Why we need medicines

Medicines can treat and cure disease and can make you feel better when you are ill. Some types of medicine, such as vaccines, can prevent you getting ill in the first place.

Many of the medicines we already have work well. But some people suffer side effects and, for some diseases, there are no good treatments available.

New medicines can only be used in patients after they have been thoroughly tested to make sure that they work well and are as safe as possible. This research takes 10-12 years to do and costs many millions of pounds. Only a small proportion of all the research carried out involves using animals, but that part is vitally important as it allows scientists to find out what happens to the new medicine in a living organism before it is used in people.

Use of animals in medicines research

In an ideal world, no animals would be used in medicines research, but at the moment animals have to be used if we want to develop new medicines.

Scientists can’t just decide that they want to use animals in their research and then go ahead. In the UK research involving laboratory animals is controlled by very comprehensive laws. The law balances the needs of research with the welfare of laboratory animals. The use of animals must be kept to a minimum and any distress an animal is likely to experience must be justified by the potential benefit of the research and must be kept to a minimum before, during and after experiments..

What sorts of animals?

Most of the research involving animals, about 84%, is done in mice and rats. Most of the rest uses fish and birds. Only a very small amount, less than 0.5%, involves cats, dogs or primates.

The animals used are specially bred and are well looked after by vets and animal technicians.

Make up your own mind

The use of animals in medicines research is an issue with many differing views. In order to make up your own mind it is important to understand all aspects of the debate. You can learn more about the use of animals in the discovery, development and safety testing of new medicines in the booklet Animal Research and Human Medicine which you can download through the link below...