BMJ  2007;334:182-184 (27 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.39058.469491.68

Feature

Alternatives to animal experimentation

Geoff Watts, freelance journalist

1 London

geoff@scileg.freeserve.co.uk

After two decades of decline, the use of animals in research is beginning to rise again. Geoff Watts examines replacement techniques and the potential for eliminating the need to use living creatures

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

When I visited the headquarters of the Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments (FRAME) in the early 1970s, it wasn't clear if it was promoting an idea with a future. My trip had been prompted by the encouraging tone of FRAME's promotional literature. Then, as now, it viewed the scale of animal use as unacceptable. But instead of trying to sicken the public into rejecting it by showing pictures of mutilated cats and rabbits, FRAME was appealing to reason. While accepting that animal experiments couldn't be abandoned overnight, it argued that most knowledge could be acquired without using animals.

Thirty years on, FRAME raises some three quarters of a million pounds annually and maintains its own laboratory at the University of Nottingham. Its case, and that of a clutch of similar organisations, is now widely acknowledged. As well as accepting that use of animals should be refined . . . [Full text of this article]


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Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Alternatives?
Thomas Krasemann
bmj.com, 31 Jan 2007 [Full text]
Simulated experiments--a possible alternative
dr alpana pathak
bmj.com, 31 Jan 2007 [Full text]
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