Is the antivivisection group Europeans for Medical Progress (see for instance this previous blog entry) moderating its message, or just using sloppy language?
In a letter this week to New Scientist, Margaret Clotworthy from EMP says:
‘Europeans for Medical Progress would like to see a comparison between animal tests for drug safety with a panel of state-of-the-art techniques based on human biology. In the UK, 250 members of parliament and 83% of general practitioners support this idea.’
Actually (in EDM 92) 250 MPs supported
‘an independent and transparent scientific evaluation of the use of animals as surrogate humans in drug safety testing and medical research.’
This is a much bigger ask. Comparison of animal safety tests for medicines with new non-animal techniques is already done: it’s called validation. See for instance the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods.
Even more sloppy is the claim that animal research is causing ‘so much grief’ to ‘the majority of the public’. This is all the more surprising as EMP appears so keen on ‘independent evaluation’. Proper public opinion surveys have repeatedly shown that the majority of the public are supportive of animal research. About three quarters can accept animal experimentation so long as it’s for medical purposes or if there is no unnecessary suffering for the animals.
Of course everyone cares about animals (it was an article about the care shown by animal technicians that prompted Clotworthy’s letter) but this doesn’t sound like a lot of grief to me.
