ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´

Protest against the use of animals in British research has continued
for more than a century. The 1980s will probably be remembered as the decade
when the defence of laboratory animals really began to make headlines around
the world. By the mid-1980s, British politicians were no longer able to
ignore this controversial subject, and parliament finally passed long-overdue
legislation, the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act of 1986.

In promoting the 1986 act, the then Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd, gave
assurances that ‘it will be seen to provide for a rigorous and effective
system of control over experiments on living animals’. He felt sure that
the ‘confidence of the many groups which support this legislation during
its passage will be fully vindicated’.

My organisation, the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Vivisection
– since renamed Advocates for Animals – supported the act. Some other animal
protection groups condemned us for backing what they called ‘a vivisector’s
charter’. Our support was based on trust that those charged with its enforcement
would carry out their duties responsibly and that individual scientists
would respect the law and the animals they used. It is with regret that
we now find ourselves somewhat disillusioned. Undercover investigations
carried out by animal protection groups have repeatedly drawn public attention
to the failure of the act to prevent abuse of the system. The most famous
to date is the case of Wilhelm Feldberg, CBE, FRS, and his assistant, John
Stean, at the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), Mill Hill,
London. From December 1989 to April 1990, a member of the Animal Cruelty
Investigation Group gathered 40 hours of compromising video and audio tape
evidence and hundreds of colour and black and white photographs see (New
ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´), This Week, 9 June 1990.

The material was made available to Advocates for Animals, which then
submitted it to the Home Secretary. It revealed inadequately anaesthetised
animals under experiment, poor performance of techniques, bad science, and
anaesthetised animals being left unattended. As a result, the two scientists
had their licences revoked and the Medical Research Council (MRC) established
an inquiry, which confirmed the allegations.

The Home Secretary should never have authorised Feldberg’s research
project in the first place. But it is even more difficult to understand
why Home Office inspectors allowed it to continue. From my own experience
one had only to be in the professor’s laboratory for a few minutes to realise
that he was no longer competent to carry out experiments on living animals.
Home Office inspectors visited the NIMR 28 times between the beginning of
1988 and 3 May 1990. While not all of these visits would have involved meeting
Feldberg, many certainly did. It seems incredible that, in the face of Feldberg’s
obvious difficulties, the inspectors did not immediately halt his work.
Instead, they chose to discuss with him various modifications to his research
project, suggesting that he use rabbits instead of cats, and employ ‘terminal
anaesthesia’, to ensure that animals do not regain consciousness.

The MRC’s inquiry ruled that the director of the NIMR and the veterinary
surgeon failed in their statutory duties under the 1986 act. It seems to
me that the MRC is also at fault: it should not have continued to finance
Feldberg’s research. It is also worrying that none of the professor’s colleagues
or friends within the NIMR saw fit to intervene.

So the animal protection movement has seen the very foundation on which
the 1986 act was built, namely trust in individual scientists and those
charged with its enforcement, seriously damaged. To add insult to injury,
it seems that no one within the NIMR or the Home Office has been severely
reprimanded over this matter, nor is any prosecution being pursued. It is
worth recalling the warning sounded by the old Advisory Committee on Animal
Experiments and subsequently endorsed by the Animal Procedures Committee,
set up by the 1986 act: ‘We are concerned that the new legislation will
fail to command the respect it deserves, unless there is a willingness to
bring its full force to bear when the circumstances warrant it.’

WATCHDOG OR LAPDOG?

The independence of the Animal Procedures Committee has also come into
question over the Feldberg investigation. Its 1990 report discusses the
case in detail and comments on the roles of all the parties with statutory
responsibilities under the 1986 act. Yet the role of the Home Office and
its inspectorate isignored. We are told that the committee is an independent
statutory body which is ‘not a creature of the Secretary of State’. But
by making no comment whatsoever, the committee has sent confused and worrying
signals to those concerned with the protection of animals within laboratories.

Similarly, there are worrying signs that the Home Office is less than
impartial. In November 1991, Advocates for Animals sent to the then Home
Secretary, Kenneth Baker, the first part of its report on the use of nonhuman
primates in research. The document described projects that, we claimed,
should never have been approved by the Home Office.

In a detailed response dated 3 February 1992, the Home Office expressed
satisfaction that the strict controls on the use of monkeys in research
had been properly enforced. But the letter contained sentences and even
paragraphs that were identical to the wording of the response we received
in January from the Research Defence Society, which campaigns in support
of animal experiments. The extent of these similarities make a mere coincidence
highly unlikely.

During the passage of the 1986 act we were assured by a Home Office
minister that there would be no ‘question of a cosy relationship’ in the
administration of the new legislation. In the light of the Home Office and
Research Defence Society responses, serious questions need to be answered
by the Home Secretary.

Given these developments, it is not surprising that the passing of the
1986 act has failed to take the heat out of the debate over the use of animals
in research. The war of words to win the hearts and minds of the public
is at an all-time high, with new combatants entering ‘the trenches’ at
intervals. A few years ago, the president of the Royal College of General
Practitioners and four past presidents informed GPs that it is their duty
to promote the use of animals for medical research to patients by displaying
literature and posters in their waiting rooms. Failure to do so, it is now
being suggested, would be ‘immoral’.

In 1990, the British Association for the Advancement of Science issued
its first declaration in support of past and future medical research using
animals. The association says that more than 1000 doctors and scientists,
including 31 Nobel laureates, have signed it.

Last year eight of Britain’s major medical research charities entered
the fray, marching together to form the Research for Health Charities Group.
Its aim is to restore public support for animal experiments, particularly
by convincing schoolchildren of the need for animal research. In the background
the Research Defence Society continues to snipe away with its usual aggressive
posturing. For instance, the society makes comments in the press aimed at
discrediting the issues raised by the animal rights movement rather than
seriously addressing them.

With so much public concern and frustration over animal research, the
debate must not be allowed to centre around merely defending the status
quo. This will only increase hostility between the scientific advocates
of experiments on animals and animal rights groups.

So what is to be done? To begin with, the houses of both the scientific
and animal protection communities must be put in order. For example, the
animal protection movement must isolate the fire bombers of the Animal Liberation
Front. Similarly, scientists need to remove from their ranks those who abuse
and have little regard for laboratory animals. They must speak out against
research that is unjustified and questionable. ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´s were silent over
the Feldberg case and, I suggest, it was only the power of the video camera
that forced the MRC into action.

Steps need to be taken to restore confidence in the 1986 act. It is
not good enough for the Home Office and scientists to repeat constantly
that ‘we have the toughest legislation in the world’, when we know that
this counts for nothing if those charged with its enforcement fail in their
responsibilities. These individuals need to be reminded regularly what is
expected of them under the act and the consequences of failure.

The Home Office inspectorate needs to be increased in strength. I do
not believe that the Home Office inspectors (their full strength is 21),
on top of all their other duties, can visit 381 registered premises and
ensure that all three million procedures which are approved each year are
being carried out properly. Effective monitoring is particularly important
with the increasing development of transgenic animals.

To secure more local public accountability, ethical committees within
laboratories should be established. Although experience overseas, especially
in Canada, has shown that these are sometimes used merely as window-dressing,
they can play a useful role if allowed to function unhindered.

As constituted at present, the Animal Procedures Committee is an independent
statutory body consisting of a chair and at least 12 other members, of which
two-thirds or more must be medical practitioners, veterinary surgeons or
others qualified or experienced in a biological science, although no more
than half the members may be licensed under the act or have previously held
a licence during the past six years. I find it hard to accept that this
balance allows unbiased discussions and decisions to take place. I suspect
that when the time comes to take the hard decisions, the committee splits
largely along party lines. More animal welfare and independent representatives
on this committee would do much to allay suspicion. A relaxation of the
confidentiality clause which binds this committee would enable the public
to make a fairer assessment of its work. Similarly, scientists need to relax
the secrecy that surrounds animal research laboratories. Such secrecy breeds
and encourages fear and suspicion.

Other welcome steps would be providing better conditions for laboratory
animals, ending the use of primates caught in the wild and giving a higher
priority to encouraging the development of alternative techniques to using
animals. One way of stimulating and funding such developments would be to
increase the fees charged for the registration of premises and licences
and to charge laboratories according to the number of procedures performed.
This would, in effect, mean that animals which are being used in laboratories
today would be paying for techniques which would, hopefully, end the use
of animals in the future. At present money received is used by the Home
Office to pay for administering the 1986 act, including the cost of the
inspectorate and the Animal Procedures Committee.

Criticisms of animal research will not simply go away. So it is vital
that we work to build trust between the animal protection groups and scientists.
This will not be easy. But we could make a start if both sides call a truce
to the war games, and agree to sit round the table and talk. Only through
dialogue, debate and a respect of each other’s views will the whole controversial
issue of the use of animals in research move forward. For the sake of laboratory
animals let’s get out of the trenches and start building bridges.

Les Ward is the director of Advocates for Animals in Edinburgh.