Animal Testing Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
Caroline Voaden
Main Page: Caroline Voaden (Liberal Democrat - South Devon)Department Debates - View all Caroline Voaden's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
(1 day, 8 hours ago)
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Irene Campbell
I fully agree with everything the hon. Member said. I will go on to say more about that.
The petition refers specifically to dogs, as well as other animals that are used in testing. In 2024, 2.64 million procedures in British laboratories used animals—every minute of every day, five animals are used in research in the United Kingdom—over 16,000 experiments were carried out on specially protected species, including cats, dogs, horses and monkeys, and 1,651 dogs were used in experiments.
Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)
The hon. Member is being very generous with her time. Dogs have noticeable physiological differences from humans—different enzymes, different gastric pH—which leads to the vast majority of drugs that are tested on them failing to translate to humans. Does she agree, therefore, that the Government should commit to ending the use of dogs, specifically, in testing for human use and provide greater funding for alternatives that are coming through, such as organs on chips?
Irene Campbell
I agree wholeheartedly with everything the hon. Member said. I will speak more about organ on a chip and the need to move more quickly towards phasing out animals in research, but there is an opportunity to phase out dogs almost immediately.
It is important to note that figures released in the Home Office annual reports cover only animals protected by the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, and that individual animals can be used many times in different tests. However, the statistics count only the first time an animal is used in an experiment. The real number of experiments every year is likely much higher, as that data is not captured.
UK law, in the form of the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022, already recognises what we all know: that animals have emotions and feelings. The suffering caused to animals subjected to testing is a clear ethical problem, and the effectiveness of the experiments also calls into question the need for the obvious suffering, torture and painful death that many of them endure. Over 92% of drugs fail in human clinical trials after passing animal trials, and the failure rate increases to 99.6% for Alzheimer’s disease drugs. To quote Animal Free Research UK:
“Animals like monkeys don’t naturally develop Alzheimer’s, or live long enough to study ageing in the same way that humans experience it, so these outdated methods are simply not giving us the answers we need.”