3ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION AND BIOTECHNOLOGY
Introduction
Around 630.000 vertebrates are used annually in experiments conducted in Dutch laboratories. The total number of animals that are used for experimental purposes is far higher; invertebrates are not counted in the registration of the number of laboratory animals and animals that are kept in laboratories for breeding purposes or for future experiments are also not included in the official inventory of laboratory animals.
The Party for the Animals wants to put an end to all animal experimentation. It hopes to achieve this through the systematic restriction of animal experiments in combination with the strong development of alternative testing methods. This will necessarily have to be introduced in phases. To accelerate the process, it is important that systematic independent research into the effectiveness of animal experiments is promoted and that significant investments in developing alternatives for laboratory animal experiments are made. Transparency about animal experiments is also necessary to be able to critically assess the aims of experiments. Moreover, for as long as animal testing continues, the welfare of animals should be placed at the very fore.
The Dutch legislation that is designed to protect laboratory animals is nearly thirty years old and requires fundamental revision. The Animal Experimentation Act dates from 1977 and stipulates a number of requirements with respect to animal experimentation. Evaluations of this legislation have demonstrated that it is far from optimal as far as protecting animal welfare is concerned. The law stipulates that Animal Experimentation Committees, which assess permit requests for animal experiments, should include the intrinsic value of the animal as an independent assessment criterion in ethical assessments. In practice, it appears that research proposals are primarily reviewed with respect to their experimental design and presumed importance or usefulness for science and society. The interests of the animal do not take centre stage; indeed, they are hardly taken into account.
Access to information about animal experiments is highly restricted. The exact goals and design of research proposals for the various animal experimental research studies are currently unknown. Indeed, the ethical assessment of these projects takes place behind closed doors and the results of animal experiments are not published; the annual reports of the Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority only record the total number of animals and the species used, the purpose of and number of experiments per university. Unjustifiably, citizens and NGOs are not afforded the opportunity to submit their objections.
Reducing the number of animal experiments
The Party for the Animals believes that great efforts should be made to significantly reduce the number of animal experiments conducted. This may be achieved by sharing knowledge and promoting the development and implementation of alternative methods.
Measures
| 3.1 | A substantial budget should be made available for the development, validation and implementation of alternative methods to animal experimentation. Funds should come partly from the government and partly from the laboratory animal institutions themselves. The institutions in question should donate €10 for every animal that is kept or used with respect to experiments to a developmental fund for alternatives. The government should make a budget of 10 million euros a year available for this purpose. |
| 3.2 | A publicly accessible database should be established in which all data from animal experiments is stored. In this way, unnecessary experiments and the breeding of laboratory animals can be prevented. |
| 3.3 | The legal requirement to test newly developed food products with health claims should be rescinded. |
| 3.4 | Testing new medicines that barely differ from existing drugs (the so-called ‘me-too’ drugs) should be banned. |
| 3.5 | Within the EU, the Netherlands should fight for an import ban on cosmetics from countries that still permit animal testing for cosmetic products. |
| 3.6 | Veterinary students should no longer be required to practice on living animals. |
| 3.7 | The Biomedical Primate Research Centre (BPRC) in Rijswijk should be shut down as soon as possible. The primates that live there should be re-housed in reliable shelters. |
Permits for laboratory animal research
The Party for the Animals believes the granting of permits for laboratory animal research must be tightened up. Each permit application should be subject to an ethical assessment in which the interests of the animal are explicitly weighed up against the (hypothetical) importance of the tests. Moreover, better guarantees should be given for the welfare of laboratory animals. The procedure surrounding the issuing of permits should be made public and allow for the participation of citizens and NGOs. Further to this, the greatest possible transparency should be exercised. This means that the results of failed tests must also be published, given that this can also lead to a reduction in the number of laboratory animals used.
Measures
| 3.8 | Before an application for animal experimentation is considered for ethical assessment, it must have first satisfied the requirements for research design and alternatives must have demonstrably been considered. The burden of proof must be met by the vivisector and the assessment carried out by an ethical assessment committee, which works in the interests of the laboratory animals and is not an extension of the laboratory animal scientists. |
| 3.9 | The legislation specifying testing strategies using animals should be (regularly) evaluated to ascertain whether the tests could be carried out more effectively without the use of animals, the numbers of animals can be reduced and the ways in which the tests may be further refined. |
| 3.10 | There must be a framework within which the importance of animal experiments for scientific research is assessed and permitted. The significance of each experiment should be assessed within a broader social context. Research relating to the prevention of (health) problems and clearly formulated research aims with respect to societal usefulness are important assessment criteria in this regard. |
| 3.11 | New criteria of expertise should be formulated with respect to the ethical assessment committees. Furthermore, the independence of the committee members must be safeguarded. The advice of the various assessment committees should be centrally gathered and processed, and annually evaluated. |
| 3.12 | The procedures pertaining to the granting of permits for animal experimental research should be made public and provide citizens and NGOs with the opportunity to participate, voice their objections and lodge appeals. |
Laboratory animal welfare
The welfare of laboratory animals should take centre stage for as long as animal experiments are still permitted. This means that the animals should be kept under conditions that are as natural as possible, that their welfare is independently inspected and that interventions that cause unnecessary suffering – as adjudged by an independent ethical committee – are prohibited. Laboratory animal welfare can and must be improved.
Measures
| 3.13 | The minimum housing standards for laboratory animals must meet the (social) needs of the species in question. |
| 3.14 | During the experiment, the welfare of laboratory animals should be checked daily by an independent veterinarian. |
| 3.15 | Breaches of the rules and the negligence of researchers must be penalised with the revocation of the permit, fines and, in necessary, a prison sentence. |
| 3.16 | Cutting toes off (newborn) rodents must no longer be permitted as a means of identification. The legislation pertaining to surgical intervention (Ingrepenbesluit) should be immediately amended and alternative forms of identification must be investigated and implemented. |
| 3.17 | There should be a comprehensive registration of laboratory animals in the Netherlands, including breeding animals that are kept in laboratories, but not (yet) used in an experiment. |
| 3.18 | An inventory must be made of all invertebrate species used in experiments. Invertebrate species - for which it may be assumed that they experience ‘inconvenience’ during experiments – should be included in the Animal Experimentation Act. |
| 3.19 | Laboratory animals that are no longer used after the completion of experiments should, if their physical and psychological condition permits, be re-homed with new owners via specialised animal shelters that are funded by the vivisectors. |
Biotechnology
The genetic characteristics of animals and plants have developed as a result of a length process. In this way, plants and animals have adapted optimally to each other and the natural conditions in which they live, leading to a dynamic equilibrium between the various life forms. The genetic manipulation of plants and animals and the application thereof for technological purposes (biotechnology) has created a major rift in the natural ecosystem. It not only damages the integrity of plants and animals, but also poses a great risk to their continued existence. Indeed, genetically manipulated plants and animals can supplant their natural cousins and disrupt the ecosystem in general.
In recent years, the techniques used to genetically modify living organisms (genetic manipulated animals) have been further developed and the use of biotechnology with respect to animals has been expanded. The genetic modification of animals to produce organs that are possibly suitable for humans (xenotransplantation) is one example of this. Each year, more than a hundred thousand animals, particularly mice and rats, are used in biotechnological experiments. Genetic manipulation is a technique that costs a great deal of animal life: on average 150 animals are needed to produce just one transgenic line. Female animals in particular must endure the procedures that are carried out to produce so-called ‘transgenic animals’. Their progeny, who are born with genetic defects, also suffer, even before the experiments that will compromise their physical integrity are carried out on them. Moreover, genetic manipulation has led to an increase in the total number of animal experiments throughout the past few years.
The Party for the Animals believes that the genetic modification of animals is irreconcilable with the physical integrity of the animal and therefore rejects it on principle. As long as there is no ban on these experiments, the legally established ‘no, unless’ principle should be strictly enforced.
Measures
| 3.20 | The genetic manipulation and cloning of animals and the genetic manipulation of plants must be banned. |
| 3.21 | The patenting of life should be prohibited on ethical grounds. |
| 3.22 | Xenotransplantation will be forbidden. |
| 3.23 | As long as there is no ban on biotechnology in animals, the procedure relating to the issuing of permits should be made public. Ethical criteria should be incorporated into this procedure, which explicitly take the interests of the animal into account. The significance of the research should be assessed within a broad social context. |
| 3.24 | All data deriving from biotechnological research should be made public. Research results should be taken into account when reviewing subsequent proposals that build on existing biotechnological research. If the results have not generated significant information, then the subsequent research proposals should be rejected at the very outset. |
| 3.25 | A central database must be established in which all available knowledge about the consequences of the genetic manipulation of animals is collected. This data should be used in the decision-making process surrounding new permit applications. |