Jul

Animal Testing Hits 3 million in New Home Office Report

posted at 3:02 PM
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Let’s face it, testing on animals is inefficient, cruel and a waste of money and resources. So when the Home Office revealed this morning that the number of animals used in UK experiments has increased yet again, this time by nearly 6 percent from 2006 to 2007, you know there’s got to be something wrong.

A grand total of 3.125 million (yes, MILLION) animals tested on in just one year. The report, released just hours ago, also shows a worrying increase in the use of dogs and genetically-manipulated animals.

So what does all this mean for the animals? Confined to laboratories, they are electro-shocked, infected with diseases that are unnatural to them, burned, poisoned and surgically mutilated in experiments that scientists’ own reports show cannot reliably predict human responses.

Animal experiments in the UK were reduced by half between the 1970s and 1997, so what gives? Since 2000, these figures have been going up and up each year, despite the fact that there are valid, humane alternatives and a recent YouGov poll shows that 80 percent of the British public is in favour of some form of a ban on experiments which cause suffering to animals.

Not one to take it lying down, PETA popped along to the Home Office as soon as we heard the news this morning, and staged a protest with our very own ‘PETA ghouls’ dressed as civil servants. They’re actually quite scary-looking! More photos at Rex.