Minutes of the meeting held on 19 November 2004
Mon, 7 February 2005
RIA 11th meeting
NUFFIELD COUNCIL ON BIOETHICS
WORKING PARTY ON THE ETHICS OF RESEARCH INVOLVING ANIMALS
Minutes of the meeting held at the Nuffield Foundation
28 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3JS
on Friday 19 November 2004
PRESENT:
Baroness Perry of Southwark (Chair)
Professor Allan Bradley FRS
Professor Steve Brown
Professor Kenneth Boyd
Professor Grahame Bulfield CBE
Professor Maggy Jennings
Professor Barry Keverne FRS
Dr Judy MacArthur Clark CBE
Dr Timothy Morris
Mr Nick Ross
Dr Lewis Smith
Ms Michelle Thew
Professor Jonathan Wolff
APOLOGIES:
Professor Robert Combes, Professor Ian McConnell, Dr Mark Matfield, Professor John Spencer, Professor Martin Raff FRS
SECRETARIAT:
Dr Sandy Thomas, Dr Catherine Moody, Mr Harald Schmidt, Ms Caroline Rogers, Mrs Elaine Talaat-Abdalla
INTRODUCTION BY THE CHAIR
1 The Chair welcomed the members of the Working Party and outlined the schedule for the meeting. In the morning, some procedural issues and the consensus statement would be discussed. Chapter 13 and 14 would be considered in more detail in the afternoon.
MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING
2 The minutes of the 10th meeting were approved.
MATTERS ARISING
3 Members considered issues in relation to the handling of draft versions of the Report and the Chair reminded members of their responsibility in keeping strictly to the agreed standards of confidentiality.
4 Members also considered the possibility of arranging a fact finding meeting at the CRO Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS). It was agreed that this would be useful. Members could familiarise themselves with the work of the company, possibly see procedures that were classified as ‘substantial’, and discuss specific issues arising from the activities of protests by organisation such as SHAC.
5 It was agreed that the note of a fact finding meeting at the Institute of Neurology in Appendix 3 would be reviewed again before circulation to Professor Lemon. Ms Michelle Thew would contribute comments in this respect. It was also suggested that a cross-reference to the Appendix be added in Chapter 14.
Procedural issues
6 The Secretariat would make final editorial revisions to the draft Report over the Christmas period, and the Working Party would receive the revised version to be considered by the Council in mid-January. It was confirmed again that there was no intention of producing a majority and a minority Report.
7 It was also reported that the Secretariat had asked Professor David Morton, who had already contributed an evidence review on the capacity of animals to experience pain, suffering and distress, for assistance in expanding the description of welfare implications of research in the science chapters (Chapters 5-9). Professor Morton had kindly agreed in principle to contribute drafting in this area. The Secretariat had also liaised with Dr Jane Smith, Secretary to the Boyd Group and drafter of the APC’s cost-benefit Report, for assistance with the discussion about transferability and predictability in the summary of the science chapters. The Working Party approved both invitations.
DRAFT REPORT
RIA 04 (15)
8 Members considered again the discussion about the value of opinion polls in relation to informing ethical debate. It was agreed important to know about the views of the public on animal research, not least to formulate policy which was widely supported. However, it was also agreed that due to methodological limitations, opinion polls may not always be the most appropriate tool to produce this information. The drafting would be reviewed again to ascertain that it was sufficiently balanced.
9 It was agreed that the discussion about the function and purpose of ‘undercover investigations’ or ‘infiltrations’ of research laboratories should be reviewed and that further examples of such activities should be added (for example Cambridge University, the MRC, and GSK (SKB)).
Consensus statement
10 The Chair thanked members for their contributions by email which led to the most recent version of the consensus statement. Member then revised the draft and agreed a final version by reviewing the text as presented via the data projector. No further major revisions would be made to this version, although those members who had to send their apologies for the meeting would be allowed to submit further comments, which would be considered in light of the discussion at the meeting.
11 It was agreed that the rest of meeting would be devoted to Chapter 14. Members were invited to contribute comments on Chapter 13 by email and further discussion could take place at the meeting on 20 December.
12 With regard to the discussion about terrorism it was agreed to include paragraphs 3-9, instead of paragraph 14.39, of the tabled paper 1 which had been contributed by Nick Ross. The revision should also make reference to a commonly made argument by those engaging in terrorist action who perceived the saving of the life of an animal now (at a given moment) as more important than initiatives aimed at changes in policy in the shorter or longer term.
13 In paragraph 14.26 the reference to the provision of information about the numbers of pests killed etc should be deleted, since the purpose of making available these data was not clear, and the Home Office was not in a position to gather it.
14 With regard to the discussion about severity banding in paragraph 12.24 it was noted that the RSPCA was in the process of completing a comprehensive Report which considered the many different aspects of the matter. It would be naďve to assume that a meaningful treatment of could be achieved in the space available in the Working Party’ Report. It was agreed that a more useful strategy for this topic as well as in others in Chapter 14 would be to make more general observations and to acknowledge that other bodies were better suited to consider the respective matters in depth.
ANY OTHER BUSINESS
15 It was agreed to extend the meeting on 20 December to 5.30pm (instead of 3.30pm).
Last Updated Mon, 7 February 2005