At the beginning of March, British Science Week celebrated its 2025 theme of ‘change and adapt’. In response, animal protection organisation Cruelty Free International has called for the end of outdated animal testing and the adoption of humane and human-relevant, animal-free science.
PRESS RELEASE from Cruelty Free International
Over 7,340 animals suffer in laboratories in Great Britain every day – over 300 every hour. Cruelty Free International believes that ending the use of animals in research and testing is the single biggest opportunity for UK science to ‘change and adapt’ in 2025.
Animal tests can involve the force-feeding of potentially harmful substances; the inhalation of toxic gases; the removal of organs or tissues to deliberately cause damage; and even the killing of animals to determine their tolerance of a substance. Other animals are killed after an experiment simply because they are no longer of use to the laboratory.
Despite the use of animal experiments in medical research, 92% of candidate drugs fail in clinical trials, due to them being harmful to humans or simply not doing what they are designed to do, despite having passed extensive investigations in animals.
Certain routine tests on animals, for example those aimed at assuring the safety of ingredients in everyday products, even continue when they have been made redundant by an accepted non-animal replacement. At least 80,000 animals could be saved in the UK every year if six such tests were stopped. This includes almost 50,000 mice testing chemicals used in Botox manufacture.
Animal experiments and laboratories
The development of non-animal research techniques and testing methods has increased greatly in recent years but there were still over 2.68 million uses of animals in laboratories in Great Britain in 2023, highlighting again the need to change and adapt. Some are required by law to assess whether chemicals, medicines and other products are safe; the rest are done voluntarily, out of curiosity or interest, and often without a direct target or purpose.
Animal experiments have been heavily relied on for drug development for many decades, but many debilitating and life-threatening diseases still lack effective treatments. Animal testing is also involved in the manufacture of almost every consumer product, from cosmetics and household products to clothes, furniture, plastics, electronic and white goods, paints, dyes, and ingredients in our food.
The development of just one new ingredient for a cosmetics product could involve the death of at least 1,200 animals.
Yet biological differences between humans and animals – which make chocolate and grapes poisonous to dogs, and allow macaques to handle doses of paracetamol that would be deadly to people – mean that data from animal tests cannot be a reliable basis for predicting reactions in humans.
Transition to non-animal testing
Rather than trying to fit an entirely different species of animal into human-shaped needs, when even a sibling or parent can react differently to the same dose of the same drug, non-animal methods can be bespoke to tackle emerging diseases and bring more effective treatments to the market faster and at less cost.
The transition to non-animal testing methods for ensuring the safety of the products we use every day is too slow, despite the benefits for animals and the protection of human health and the environment.
With an intensified focus on innovation, and investment in animal-free science, the UK can advance its position as a global leader in the life sciences sector.
Much more can be done to fully realise the potential of animal-free testing, through microchip re-creations of human cells and organs, artificial human skin grown in a laboratory, 3D printing, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and other methods. Such technology has the potential to be quicker, cheaper and more reliable than animal models, and could revolutionise safety testing and drug development.
Government roadmap to phase out animal testing
The Labour Party’s 2024 general election manifesto last year committed to developing a roadmap for the phase-out of animal testing. The roadmap, due to be led by Lord Patrick Vallance, minister of state for science, research and innovation and expected to be published later this year, is hotly anticipated, with polls showing strong public support for a government-led phase-out.
Cruelty Free International’s director of science and regulatory affairs, Dr Emma Grange, said: “The UK has the potential to position itself as a world-leader in modern, animal-free science, helping to deliver a future free from the use of animals in scientific experiments. We already know that the use of animals in science is inhumane, continued work will make it fully redundant.
“We are ready to contribute to the government’s work to phase out animal testing. But the clock is ticking for every animal in a UK laboratory. Change and adapt is exactly the ethos that British science urgently needs to embrace to stop the suffering of millions of animals. If not now, when?”
