21 April 2009
Joy and anger over European animal-research vote

Researchers will be able to re-use animals in procedures causing up to "moderate" pain. Researchers have welcomed the alteration of controversial parts of draft European legislation on animal experimentation. The European Parliament's agriculture committee voted yesterday to accept amendments to key provisions in a directive that will eventually set standards for all research on animals in the European Union (EU). The parliament will now vote on the amended directive in May. Under the original draft of the directive, research on non-human primates would have been restricted to work on "life-threatening or debilitating" conditions. And researchers would only have been able to re-use animals if the procedures caused "up to mild" pain. However, the committee has amended the directive to allow use of non-human primates in all areas of medical research. It also decided that animals can be re-used in experiments classed as causing "moderate" pain. Those working in the field say that this is crucial in allowing, for example, the surgical preparation of an animal and the subsequent actual research.

The committee also called for feasibility studies on how to end the use of wild caught animals in research, amid concerns about supply and the limited amount of time being allowed for the move to entirely captive-bred animals. "Those are all very positive developments," says Roger Lemon, a neuroscientist at University College London. "Those were the three critical things for the future of non-human primate research. It is a victory for common sense really." The changes were also welcomed by industry groups, who had expressed concern about the new directive. "We consider this as a step towards striking the balance between the protection of laboratory animals, biomedical-research reality and patients' needs," says Brian Ager, director-general of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations in Brussels. Animals-rights groups, however, have complained bitterly about the amendments. The Dr Hadwen Trust, a UK charity that funds non-animal techniques and campaigns against animal experiments, accused committee members of "complacency and cowardice for abandoning laboratory animals in the face of dishonest industry tactics".

Nature
April 21, 2009

Original web page at Nature