A new publication, Responsibility in the use of animals in bioscience research, lays out the expectations of the main UK funding bodies for the use of animals in research.

The guidelines outline legal aspects of UK research involving animals, and information on how the 3Rs should be applied. It is the first time major UK funders—the NC3Rs, BBSRC, NERC, MRC and the Wellcome Trust—have collaborated in this way. Dr Vicky Robinson, chief executive of NC3Rs, comments: ‘the NC3Rs is delighted that these major funders speak with one voice on such an important issue for the scientific community.’ Further information is available from the NC3Rs website.

It can be downloaded directly by clicking here. (Adobe PDF File, 542kb)

The Independent newspaper today ran a front-page story about the success of initial results from trials of a gene therapy treatment to treat a rare form of hereditary blindness. The article pointed out that the technique had already been shown to work in animals.

But what are the implications?

Only last week the Independent ran a front-page story about the lack of hope in finding an HIV vaccine. This they said was despite many years of tests in animals—some of which showed positive results but subsequently failed in humans.

100 years ago today RDS was announced to the public. A letter in the national press on 24 April 1908 said: ‘A Society has been formed with the name of the Research Defence Society, to make known the facts as to experiments on animals in this country; the immense importance to the welfare of mankind of such experiments and the great saving of human life and health directly attributable to them.’

In 1912, RDS even had a ‘shop’ in London.

In 1908 (as we know from BBC One’s Casualty 1907) life expectancy in the UK was about 45 years, and Paul Ehrlich and Ilya Mechnikoff were about to win the Nobel Prize for research on magic bullets they called antibodies.

Key points that Lord Cromer, founding president of RDS, made in his letter 100 years ago are just as fitting today, for instance: 

‘The great advance that has been made during the last quarter of a century in our knowledge of the functions of the body, and of the cause of disease, would have been impossible without a combination of experiment and observation.’

Our centenary year also marks significant anniversaries of other medical developments related to animal research:

There has been a steady and sustained rise in openness about animal research from many of our leading research institutions in the UK.

This reflects partly the extremely effective government and police action to tackle animal rights extremism, for which we are extremely grateful. It also reflects a commitment from many more individuals in the scientific community to engage in an informed debate about animal research.

It is critical to point out that animal research is not a separate activity to the rest of biomedical research. Rather, is an integral part of the research effort to advance knowledge and ultimately develop new treatments and cures for patients. It is one of many important elements of the UK science base.

We give special mention to two major funding institutions in the UK, for their commitment and contribution to greater openness: the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council.

Almost hidden by acres of UK media coverage of the (at times hysterical) debate about hybrid human animal embryo research, I was interested to spot a small item about HIV vaccine research. It was in the Financial Times this morning, based on a Reuters report. Last month we blogged about leading scientists calling for HIV vaccine research to go back to basics, including animal research. Now, according to Reuters, the US government has acted:

The US government has announced a major overhaul of its effort to produce an AIDS vaccine, stressing a return to basic scientific research after the failure of a key clinical trial last year.

Government officials at a summit with AIDS scientists pledged to prioritise spending on lab work and animal tests rather than expensive, and thus far disappointing, large-scale vaccine trials on humans. ‘We need to turn the knob in the direction of discovery. That is unambiguous,’ said Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who convened the meeting outside of Washington.

Let’s hope, for the sake of patients, that sense will also prevail in our current scientific/political/ethical/religious/media preoccupation with hybrid embryo research.

There is every indication that the more sophisticated and nuanced debate about the future challenges of animal research, which we have been hoping for, can materialise.

Last month our new Chairman, Professor Colin Blakemore, outlined in profile in the Times Higher Education Supplement the new approach to the debate which RDS will take.

This was followed up by an article in the New Statesman online by the Director of the RDS outlining the challenges ahead.

Finally, a detailed and extensive editorial has been published (as a pdf) in Alternatives to Laboratory Animals (which is the Journal of the Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments) outlining how we see the new arguments unfolding.

With many of the animal rights extremists in jail or awaiting sentencing, now is the time to improve all aspects of the debate, and of course the science, 3Rs and animal welfare as well.

RDS is pleased to see that the National Centre for the 3Rs (NC3Rs) has posted information on its website about systematic reviews. NC3Rs is one of many organisations which could take an interest. This is because of the potential to use systematic reviews to improve experimental design, and so reduce the numbers of animals used in research, as well as achieve better (and more ethically acceptable) results.

A recognition of the need to ensure the highest quality of experimental design, statistical analysis and retrospective review of animal studies is something we believe should be embraced. There is cause for concern that we are not always getting it right. On the other hand, the good news is that this has been recognised by leading organisations like the Biosciences Federation, which has organised a series of meetings on experimental design for animal researchers.

Ultimately there is no reason why the UK could not become an established world leader in this area. We are already among the leaders in quality of biomedical science, 3Rs research, and the culture of care for laboratory animals.

Leading US scientists, including Nobel prize winner David Baltimore, primate researcher Ronald Desrosiers, and virologist Neal Nathanson, have voiced criticisms recently of the direction taken by HIV vaccine research. They say, not for the first time, that more money should be spent on basic research, rather than rushing to human trials of vaccines that do not look particularly promising. In the US, one third of the National Institutes of Health HIV/AIDS research budget goes to human trials of vaccines.

Desrosiers said the field is hampered by many unknowns, such as an understanding of which immune responses a vaccine must elicit. Baltimore added ‘HIV has found ways to totally fool the immune system, so we’ve got to do one better than nature because nature just doesn’t work in this circumstance.’

No-one would suggest that animal research holds all the answers, but animal studies are a crucial part of going back to basics – they will continue to provide vital clues about the human immune system’s response to HIV.

All this is common sense and rather gives the lie to simplistic and misleading antivivisection statements like:

The antivivisection groups have been strangely quiet about the European Commission’s response, released last week, to the Parliament’s Declaration on primate research. But perhaps it’s not so strange; no doubt the antiviv groups would prefer that such sensible and considered conclusions are buried, given that they would be very difficult to spin.

The Commission recognised that limited use of primates is imperative in particular biomedical research fields, including infectious disease such as malaria and neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s. Of course replacement should be the ultimate goal, but it is simply not possible at present.

The Commission said:

RDS has made clear its support for the concept and practice of systematic reviews. These can help inform how animal studies may be improved and interpreted for the benefit of human health.

Unfortunately, systematic reviews are not a panacea. Some of the published systematic reviews have been so highly selective that their findings had limited relevance, as discussed on a previous blog entry. In other cases animal data is too diverse to make the reviews meaningful. And for much basic research, the objective is not to predict the outcomes of human trials, but to discover new knowledge, whether relevant to humans, animals or the environment.

For these reasons, RDS unfortunately cannot support the current e-petition to the Prime Minister by the organisation known as SABRE. This petition would require, amongst other things, that each licence application includes references to systematic reviews of existing relevant studies. This is simply not practical. How can an application for a new piece of work make reference to a non-existent systematic review?

RDS will be engaging in a number of ways during 2008 in the debate about how to improve experimental design and encourage systematic reviews. It’s a shame a little more thought had not gone into the wording of what could otherwise have been a sensible proposal.

Congratulations to Dr Vicky Robinson, Chief Executive of the NC3Rs, for the carefully worded response to the announcement that the Animal Liberation Front released 129 rabbits from a breeding facility in Lincolnshire.

The NC3Rs statement expressed great concern about the release of these animals. It pointed out:

These are captive bred animals which are not prepared to cope with life in the wild or as a pet. Putting them in this situation is not in their best interests and is likely to be stressful for them, regardless of ones view on the rights and wrongs of using animals in research.

We sometimes wonder why Animal Aid even bothers. Every year they push out their so-called Mad Science Awards—to a deafening silence.

In this year’s awards, as always, the emphasis is primarily on primates and dogs. To their credit, they’ve included a few rodents this time round.

What is remarkable is how healthy all the animals look. One can ignore the usual ramblings and rantings in the text—much the same as the usual animal rights stuff. It all looks rather uninspiring.

It is always a disappointment when an attempt to find a replacement method for an animal test does not fulfil expectations. One such case has been highlighted in the newly published annual report of the Animal Procedures Committee 2006. An attempt to find an alternative to the mouse test for detecting botulism toxin in foodstuffs was unfortunately of severely limited use because of false positive results.

Without sufficient detail, it is not easy to tell if this is a minor or a major setback. But it does highlight a wider point about the nature of scientific endeavour. Very few methods of research are perfect.  The sweeping statement by antivivisectionists that ‘alternative’ methods of research are ‘superior’ to animal tests makes no scientific sense. The best test or research method can only be identified on a case-by-case basis.

Another example of a problematic non-animal method of research is the Ames test - used to determine whether chemicals cause mutations in the DNA of cells. This and other in vitro tests are now widely used as pre-screens to partially replace rodent testing for cancer-causing compounds. Unfortunately, the Ames tests is also riddled with false positives. As a result, it tends to be used as way of understanding aspects of mutagenicity and carcinogenicity rather than as replacements for the animal assays themselves.

Scientific research is rarely as straightforward as the antivivisectionists like to make out.

I recently received an email from a journalist, who despite not being routinely involved in this debate could easily see the flaws in recent antiviv claims:

"The Hadwen Trust have said that a new European Commission report puts the UK at the top of the animal research rankings. However, if you look at the notes on the bottom, you’ll see that the figure they use is not even from the Commission report!

… they said they used the UK estimate for animal research because European figures didn’t account for certain types of research. How the UK figure can therefore be used as a comparison is a bit of a mystery to me!"

See Dr Hadwen Trust website, News, New Statistics: Britain still the animal testing capital of Europe, 9th Nov 2007

Unlike the rest of Europe, the UK counts breeding of GM animals as a procedure meaning that when GM animals aren’t counted we aren’t actually in the top spot. That you have to compare like with like – just because France, for instance, doesn’t count GM animals it doesn’t mean it doesn’t have thousands running around the lab – seems to have passed the folk at DrHT by. However, ‘UK is number 2 in Europe’ doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.  It’s sad that one of the supposedly respectable antiviv groups has resorted to these tactics.

The UK collects and publishes the fullest details of animal research undertaken in the world, as well as being acknowledged by the antis as being "at the forefront of cutting edge non-animal research"(1). Add to this that DrHT’s very own Gill Langley recognises that UK animal research is a "very tiny minority of research effort"(2), and the negative comments look very silly indeed!

It would benefit animal welfare more if the DrHT had instead held these facts up as an example to other countries.

I’d actually say that it is a source of pride that the UK is the world leader in conducting top quality animal research that is carefully regulated and fully accounted for.

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(1) National Anti-Vivisection Society & Lord Dowding Fund for Humane Research (Nov 2002) Monkeys & Men
(2) Gill Langley (17th July 2001) Oral evidence to House of Lords Select Committee on Animals in Scientific Procedures

The animal rights group SPEAK, campaigning against the new Oxford University biomedical research centre, is currently exercised by lack of support from the local Green party. They wrote recently to the Green party candidate, Chris Goodall, whose reply included the following: 

‘All [members] agree that we should focus strongly on advancing the methods used for testing so that we get rid of the need for animal experimentation soon…. I do stress that some members believe that a good portion of the work to be done in the [Oxford University] Lab is ethically imperative…. The Party feels that the moral and scientific case against the Lab, or some of its experiments, is undermined by the tactics used by some protestors. At certain times, the protests have been intimidatory and frightening, both to scientists and bystanders…. In particular, we understand that Martin [sic] Broughton has refused to rule out violence in the pursuit of the closure of the Lab.’

On a more light-hearted note (perhaps the animal rights groups do have a sense of humour after all?) Wendy the Windy Cow (I kid you not) launched Animal Aid’s Vegan Month on 1 November. Wendy will be:

‘farting her way across the country, stopping in other UK cities to deliver the message that animal farming has a massive impact on global warming. As part of her tour, she will be encouraging local people to take the veggie or vegan challenge.’

So animal rights groups like to colour themselves green, but only when it suits them. In fact, in relation to safety testing of chemicals that can affect the environment, the antivivisection and green agendas are poles apart.