Last year, the European Commission published a report on the results of legislation aimed at protecting animals used in scientific research. The main goal of this directive from 2013 was to reduce the suffering animals are exposed to…
Statistics collected by the European Commission indicate that the number of animals used in research is declining. This is the first report since the introduction of stricter rules on the use of animals for research purposes seven years ago. According to the obtained data, 9.39 million animals were used for scientific purposes in 2017, which is less than in 2015, when the number was 9.59 million. Although in 2016 the number of animals in experiments was higher than a year earlier, as many as 9.82 million, the report speaks of a positive trend of reducing the use of animals in research.
In the last year for which there are data (2017), animals were used in basic research in 45 percent of cases, while in applied research they were represented in about 23 percent. Almost a quarter of the animals, also 23 percent, were involved in testing drugs and other chemicals, and the rest were used in the study of new types of vaccines, research into learning processes or forensic examinations.
More than 60 percent of all animals used for research in 2017 were mice, 12 percent rats, 13 percent fish, while the share of birds in experiments was 6 percent. Dogs, cats and non-human primates accounted for 0.3 percent of the total.
The law stipulates high standards when it comes to housing and care of animals, as well as testing methods that imply the least degree of pain and minimal use of animals.
Member countries were expected to send detailed data on animal experiments.
“This is the most comprehensive and precise approach to collecting and publishing data on experimental animals,”
emphasizes Stefan Troje from the German Primate Research Center in Göttingen.
He suggests it’s a model other countries should follow, though he notes the complex reporting requirements are a huge administrative burden for scientists and their organizations.
In addition to information on the number and types of animals used in scientific research, member states are now required to state how many times an animal has been used as a guinea pig, for what purpose, and how “cruel” the experimental procedure to which the animal was subjected was. The spokesperson of the European Commission believes that such detailed data “enables us to locate far more efficiently where resources should be directed in order to reduce the number of animals exposed to suffering”.
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