I commented before on the failure of BUAV to get its sums right, here and here.

Under its new leader, things at BUAV seem to have got even worse: I spotted the following howler in the weekend newspapers:

‘200 million animals are used in research and testing worldwide for consumer goods every year,’ according to Michelle Thew of BUAV.

Now, I assume that by consumer goods Ms Thew means non-medical products – this is the theme of the article. In the UK, safety testing of such products accounts for just 4% of all animal procedures, or 120,000 a year (most animals are used in biomedical research, not safety testing). Worldwide estimates for all animal procedures aren’t too reliable, but we have calculated that they are unlikely to add up to more than 50 million a year. Assuming that, like in the UK, 4% of these are for the safety testing of non-medical products ... we get a total of 2 million worldwide.

If they really want to ‘engage in true debate’, BUAV should start by getting its facts straight. But on past performance I doubt we will see it correcting this error any time soon.