Dogs being flown to Charles River Labs, Edinburgh to be experimented on and killed

Over half a million animals suffer and die every year in experiments all over Scotland ... and you're paying for most of them

Despite what all the animal experimenters tell you - animal experimentation does NOT save the lives or the health of humans.

Scotland's a major player in the vivisection industry with animals abused in universities in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen, and private research centres such as Organon near Glasgow and Charles River Laboratories in Edinburgh. There are numerous smaller testing sites around the country. Scotland has more experiments pro rata than the rest of the UK.

68% of all experiments are conducted without any anaesthetic.

Huge Government grants and subsidies provided by charities such as the British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research UK are funding brutality towards animals right now. But an increasing number of doctors, medical professionals and scientists are speaking out against vivisection saying it's hampering the discovery of treatments and cures and is encouraged by drug firms in order to protect profits not lives.

When contacted by Scotland for Animals in an appeal for action on this situation all but one MSP who replied stated their full support for the use of animals in experiments.

Here are just a few facts about vivisection:-

92% of new drugs successful in animal studies go on to fail in clinical trials (1)

82% of doctors in an independent survey in 2004 were "concerned that animal data can be misleading when applied to humans" and   83% would "support an independent scientific evaluation of the clinical relevance of animal experimentation." (2)

 Despite claims that it is essential no evaluation has been carried out regarding the efficacy or effectiveness of animal experiments (3)

 Many studies have shown that animals predict correctly for humans less than 50% of the time: worse than tossing a coin (4)

 More than 10,000 people are killed every year in the UK by side effects of prescription medicines (5)

Despite decades of experiments, millions of dead animals and billions of pound poured into researchers bank accounts people are still suffering and dying from disease and illness Scotland still has some of the worst rates of cancer, heart disease and stroke on earth.

Some researchers support the use of animals through an institutional unwillingness to change and sometimes downright laziness, more often it's because it's easier to obtain funding by using animals as when it boils down the vivisection industry is all about hard cash.

In a letter to Scotland for Animals one of Scotland's top scientists has tried to justify his own use of animals in experimenation by claiming if anybody uses non-animal methods "you need to talk to lawyers who will sue if a treatment has a side effect that could possibly have been predicted from animal studies". The use of the word "possibly" here is also interesting.

Scotland could be a world leader in non-animal research benefitting our nations health, creating jobs and also preventing the suffering and death of millions of animals. For information on real research from Scientists and medical professionals go to www.safermedicines.org

It's time for change.

*References

 (1) Lester Crawford, FDA Commissioner, in The Scientist 6.8.04 "More compounds failing Phase I"  /    US Food and Drug Administration (2004) Innovation or Stagnation, Challenge and Opportunity on the Critical Path to New Medical Products.


(2) Survey conducted by TNS Healthcare; see www.curedisease.net/news/040903.shtml


(3) "Government has not commissioned or evaluated any formal research on the efficacy of animal experiments and has no plans to do so." Home Office Minister Caroline Flint, 2004.

"the reliability and relevance of all existing animal tests should be reviewed as a matter of urgency." Toxicology Working Group of the House of Lords Select Committee on Animals in Scientific Procedures, 2002.


(4) GAO/PEMD-90-15 FDA Drug Review: Postapproval Risks 1976-1985.


(5) Pirmohamed, M. British Medical Journal 2004;329:15-19.

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