FAQ's

Approximately 4 million animals are used in research each year in Australia alone. It has been estimated that at least twenty to thirty animals die in laboratories each second worldwide.

Almost every kind of animal is used in some way or another, including agricultural animals, primates, cats and dogs, birds, mice and rats, and even fish!

This is used frequently as an argument to disparage concerns of opponents to animal research.

In its basic form, utilitarianism - one of the most commonly accepted ethical frameworks – requires that our moral obligation is to obtain the maximum of happiness for everyone concerned. According to Singer, the characteristic that entitles a being to equal consideration of interests is its capacity for suffering and/or enjoyment or happiness. Other characteristics such as intelligence, rationality or skin colour are arbitrary. Similarly, Jeremy Benthan has stated “The question is not can they reason? Nor, can they talk? But can they suffer?” Under these criteria, animals are considered to have interests in not suffering and should therefore be included in our moral frameworks, thus having “rights.”

Nevertheless, ethical arguments aside, animal experiments cause great harm to both animals AND to people. Opposing animal research is therefore out of concern for both animal and human wellbeing.

Ethics committees, the Code of Practice, animal welfare legislation and using the 3R's does NOT justify the cruelty that research animals are subjected to, nor do they offer protection from the pain and stress they will inevitably endure. It is widely known within the anti-animal research movement that such formalities and regulatory bodies are deficient in protecting the interests of the animals and provide no reassurance that they will not suffer.

Providing better housing, environmental enrichment, less stress and more humane procedures only serves to falsely reassure the public that the animals are being cared for and treated humanely. It does not address the issue that the animals shouldn't be there at all.

Extrapolation from animals to humans can and does result in dangerously misleading outcomes. The reason is due to species differences. Different species have a different genetic make-up and it is on the genetic and molecular level that variances occur. Results can differ between different sexes of the same species, different strains, and even due to different housing conditions or levels of stress within the same species. So if such differences can occur within the same species then it's negligent to extrapolate from say a rat to a human – two totally different species with a totally different genetic make-up.

Researchers often claim that animals are used because they need to test procedures, treatments and products in a living system rather than on isolated cells or tissue, however an entire living system creates even more variables which can further affect the outcome of any results.

Another problem is that quite often a disease that is being researched does not appear in its natural state but instead is artificially induced in the research animal. This can result in the same symptoms being expressed but the underlying illness is not the same as in its human form. Treatments then try to cure the symptoms of the falsified illness but is not addressing nor curing the real problem.

Whatever advances have been claimed to have been made through the use of animals could have been made through other means.

Researchers cite a number of examples of which they consider the use of animals to be integral. However they do not provide any measure of how the perceived ‘successes' compare with the number of delays and disasters animal use has caused throughout history. For example:

• 85% of drugs that reach clinical trial fail to attain general distribution (which certainly questions the efficacy of animal tests).

• The development of the Polio vaccine, often cited by researchers as an example of the necessity of animal experiments, was long delayed due to misleading results from primate experiments. This was stated under oath by Dr Sabin (inventor of the polio vaccine)

• Penicillin was delayed for 50 years and blood transfusions for more than a century.

We are constantly reading news headlines that breakthroughs have been made in the cure against cancer yet today it remains one of the greatest killers in the Western world. What we don't hear are the many drugs that are recalled on a daily basis – drugs that have been “successfully” tested on animals and have later proven to be dangerous to human health.
As stated by Dr John McArdle, Animals Agenda, March 1988, “Historically, animal research has been much like a slot machine. If researchers pull the experimentation lever often enough, eventually some benefits will result by pure chance.”

This does not constitute good science.

The move away from animal use in medical research is not simply a matter of replacing such procedures with alternative non-animal methods, but rather, there is a need to re-evaluate the entire process of how we approach medical research.

Far more emphasis needs to be placed on epidemiology, clinical research and autopsies so that we can address the real disease rather than a replica in a model of another species.

There are also now revolutionary techniques already underway that do not rely on animal use and are clearly the way forward if we are to truly understand the science of human disease. For example:

Genomics – The study of nucleotide sequences, structural genes, regulatory sequences and DNA within the chromosomes of an organism.

Proteomics – Analysis of the expression, functions and interactions of proteins expressed by the genetic material.

Nanotechnology – The science of assembling materials one atom at a time by combining molecular biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, computer science and electronics. Enables scientists to see atoms they are working with and piece them together in different ways.

Pharmacogenomics – Using cell-based assays, computer modelling and innovative technology, it identifies complex patterns of gene variations and enables scientists to classify patient populations according to their own individual response to a drug.

Phage Display – A method of quickly evaluating a huge range of potentially useful antibodies and then producing large quantities of the selected ones. It is the interaction between a virus and a bacteria to produce antibodies, which can be produced in a much shorter time than traditional animal methods.

There are many reasons that animal research still occurs. Primarily it is due to the many vested interests attached to its continuation. There are many businesses that thrive from breeding lab animals with specific traits, manufacturing housing systems, and of course the pharmaceutical companies that want quick results - despite these results often providing misleading information that has led to drug recalls.

Another reason is for academic recognition. Using animals can be a quick and easy way to get scientific papers published, and of course the greater 'credibility' (through producing papers) the more chance of receiving government and public grants to continue more animal research.

Unfortunately researchers who use animals are seldom questioned about their methodology and the public are denied access to knowing what happens to animals nor how inaccurate the results can be when extrapolated to humans. They therefore continue their practices as the public (incorrectly) believes it to be a 'necessary evil' for medical progress.

By looking through medical history we see many examples of how progress has been made without the use of animals, how progress has been retarded due to animal-based research and how disasters have occurred because of it.

If animal testing was banned tomorrow, research would not cease - that is not the nature of true science. Researchers would have no choice but to look to alternatives.

Whilst researchers continue to use animals in medical research they are wasting precious resources - time and money - that should be used to find better, more ethical and scientifically-valid ways.

An article which appeared in the UK Guardian newspaper referred to a “public which doesn't necessarily understand the issues”. Such a statement exemplifies the dangerous perception that researchers are the authority who should not and cannot be questioned. This unfortunate conclusion has allowed users of animals to continue their unethical and unscientific work unabated for too long. With such work being shrouded in secrecy, the public is denied access to knowing the truth of what is actually happening and are therefore not able to make an informed judgement nor can they object accordingly.