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Issues and Trends in Animal Experiments
Labour’s broken promises - animal experiments increase by over 20%
Home Office statistics for animal experiments in 2007, confirm levels of animal testing in the UK have risen 21% since Labour came into power in 1997.
- Over 6 successive years, the number of animal experiments has steadily increased, year on year, and currently tops 3.2 million.
- In simple terms, this means that more than half a million more animals were used in 2007, than in 2000.
- This upward trend returns the UK to a level of animal testing not seen since 1991.
And, all this has happened despite pre-election promises to deliver higher welfare standards for all animals, including those used in animal experiments. More…
This section offers an overview of the trends and issues, and lets the Home Office Statistics for 2007 speak for themselves.
2007 saw highest number of animal experiments in 16 years
The total number of animals used has been slowly increasing since 1997. In 2001 the numbers were marginally lower than usual: the Government made the mistake of trumpeting these results as being a major triumph, with lower numbers than had been recorded for decades. In 2002 they were slightly higher - but by just enough to be higher than at any stage since before the Labour Party had come into office. Since then the number of procedures each year has seen a steady increase, with a 6% increase from 2006 - 2007. The total of 3,201,581 in 2007 is the highest since 1991, when there were 3,242,400 procedures performed.
Unfortunately for the Government, a number of key trends are moving upwards, as we will see in the next pages. Unless they make serious efforts to remedy this, they will end up presiding over an increase in animal experiments since they came to power, not a decrease.
