Animal Research

Animal Research is essential for developing new medicines - but we recognise that it is not an easy or a simple issue

Progress in medicines research benefits us all. Thanks to modern medicines, millions of people are alive today who would otherwise be dead. Millions more with medical problems have been enabled to lead active lives. Animal research has played a major part in all of these advances.

All new prescription medicines must be studied in animals before they are tested in people. Advances in computer and test tube methods are making a big difference and are always used first. But many of the potential effects of medicines are the result of chains of biological reactions that can still only be investigated in the living body, with all its cells, organs and systems working together. No combination of computer models and work on isolated cells and tissue can, as yet, come close to reproducing the vast complexity of the body.

Most of these more complex effects of medicines in people can be predicted from well-designed animal studies, giving researchers the necessary guidance to decide whether to take a potential new medicine forward to be tested and then used in people. It would be unacceptable in our society - and would not be permitted - to risk causing harm to people in order to avoid using animals.

The pharmaceutical industry supports the use of animals only where the research cannot be done in other ways and then only with care. But if we want new medicines for conditions like multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, asthma, heart disease and AIDS, then animals will continue to be needed.

Free booklets are available to raise awareness of why animals are used in the development of new medicines and to encourage informed debate and discussion. Animal Research and Human Medicine has been developed specifically for use in schools at Key Stage 3 and 4. Suggestions for activities linked to use of the booklet can be downloaded - see link below..