Animal Experiments

 Debate on primate experiments in House of Commons

24 February 2005 - David Drew, MP for Stroud, secured a short debate on behalf of Naturewatch on primate experiments in the House of Commons last night. This enabled him to ask a number of searching questions of the minister, Caroline Flint (Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Home Office).

A major focus of the debate was the report on primate experiments by the Animal Procedures Committee, published in December 2002 and on which there has been little concrete progress since then. Ms. Flint's reply emphasised the ongoing degree of consultation about the report preparatory to their final response. We would hope that with this amount of consultation the end result is fairly substantial.

One insight to emerge was an explanation for the rise in primate experiments in 2003. This is apparently due to a single cause - blood sampling for in vitro studies. This is comparatively good news insofar as the procedures are much less contentious than many others involving primates; the implication is that this does not represent the start of an upwards trend. Future statistics will show whether this interpretation is correct.

The debate also touched on some important trends that have been identified, such as the rise in brain research and the implications from the human genome project. These were among the detailed questions for which Ms. Flint will provide written answers at a later date. Unfortunately she did slide over one of the issues: while it is indeed correct that most experiments arising from the genome project will involve rodents, about 10% of human genes are not found in rodents and these are likely to lead to pressure for more primate experiments. This is an important issue that needs attention and we hope that she takes this on board.

Other questions for which we await responses include the necessity of using primates as a second species in toxicology, and what steps are being taken in developing human microdose studies as an alternative to animal experiments. We will report on these as they emerge.

Overall, the debate provided an important opportunity for using the democratic parliamentary process to hold the Government to account, and we are extremely grateful to David Drew for securing the debate.

For a full transcript of the debate, go to the House of Commons website here.