Cut the red tape

Petty bureaucracy and red tape linked with approval of animal experiments is
strangling biomedical research in Britain, say 110 leading medical researchers
in an unprecedented letter of complaint to science minister David Sainsbury. The
signatories, including five Nobel prizewinners, warn that research will be
forced abroad unless the government acts. “It can now take six months or longer
to obtain approval for a research project using animals in Britain, while in
other countries that permission can be obtained in weeks or even days,” say the
signatories. Researchers have to apply for a new project licence to simply
change an anaesthetic…