We’re once again disappointed as the number of animal experiments carried out in Great Britain barely falls.
How many animal experiments were carried out in 2022?
In 2022, 2,761,204 experiments were carried out on animals, according to figures published by the Home Office today (13 July 2023). This is less than last year, when over 3 million tests were performed, but we don’t think it’s anywhere near enough of a reduction.
Animals put through painful tests include:
- Mice and rats – over 2 million experiments were carried out on rodents
- Chickens and other poultry – 132,265 experiments
- Horses – 8,212 experiments
- Dogs – 4,122 experiments
- Monkeys – 2,197 experiments
- Sheep – 54,107 experiments
- Fishes – 295,877 experiments
- And so many more….
Animals continue to experience severe suffering
In 2022, 54,696 experimental procedures were classed as ‘severe’.
Severe procedures are those that cause “a major departure from the animal’s usual state of health and well-being. This would usually include long-term disease processes where assistance with normal activities such as feeding and drinking were required, or where significant deficits in behaviours/activities persist. It includes animals found dead unless an informed decision can be made that the animal did not suffer severely prior to death.”
Examples of ‘severe’ procedures include:
- Use of the forced swim test, which involves putting a rodent in a beaker of water where they are quite literally forced to swim for several minutes because they have no way to escape;
- Use of severely restrictive metabolic cages (which are used to collect an animal’s urine and faeces for study) for prolonged periods of time;
- Toxicity testing where high dosage levels are used and death is the expected outcome or highly anticipated;
- Intentionally breeding animals with severe genetic disorders, such as Huntington’s disease and Muscular dystrophy.
What are humans doing to animals in the name of science?
According to summaries of approved animal tests that are published by the Home Office, some of the horrifying experiments that were approved last year include:
- A project to study human mental illness that involves the use of over 2,000 mice and rats who are exposed to various environmental and dietary stressors. These include force-feeding rodents drugs, chemicals or an unusual diet; restraining them for 1-2 hours a day; and/or making them go through a ‘social defeat test’ where they’re placed in the same cage as another more dominant mouse or rat so that conflict and fighting occurs. At the end, the rodents are to be killed so their brains and intestines can be examined;
- A project that involves the insertion of electrodes into the brains of rhesus macaque monkeys to study decision making behaviour. At the end, they are to be killed;
- A number of studies that involve implantation of devices or injection of viruses into the brains of rodents to study human neurological diseases.
Many animal experiments are carried out to research human diseases and to test the potential effects of substances on people and the environment. Notwithstanding the huge ethical issues, many animal tests simply don’t translate well to humans because of species differences.
What we need is human-relevant and ethical science.
A better way without harming animals
Time and again we’ve called on the UK Government to publish an ambitious strategy for investing in non-animal methods (NAMs) and ending the use of animals in experiments. Lots of people and organisations agree, including other animal charities, industry and caring members of the public like you. And just last week, the Animals in Science Committee, which advises the Government, said the UK is now at a significant juncture and should take a leading role in developing NAMs.
If you haven’t already, please contact the UK Government today and ask them to Call Time on Animal Experiments. (Please note this campaign has now closed.)
Support our new campaign to Stop the Secrecy
Each year, the UK Government releases statistics and sanitised information about animal testing in Britain. However, they never tell the full story about what is happening to animals in laboratories.
Due to a restrictive piece of our law – section 24 – requests for more information are often blocked.
It means we don’t know what welfare conditions are like in laboratories, how many animals are bred but never used, or how many animals get the chance to be rehomed.
