Mike Hancock News
MP takes biggest ever animal welfare petition to PM
Mike Hancock today took what is believed to be the biggest ever animal welfare petition direct to the Prime Minister at 10, Downing Street.
The petition calls for the Government to implement a "road map" for the ending of experiments on animals. Organised by the animal welfare group, Uncaged, 1.5 million signatures have been collected in towns and cities across the UK - including thousands from Hampshire and the South of England in places such as Portsmouth, Havant, Waterlooville, Bognor, Chichester and Gosport.
The petition comes in a crucial point in the debate on experiments on animals. The European Union is due to revise European law on animal experiments and the British Government is currently consulting the public on what negotiating position it should take on this.
Mike Hancock said: "It is clear that the British public is very concerned about experiments on animals. Increasingly, there are better ways to develop and test the efficacy and safety of medicines. Yet we see the opposite - the number of experiments in UK has been increasing in recently to over 3 million a year. I believe the vast majority of these are unnecessary. The number of experiments on animals and particularly on mammals and primates should be kept to an absolute minimum.
"There are now many alternatives such as computer modelling and non-invasive scans and testing that could reduce medical experiments on animals. And in many cases, other animals have been shown to be poor at showing what effect drugs will have in humans. Aspirin, paracetamol, and penicillin are just some widely-used drugs that are lethal in some animals but safe, effective and widely-used in humans.
"I hope that this petition and the vast number of signatures that it has attracted will impress on the British Government the need to take a strong position in Europe and also towards an end to animal experiments wherever possible."
Laboratory experiments on animals are inherently painful, and often cause severe suffering. Evidence is also emerging that shows that animal tests do not reliably predict human reactions, while non-animal methods can offer greater accuracy and safety assurance.
For example, aspirin and paracetamol commonly used to treat people, are highly poisonous to cats. The wide-used antibiotic, penicillin is effective in mice but lethal to hamsters and guinea pigs. Fortunately it was first tested in mice but if it had been tested in hamsters or guinea pigs, it might have been discarded.
A study by Amin Rostami, Professor of Systems Pharmacology at Sheffield University has shown that the amount of a drug absorbed by animals - even primates can vary widely from that absorbed by humans.
There are also a number of non-invasive techniques such as scans that can be used to investigate human organs and diseases, particularly neurological conditions. New tissue and organ culture techniques provide human material for analysing disease processes and testing new therapies. Primary human liver cells can now be kept alive for 90 days. Computer modelling can now be used to design drugs that target specific diseases. Computers are also able to simulate human body parts through complex mathematical equations. Often poor diets, lack of exercise, smoking and alcohol are major contributory factors to modern illnesses. Combating these would make a major difference to preventing many diseases.
Dr Dan Lyons, Uncaged Campaigns Director and one of the UK's leading experts in animal research policy, accuses the Government pursuing an extreme policy that shows total indifference to animal cruelty. He said: "The Government and the research industry pays lip service to ‘animal welfare' and the need for alternatives to animal tests, but their actions betray a callous indifference to the suffering of innocent, defenceless animals. The dominant view among animal researchers is that it's their god-given right to sacrifice animals in the pursuit of knowledge, no matter how cruel or useless that knowledge is. Unfortunately, the Government has always caved into that fundamentalist view, while feigning concern about animal welfare to dampen public outrage. The public's sense that the Government exists in a moral vacuum is correct.
"We're not asking the Government for miracles, we're just asking for a level-playing field and a pro-active, rational policy that reflects the desire of the majority of the public to see an end to cruelty in science."
Notes:
There is more on the petition on the Uncaged website at http://www.uncaged.co.uk/news/2009/petition.htm and on animal experiments at http://www.uncaged.co.uk/vivisect.htm.
Details of alternatives to and problems with animal experiments can be found on the Animal Aid website at http://www.animalaid.org.uk/h/n/CAMPAIGNS/experiments/ALL/718/
The petition wording is: "We the undersigned demand that the UK Government prohibit animal experiments on scientific and moral grounds."
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