Animal testing under the microscope
TWO MILLION ANIMALS ARE USED IN LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS EVERY YEAR
MORE than two million animals a year are experimented on in Great Britain - including dogs, cats and horses.
Figures from the Home Office reveal that 2.02 million animals were forced to undergo experimental procedures in 2016, the latest year for which data is available.
A further 1.91 million were bred with genetic alterations.
The number of animals subjected to experiments has remained at around the two million mark since recent records began in 2007. It was at its highest in 2008, when 2.27m animals were experimented on. The most recent figures show that mice are the most common laboratory subjects. Some 1.2 million mice wereusedinexperiments in 2016, along with 286,600 fish and 238,841 rats. Also commonly used were guinea pigs (26,186), rabbits (15,431) and horses (8,948). Some 4,932 dogs underwent experiments, as did 190 cats. The severity of the experiments was also recorded. Some 154,363 animals died under general anaesthetic while being experimented on.
A further 114,052 animals were found to have undergone such severe procedures that they caused a major change in the animal’s health and wellbeing.
More than half a million animals (581,477) were exposed to moderate procedures. This means there were recorded disturbances to an animal’s normal state.
Nearly a million (938,143) animals experienced mild procedures - when any pain or suffering is classed as so minor that the animal returns to its normal state quickly.
There were 234,648 animals deemed to have undergone “sub-threshold” procedures, classed as causing less pain than when a vet inserts a needle.
The government says animal experimentation is highly-regulated and “vital” to progress in human medical sciences.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The use of animals in scientific research remains vital in improving our understanding of how biological systems work both in health and disease.
“Such use is crucial for the development of new medicines and cutting edge medical technologies for both humans and animals, and for the protection of our environment.”
Some animal rights groups, though, claim laboratory experiments on animals are both cruel and unnecessary. Dr Julia Baines, science policy adviser at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), said: “Animals feel pain and fear just as we do, yet they’re treated like disposable equipment. They can saw off the top of a dog’s head, electrocute a rabbit, or implant an electrode in a monkey’s brain. “Tests on animals aren’t needed to prove the safety of beauty products, and they’ve utterly failed in pharmaceutical tests. Animals are often used in experiments out of habit and inertiaandbecauseourlawsallowalmost anything to be done to them as long as the right paperwork is completed.”