Ethics of Research involving animals
International
Europe
Under European Council Directive 86/609/EEC on the approximation of laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States regarding the protection of animals used for experimental and other scientific purposes, EU Member States are ‘required to collect, and as far as possible periodically make publicly available, the statistical information on the use of animals in experiments’.
The European Commission has produced four reports for the Council and the European Parliament on the number of animals used for experimental and other scientific purposes in Member States of the EU. The reports are published approximately every five years and the last report was published in 2005 concerning data from 2002. The data summarised below relates to the statistics of 2002.2
- The total number of animals used for experiments in the EU was 10.7 million.
- Rodents and rabbits amounted to 78 percent of the total animals used in the EU; 15 percent of animals used were fish and other cold-blooded animals. The proportion of primates was 0.1% of all animals used.
- Animals used for toxicological and other safety evaluation represented 10% of the total number of animals used for experimental purposes.
Figure 5: Animals used in research in the EU in 2002
Figure 6: Research using animals conducted in EU in 2002
USA
Three bodies oversee the welfare of research animals in the USA: the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the Association for the Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC).
The USDA has in the past produced an annual report on the enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act. This includes statistics on the number of animals used in research. The most recent report was published in 2003 for the fiscal year of 2002. As this report relates specifically to the US Animal Welfare Act, birds, rats and mice bred for use in research are excluded.3 The data summarised below relate to the statistics of the fiscal year of 2002 (October 2001–September 2002).4
- Approximately 1.1 million animals were used for research in US federal and industrial research laboratories.
Figure 7: Animals used for research in the USA
Japan
There are no official statistics for the use of animals in scientific procedures in Japan. A voluntary survey is conducted every four or five years by the Japanese Association for Laboratory Animal Science (JALAS):
- The most recent survey covered April 2001–March 2002 for which 889 researchers of universities, institutes, testing laboratories and companies were polled (response rate 57%).
- These figures total approximately 4.7 million animals.
- Almost 2 million of these were GM animals, 99% of which were mice.
Figure 8: Animals used in scientific procedures in Japan
- A separate survey conducted by the Japanese Association for Laboratory Animals in National Universities (JALAN) estimated that approximately 1.28 million animals were used in experiments by medical education and research institutes in 1999.7
Footnotes
2 Statistics for 14 member states concerning 2002. Please note that France submitted statistics for 2001. European Commission
(2005) Fourth Report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the Statistics on the number of animals used for experimental and other scientific purposes in the member states of the European Union, available at:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/chemicals/lab_animals/pdf/com_2005_7_en.pdf. Accessed on 5 Apr 2005.
3 Birds, rats of the genus Rattus and mice of the genus Mus, bred for use in research are not included in the term ‘animal’ under the Animal Welfare Act. This is based on practical difficulties, rather than philosophical objections. Federal Register (2004) Rules and Regulations Vol. 69, No. 108 4 Jun; House of Lords Select Committee on Animals in Scientific Procedures (2002) Volume 1 – Report (London: TSO).
4 USDA (2003) Annual Report of Enforcement for the Fiscal Year 2002 (Riverdale, MD: USDA), available at:
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ac/2002ar/ar2002.pdf. Accessed on: 13 Jan 2005.
5 Federal Register (2004) Rules and Regulations Vol. 69, No. 108 4 Jun; House of Lords Select Committee on Animals in Scientific
Procedures (2002) Volume 1 – Report (London: TSO).
6 Committee for Laboratory Animal Care and Use (2003) The number of live animals used in experiments in 2001 – results of a survey Exp Anim 52: 143.
7 Ninomiya H and Inomata T (1998) Current uses of laboratory animals in Japan and alternative methods in research, testing and education App Anim Behav Sci 59: 219–25; Matsuda Y (2004) Recent trends in the number of laboratory animals used in Japan ATLA 32, Supplement 1: 299–301.