I have long been a passionate advocate of animal welfare and have been a vegan for over 30 years.
When I joined parliament last summer, I became the Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Phasing Out Animal Experiments in Medical Research. It is great to see so much cross-party support in issues such as animal welfare, and in particular phasing out animal testing
I also sit on the Petitions Committee, where I have the opportunity to present debates on e-petitions which have received over 100,000 signatures. It is a privilege to be able to present arguments on behalf of the campaigners to the Minister, and to be part of helping the public have their voices heard.
This petition was called “Ban immediately the use of dogs in scientific and regulatory procedures”, and at the time of writing this, has almost 240,000 signatures, which is a fantastic achievement and should be applauded.
I was very interested to find a quote in Hansard from a debate on the Protection of Dogs Bill of 1927, where Lord Banbury quoted the eminent surgeon Sir Lambert Ormsby who said “Experiments on dogs may now be discontinued. All that can be found out by physiological experiments for application to human beings has long since been discovered, and repetitions are unnecessary and cruel.”
It is incredible that nearly 100 years later we are still debating the same topic in Westminster. I am a Scottish MP and looking at Scottish statistics I found that 79% of Scottish adults believe that it is unacceptable for experiments on animals to continue when other testing methods are available, and 62% were in favour of the Government setting deadlines for the phasing out of animal testing. Yet this debate was specifically on testing on dogs and a poll by Mori in 2018 found that only 14% of the UK public feel it is acceptable to use dogs for medical research.
Britain is a national of animal lovers, and dogs in particular share particularly close bonds with humans, they have high emotional and intellectual capabilities, and can feel empathy, fear and sadness.
I spoke about a particularly disturbing case of testing on dogs that was carried out in the UK by AstraZeneca, in an attempt to find an eco-friendlier propellant for inhalers. The testing period was 39 weeks and involved 72 beagles. To test the propellant, the dogs were restrained by a tether and forced to inhale the gas for 2 hours each day through a mask fitted over their nose and mouth, held in place by a muzzle.
Although the study states that the dogs had freely available access to water, water was also withheld during the tests and for 16 hours overnight, meaning the dogs went without water for at least 18 hours each day. At the end of the study, all the dogs were killed so that their tissues could be dissected for further study. The authors note that inhalers contribute only a small fraction of global HFA emissions. I find it difficult to see how tests like this are justified.
While we may share up to 98% of our DNA with some animals, there are still some key differences between us and animals, which mean that testing is unreliable, and can lead to tragic mistakes.
For example, grapes and chocolate are poisonous to dogs, and some drugs that are safe for humans, like ibuprofen, are highly toxic to dogs. When it comes to medical drugs, there are plenty of examples where dangerous drugs appeared safe in humans, like Vioxx, a painkiller which was had cardioprotective results in dogs, but was linked to thousands of heart attacks and deaths in humans.
The APPG on Human Relevant Science estimated that ‘human relevant non-animal method funding represents between 0.2% and 0.6% of total biomedical research funding in the UK and ~0.02% of the total public expenditure on R&D.’ By funding more into non-animal methods, like computer modelling, AI, and ‘organ-on-a-chip’ we can have a country with kinder, more modern, and more medically relevant research, and I will continue to campaign for this cause during my time in office.
Time to end the use of dogs in scientific testing
