THE PROBLEM – STATISTICS

UK

According to the latest Home Office figures, more than 3.7 million animals were used in experiments in the UK in 2011, representing a 2% increase since 2010. This is equivalent to beginning 10,391 experiments every day and represents the highest number of animal experiments (since the introduction of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act in 1986) in Great Britain. This is despite the Government’s commitment to reduce the number of experiments.

Animals used included:

2,663,441 mice, 264,135 rats, 11,844 rabbits, 2,865 dogs, 333 horses, 153 cats, 1,459 primates

• The number of experiments conducted for toxicological tests where there are valid alternatives available has increased since 2010, including: eye irritation (+35%) and skin irritation (+58%) tests on live rabbits. Not enough is being done to reduce these experiments.
• The number of experiments using Genetically Modified (GM) animals has increased by 3% since 2010. Research involving GM animals imposes a heavy welfare burden on them. Few animals show ‘desired’ characteristics, and are killed before any research can take place, while others can suffer from the severe malformations caused by the genetic modification techniques themselves.
• A growing proportion of the research (35%) is fundamental biological research – much of it driven by the curiosity of university researchers. Only 13% of tests were actually testing new human medicines.

Source: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/other-science-research/spanimals11/

Europe

The statistics for Europe are only published every three years. The latest figures show that in 2008, just over 12 million animals were used, a small decrease from 12.1 million in 2005. France, the UK and Germany were the highest users of animals. The numbers reported to the European Union (EU) are lower than national figures because they currently do not have to report certain types of animals such as genetically modified (GM) animals.

• The 27 countries in the EU reported that they used 21,315 dogs, over 330,000 rabbits, over 9,500,000 rodents, over 750,000 birds and 9,569 old and new world monkeys and prosimians.
• 56% of old world monkeys come from non-EU countries, e.g. Asian countries (a decrease of 17% from 2005).
• 319,117 animals were used in acute lethal toxicity tests that can result in death, like the Lethal Dose 50 (LD50). 354 of these were dogs.

Source: European Commission (2010) The Sixth Report provides an overview on the number of animals used in the EU in 2008 for experimental and other scientific purposes.

Worldwide

Research by the BUAV and the Dr Hadwen Trust suggests between 82 and 154 million vertebrate animals (115 million on average) may be used worldwide each year. 79% of countries do not appear to publish the number of animals they use. Based on our results, and controlling for the same uses and types of animals we estimate that the top 10 countries are United States, Japan, China, Australia, France, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Taiwan and Brazil.

Source: Taylor, K et al. 2008. Estimates of worldwide laboratory animal use in 2005. Alternatives to Laboratory Animals 36, 327–342. 

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