Ethics of Research involving animals
Appendix 2: Statistics - Research involving animals in the UK, EU, USA and Japan
Research involving animals
UK – Home Office Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals, Great Britain
The Home Office publishes detailed annual statistics on the numbers, species and purposes of all animals used in scientific procedures in Great Britain. However, for reasons related to the licensing process, the statistics focus on details about the gross number of animals used for the first time in that year, and about the number of series of procedures begun in that year. Animals used in more than one series of procedures are only counted once (see paragraph 13.27). Furthermore, as explained in Chapter 13, the statistics also do not give any information about the actual degree of pain and suffering which animals involved in procedures experience (Box 13.3). The data summarised below relate to the statistics for 2003.1
Species of animal used in research
Figure 1: Species of animal used in research
Research Using Animals Table
Purposes of research
Figure 2: Primary purpose of research
The different types of research are explained in the Statistics as follows:
Fundamental biological research: research carried out with the primary intention of increasing knowledge of the structure, function and malfunction of humans and other animals, or plants. Such studies may be aimed solely at an increase in knowledge, application of that knowledge being beyond the scope of the investigation, or with a view to providing a practical solution to a medical or veterinary problem once the issues are more clearly defined and understood. This category includes physiological, pathological, pharmacological, genetic and biochemical studies, including toxicological evaluation.
Applied studies – human medicine or dentistry, and veterinary medicine: this category comprises research into, development of, and quality control of products or devices, including toxicological evaluation and safety or efficacy testing.
Protection of humans, animals or the environment: studies with the purpose of toxicological or other safety or environmental evaluation. This includes toxicological work that is not related either to fundamental research or to the solution of medical and veterinary problems. It also includes some non-toxicological procedures.
Breeding: a category for recording the production and breeding of animals with harmful genetic defects, and GM animals. The numbers recorded in this category include those animals which are identified as possessing a harmful mutation or are genetically modified, but are not used subsequently on procedures recorded elsewhere. The numbers recorded also include some animals which were subjected to regulated procedures such as tissue sampling or hormonal administration for the purpose of regulated breeding programmes.
Other
- Education and training: includes procedures carried out under project licences for the purposes of education or training under the A(SP)A. They also include killing of animals by methods not included in Schedule 1 to the A(SP)A, if the killing takes place for educational purposes at a designated establishment. Such killing may be authorised to provide, for example, tissues subsequently used for education or training. The use of animals for the acquisition of manual skills is currently permitted only for training in microvascular surgery, and at present this is always carried out under general anaesthesia, without recovery.
- Forensic enquiries: refers to animal use in human or veterinary enquiries relevant to potential legal proceedings.
- Direct diagnosis: investigation of disease including investigating suspected poisoning. Procedures may be carried out for the purpose of diagnosing disease in an individual human or animal patient or a group of such patients. There is no research function; these are essentially applied studies, predominantly involving the production of biological reagents, for example antibodies and clotting factors.
Toxicological procedures
- Procedures for toxicological purposes accounted for 16% of all procedures started in 2003.
- Some of these procedures are included in the categories Fundamental biological research and Applied studies: human medicine or dentistry, and veterinary medicine. Others are included under Protection (see Figure 2).
Figure 3: Number of lincences by severity banding
One of four levels of severity is assigned to project licenses, based on protocols that are:
Mild: procedures that give rise to slight or transitory minor adverse effects, including taking infrequent blood or tissue samples from an animal, conducting skin-irritation tests with substances that are expected to be non-irritant or mildly irritant.
Moderate: procedures such as injecting substances to produce antibodies, toxicity tests that do not involve lethal end points, and the implantation of a microtransmitter to monitor blood pressure. In general, researchers must ensure that pain is minimised, and animals must be given pain relief. Animals that undergo surgery are given anaesthetics.
Substantial: procedures including major surgery, toxicity testing leading to significant morbidity or death and the use of some animals as disease models.
Unclassified: protocols in which animals are anaesthetised before a procedure starts and are killed without recovering consciousness.
GM animals
- In 2003 there were 764,000 procedures involving GM animals.
- More than a quarter of all procedures in 2003 involved GM animals.
- Ninety-seven percent of these procedures involved mice, 2% fish, 0.3% rats, 0.2% amphibians, 0.03% sheep and 0.03% domestic fowl.
Figure 4: Use of GM animals in research
Footnotes
1 Home Office (2004) Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals Great Britain 2003 (London: HMSO).