outweigh any suffering to the animals. The 3Rs underpin animal welfare – there is a legal requirement to replace animals with alternatives, refine experimental techniques and reduce the number of animals used in research.

• Animal research can only be carried out in Europe where there is no suitable non-animal alternative.

 

 

Expert quotes

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• “Americans are living longer, healthier lives and we owe much of that success to biomedical research” Dr Robert Palazzo, President of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB)

• “Animal research and testing has played a part in almost every medical breakthrough of the last century. It has saved hundreds of millions of lives worldwide…” – Former UK Home Office minister Joan Ryan.

• “Without animal research, medicine will stop. Think of organ transplantation. Without animal testing nothing would have been possible.”– Giuseppe Remuzzi, President of the International Society of Nephrology.

• The Nuffield Council on Bioethics noted that “producing a new medicine is a lengthy and complex process … Tests on animals play a vital role”.

• The former CEO of the Medical Research Council in the UK, Prof Colin Blakemore, stated that “[primates] are used only when no other species and no alternative approach can provide the answers to questions about such conditions as Alzheimer’s, stroke, Parkinson’s, spinal injury, hormone disorders, and vaccines for HIV”

• Albert Sabin, who developed the Polio vaccine said, “Without animal research, polio would still be claiming thousands of lives each year.”

• “Non-human primates play a small but essential role in basic and applied biomedical research. The large majority of non-human primates are used for the development and testing of new medications and vaccines. The current Ebola outbreak demonstrates the life-saving importance of such research and testing” – Professor Stefan Treue from the German Primate Centre in Göttingen, Germany.

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For other useful information

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• Gircor - Recherch Animale (France)

• Stichting Informatie Dierproeven (Netherlands)

• Tierversuche Verstehen (Germany)

• Understanding Animal Research (UK)

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• Americans for Medical Progress (USA)

• National Association for Biomedical Research (USA)

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