European Parliament: Time to abolish the use of animals in research

European Parliament: Time to abolish the use of animals in research
Scientist holding white laborary mouse, credit: Eurogroup For Animals

A parliamentary intergroup organised this week a meeting on how to accelerate the transition to animal-free innovations.

The Intergroup on the Welfare and Conservation of Animals, founded in 1983, was one of the first of the European Parliament’s Intergroups to be established and has become the focal point for animal welfare in the Parliament. The round-table debate (16 November) was organised in partnership with Eurogroup for Animals and Humane Society International/Europe.

The debate followed the adoption in September by the European Parliament of a resolution on an action plan to accelerate the transition to innovation without the use of animals in research, regulatory testing and education.

The resolution mentions in the preamble some figures. In 2017, the use of animals for scientific purposes was reported almost 10 million times. The main purpose in most cases was research. Non-human primates have been used for testing in some parts of the EU and many other types of animals have been used for scientific purposes every year.

The action plan shall include milestones and targets to incentivise progress towards the replacement of the use of animals with non-animal and human-based methods.

The parliament stressed that the action plan should not be the responsibility of a few but instead be carried out by a high-level inter-service taskforce, involving all key Commission’s Directorates-General and EU Agencies, with the aim of working with Member States and relevant stakeholders to make change happen.

The idea of phasing out animals used in laboratories is not new and was mentioned in a directive (2010/63) on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes. With the resolution in September the parliament recognised that an active, coordinated approach for reduction and, ultimately, the full replacement of animals has not been achieved.

One of the core ideas of the resolution is to promote new technologies, such as organs- on-chips , capable of replacing animal models by providing data that are more relevant to human biology than animals.

According to Thibault Honegger, CEO of The Neuro Engineering Technologies Research Institute, organs-on-chips are often described as a game changing technology capable of better mimicking aspects of human biology than animals or simpler in vitro models. Examples are the Parkinson’s chip device and the one used to develop an anti-pain treatment.

Another example is the cancer treatment which was recently developed without any animal tests by Israeli scientists at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. They created a chip containing human tissue with microscopic sensors to precisely monitor the response of the human body — kidney, liver and heart — to specific drug treatments.

Prof. Ingrid Visseren-Hamakers from the Radboud University said that the European Commission must link the Action Plan to other policy areas in order to ensure that it will deliver significant reductions of animal use, improve health research and produce economic benefits,

If we transform our society, for example using less chemicals and pesticides, changing our diets and moving towards a preventive curative system, we would need less animal testing and could proceed with the implementation of laws and policy that support a shift to non-animal methodologies, she explained.

The Brussels Time


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