Volume 1

The revision of the EU Directive on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes / House of Lords. European Union Committee.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords. European Union Committee
Date:
2009
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: The revision of the EU Directive on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes / House of Lords. European Union Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    AUTHORISATION 20. Uncaged believes that the administration required by the draft Directive falls moderately short of adequately satisfying the objectives of the Directive. Paragraphs | to 7 above discuss the major problems caused by the lack of sufficient detail in the proposed mechanism for the authorisation of projects, and this reflects the fact that this issue is the most important decision point in this policy area. We also have concerns about the following aspects of the draft Directive. 21. Reporting non-compliance solely to the establishment’s permanent ethical review body (Article 24, paragraph |, point d) trivialises animal welfare, is insufficient to maintain independence and accountability in animal research, and falls short of current UK measures. Instead, non-compliance must also be reported to the Inspectorate and the member state’s competent authority. 22. The absence of a stipulation for lay, ethical or independent membership of the establishment’s ethical review body (Article 25, paragraphs 2 to 4) means that the remit of such bodies as set out at Article 26, paragraph | could not be satisfied in an independent and accountable manner. The composition and structure of an establishment’s ethical review body should reflect human research ethics committees. 23. To ensure independent and pluralistic policy-making in this controversial area, it is necessary to add a requirement for Inspectorates to have a majority of independent members (Article 33). We define independent as not being involved in animal research, not being a member of the same professional, public or political body as an applicant, and having no financial interest in entities engaged in animal research. Members of the Inspectorate should include scientists in relevant fields of research, scientists and clinicians independent of animal research, veterinarians and ethicists (especially if the Inspectorate, as it does now in the UK, also performs the role of the competent authority and undertakes ethical evaluation of projects). 24. The severity classifications are liable to challenge and involve a degree of subjective, discretionary judgements. They are not infallible. As the Home Office makes clear, independent scrutiny is essential to improve the reliability of severity assessments. Hence it is necessary to ensure thorough accountability for apparently milder procedures. Any lacuna in accountability will undermine public confidence in the regulatory systems and unfairly privilege the interests of researchers at the expense of animal welfare, thus we recommend that this Article 36, paragraph 2 should be deleted. We recommend the deletion of Article 38, paragraph 4 on the same grounds. 25. Similarly, Amendment 167 to Article 35, paragraph | of the Commission proposal, which removes the requirement for independent prior authorisation of procedures of “mild” severity altogether, significantly weakens the draft Directive on its most crucial provision. It appears to be based on an ignorance of the potential harms caused to animals by housing, husbandry, handling/restraint, identification, blood sampling and unforeseen consequences of genetic modification.”* 26. For example, single-housing rats may have harmful effects “such as lack of the comfort and stimulation that comes from social contact with other animals, boredom and perhaps frustration, and in some cases maybe even physical effects of self-harm”.24 The Home Office acknowledges that pain, suffering, distress and/or lasting harm can result from husbandry and housing conditions, as well as cumulative procedures such as the repeated insertions of hyperdermic needles.”° 27. Researchers would be free to underestimate the severity of procedures as “mild” in order to avoid scrutiny, and there would be no mechanism for checking that the mild “assessment” is accurate, or allowing independent evaluators to assess the scientific validity of the proposed project and the proper application of the 3Rs, for example by requiring environmental enrichment to reduce and alleviate the harm caused to animals by single-housing.”° 28. It cannot be right that researchers can inflict pain on animals in ways that would normally be illegal under the Animal Welfare Act without any accountability. Independent authorisation of all potentially painful experiments by public bodies that are democratically accountable is essential to help minimise what is acknowledged to be a moral wrong—the infliction of unnecessary suffering on animals.’ 23 As Universities Federation for Animal Welfare suggests, “it is likely that too little weight is given at present to some forms of mental suffering, for example, mental states such as boredom and other suffering resulting from solitary confinement or changes in the social housing of animals”. (quoted in APC (2003) p39.) See also discussion of such harms in Nuffield Council on Bioethics (2005) The Ethics of Research Involving Animals. Nuffield Council on Bioethics: London; p73-81. 24 Animal Procedures Committee [‘APC’] (2003) Review of Cost-Benefit Assessment in the Use of Animals in Research. London: Home Office; p39. 25 APC (2003) p37. 26 APC (2003) p39. 27 House of Lords Select Committee on Animals in Scientific Procedures (HL Paper 150-I, para 2.5) (2002).