From Malcolm Eames and Donal Crawford, British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, London
The proposals of the Boyd Group concerning the establishment of institutional ethics committees for animal experimentation (This Week, 6 May) fail to address the principal issues relating to accountability and openness in the regulation of animal experimentation in Britain. Rather, they appear to be largely concerned with improving “public confidence” in the regulation of animal research.
The whole basis of these proposals appears to be that such committees should be established, not as independent bodies, but in order to “protect” institutions from legitimate animal rights criticism. Indeed, the Boyd Group’s document goes so far as to assert that, “the very existence of ethics committees … would engender public confidence in decisions about the ethical acceptability of scientific work involving animals”.
Furthermore, the Boyd Group fails to provide any evidence whatsoever that the establishment of such ethics committees would actually lead to either a reduction in the numbers of animal experiments or indeed real improvements in the welfare of laboratory animals.
In Nature, the architects of this group correctly identified openness and accountability as being of great importance and acknowledged that, in Britain, it is the Home Office which holds ultimate responsibility for ethical judgements regarding the use of animals in scientific research. However, the Boyd Group’s proposals fail to address in any way how the Home Office itself should be held accountable for its decisions.
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For the concept of accountability to have any meaning within a parliamentary democracy, it is first and foremost the government and its civil servants who must be accountable to the public.
Any commitment to openness and accountability in the regulation of animal experimentation should therefore begin with the disclosure of all project licence applications (in a form which does not compromise the confidentiality of individuals), so as to allow public comment prior to any decision being made. The Home Office should then publish its reasons for accepting or rejecting any such applications. Only through such a system will the operation of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 be open to genuine public and parliamentary scrutiny.
Of course, if animal researchers are really committed to “improving public confidence” in the regulation of animal experimentation they could do far worse than calling upon governments and institutions to ban immediately the use of animals in areas such as cosmetics, warfare, alcohol, tobacco, LD50 and Draize eye irritancy tests – moves for which there would be overwhelming public support. Then, we can begin serious and constructive discussions as to how to bring about a complete end to the use of animals in research.
