ANIMAL EXPERIMENTS

Early day motion 2088, tabled 3 May 2006 by David Taylor (Labour). Signed by 48 members.

That this House notes with deep disappointment that 2.85 million experiments were performed on animals in the UK in 2004; is extremely concerned that animal experiments have risen in the UK for the past three years, reaching their highest level for over a decade; further notes that the recent TGN1412 drug trial has highlighted the problem of relying upon animal test data; supports the development of new technology such as accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), which allows the accurate analysis of micro-doses of experimental drugs; acknowledges that such a system can replace the use of animals, thus avoiding the problem of species differences, representing a safer method of testing experimental drugs for human volunteers; regrets that the UK has only one AMS facility, whilst countries such as Japan have several; supports the campaign led by the National Anti-Vivisection Society and Lord Dowding Fund for Humane Research (LDF) for the replacement of animals in research; congratulates the LDF for funding over £2 million in medical research since 1973; condemns the small minority of violent extremists as unrepresentative of people opposed to animal experiments but supportive of modern medical research; and calls on the Government to increase funding to techniques to replace animal experiments through the NC3Rs centre.

Signatures by party: Labour 32, Liberal Democrat 13, Conservative 2, Scottish National Party 1.