End All UK Animal Testing And Importation of Animal-Tested Products By 2025
End All UK Animal Testing And Importation of Animal-Tested Products By 2025
Why this petition matters
We demand that the British Government urgently phases out all animal testing and importation of animal-tested products by 2025.
Currently over 2.5 million tests are carried out on innocent animals every year in the UK [1]. Yet, as reported in a parliamentary debate this February, 90% are ultimately useless [2].
These tests, carried out on animals like mice and beagles, often result in vomiting, internal bleeding, organ damage and seizures; the tests can last for months, after which the animals are killed.
A 2015 article published in the "Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics" reported evidence that suggests that the collective harms and costs to humans from animal experimentation outweigh potential benefits and that resources would be better invested in developing human-based testing methods [3].
Even worse, supposed "wonder drugs" including including TGN1412 (a potential cancer treatment) passed testing on animals but caused severe harm to humans [4].
All whilst British taxpayer money is paying to protect sites like MBR Acres [5].
There are completely viable alternatives, that do not require animals [6].
- Cell Culture – in vitro methods that use and grow human cells and tissue within a laboratory setting, which might include tissue donated by patients, lab-cultured tissue, or stem cells. Scientists can now create three-dimensional ‘mini-organs’ known as organoids and mini devices to mimic whole organs known as organ-on-a-chip.
Organ-on-a-chip – a type of in vitro technique that can use a range of human cells in small microfluidic chips to enable the study of a whole organ, or to study a whole system or in theory, an organism, by using many chips together. These systems can replicate the flow and diffusion of nutrients, waste products and drug metabolites, to give more detailed and realistic models of a human response.
In silico – methods that use computers, mathematical models and simulations to predict, for example, human responses to a compound, or to model the progression of disease and treatments within the human population.
In a recent parliamentary debate Rachael Maskell, Labour/ Co-op MP for York Central, stated "the investment and focus on non-animal testing practices through the UK road map means that sophisticated science can steer us away from animal experimentation", so we do not have to continue on the path that we have journeyed on to date. We need to pivot to the new world of science that is developing at such a rapid pace."
Animal testing must come to an end. It is better for us and nonhuman animals, who will only ever experience pain and suffering in laboratories.
[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4594046/
[6] https://frame.org.uk/the-issue/alternatives-to-animals/
