Minutes of the meeting held on 11 March 2004
Mon, 24 May 2004
RIA (04) 7th 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 Thursday 11 March 2004
PRESENT
Baroness Perry of Southwark (Chair)
Professor Kenneth Boyd
Professor Allan Bradley FRS
Professor Steve Brown
Professor Grahame Bulfield CBE
Professor Robert Combes
Professor Maggy Jennings
Professor Barry Keverne FRS
Professor Ian McConnell
Dr Timothy Morris
Professor Martin Raff FRS
Mr Nick Ross
Ms Michelle Thew
APOLOGIES
Dr Judy MacArthur Clark, Dr Mark Matfield, Dr Lewis Smith, Professor John Spencer, Professor Jonathan Wolff
SECRETARIAT
Dr Sandy Thomas, Dr Catherine Moody, Mr Harald Schmidt, Ms Nicola Perrin, Ms Caroline Rogers, Mr Mun-Keat Looi
INTRODUCTION BY THE CHAIR
1 The Chair welcomed the members of the Working Party and outlined the schedule for the meeting. In the morning, a fact finding meeting with representatives of organisations disputing the transferability of research data from animals to humans would be held. The final draft list of peer reviewers and the commentaries on the commissioned evidence review on animals’ capacity of experiencing pain would also be considered. For the main part of the meeting, the discussion would focus on the revised draft Report.
MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING
2 Members approved the minutes of the Working Party’s 5th and 6th meeting (approval of the minutes of the 5th meeting had been deferred at the last meeting).
MATTERS ARISING
3 Members discussed possible future fact finding meetings which would allow familiarisation with research on primates. It was reported that it would not be possible to see animals involved in research at one of the facilities which had been contacted. However, this would be possible at another laboratory and it was agreed to explore dates for visits at both facilities. Members would also be informed if opportunities for further visits arose from the request submitted to the Home Office.
4 There was some discussion about the possibility of publishing the responses to the consultation on the Council’s website and it was agreed to make a recommendation to the Council that the responses available via its website in due course.
PEER REVIEW
5 Members of the Working Party were invited to consider the final draft list of peer reviewers produced by the Secretariat on the basis of preferences indicated by members via email. After some discussion a final list of reviewers for submission to the Council was agreed.
EVIDENCE REVIEWS
6 Commentaries by Professor Marc Bekoff and Professor Colin Allen on the evidence review commissioned by the Working Party on the capacity of animals to experience pain, harm or distress had been received and circulated with the meeting papers. The reviews made important points with regard to consciousness in animals which would be incorporated in the next revisions of the relevant chapters.
FACT FINDING MEETING
7 A brief note of the fact finding meeting is at Annex A.
DRAFT REPORT
8 The Chair invited views on the revised draft Report. Members discussed structural revisions concerning the order of specific chapters and the position of conclusions and recommendations.
9 Several parts of the Report were then discussed in more detail. It was agreed that the Chapter on the historical context should be expanded to include a description of the current atmosphere in which animal research took place, addressing the importance of openness and transparency, as well as issues arising in relation to terrorism. The chapter outlining the ethical positions on animal research had been revised substantially in light of the discussion at the previous meeting and would be modified further in light of comments which had been submitted for the meeting.
10 The initial draft Chapter concerning the capacity of animals to experience pain, suffering and distress took into consideration the findings of the evidence review commissioned from Professor David Morton. It was agreed the chapter should be developed much further, addressing in particular the issue of neuro-anatomical similarities and differences between humans and animals. However, this discussion should make clear that differences in moral status did not follow automatically from differences in brain architecture.
11 With regard to the chapters concerning the description of scientific research in which animals were involved it was agreed that it would be useful to consider not only GM animals as disease models but also the use of ‘normal’ animals fur such purposes, especially with regard to transmissable spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) and vaccination studies. The chapter should also address the issue of the predictability and reliability of transferring data from animals to humans. Similarly, this issue should be included in the other chapters describing scientific research (GM disease models, pharmaceutical research, toxicology).
12 The chapter concerning alternatives currently focussed on alternatives to replacement. It was observed that it would also be important to address the other ‘2Rs’. Additional drafting would be included in the next revision of the Report. A section on international differences in the regulation of research on animals had been added. It was agreed that this chapter should remain descriptive in nature, and that the main discussion of how the A(SP)Act worked in practice should be located in the chapter on policy implications. However, it could be useful to include frequently made criticisms of the workings of the Act in a box.. The chapter should also include a discussion of those regulations which currently require the use of animals in, for example, toxicology testing. The chapter relating to the Discussion of ethical issues existed only in the form of an outline. A more detailed outline was agreed and it was noted that it would be useful if the chapter began by identifying common ground, which should be followed by a discussion of areas on which there were different views.
Annex A
FACT FINDING MEETING WITH REPRESENTATIVES OF GROUPS SCEPTICAL ABOUT THE TRANSFERABILITY OF DATA GAINED IN ANIMAL EXPERIMENATION TO HUMANS
1 The Chair welcomed Dr Ray Greek, President, Americans For Medical Advancement (AFMA), Medical Director, Europeans For Medical Advancement (EFMA), and Ms Kathy Archibald, Director, EFMA, and invited the guests to provide a brief introduction to the issues which they would like to bring the attention of the Working Party.
2 Dr Greek emphasised that it was crucial to question common assumptions about transferability of data gained from research on animals to humans. He acknowledged that the study of animal organisms could be useful for the understanding of basic physiological processes, as well as for learning about anatomical functions of, for example, ligaments or tendons. However, a very different situation prevailed when animals were used for the study of human diseases such as cancer or HIV/AIDS. The diseases were expressed in animals in incomparable ways, and hence it was unhelpful to attempt to infer from observations of disease processes in the animal body to the human body. Similar problems prevailed with regard to genetic research in animals and humans, where it was important to understand the complexity of the expression of disease.
3 Dr Greek also agued that the poor predictability of animal experimentation was obvious from the fact that a great number of medicines which had been tested on animals had to be withdrawn from the market because of adverse reactions in patients. In the majority of cases, prediction had failed. The consequences of this failure often were that people died. It was therefore crucial to abandon such research. Dr Greek argued that the main reason why animal research was conducted was to protect the financial interests of large pharmaceutical companies and their shareholders. Regulatory requirements had the primary purpose of establishing a legal framework which would limit liability of the pharmaceutical industry. Ms Archibald noted that a recent article appearing in the BMJ by Pound et al. had also provided evidence which questioned the usefulness of animal experimentation.
4 Members of the Working Party then discussed in more detail a number of the issues raised by Dr Greek, relating more specifically to the options available if animal research was to be abandoned categorically. These included the role of regulatory authorities; the question of how it could be explained that in some areas such as anatomical studies there was clear evidence of successful transferability, whereas in others this was disputed; the necessity of a thorough meta-analysis of animal experiments undertaken so far.
Last Updated Mon, 7 June 2004