RECOMMENDATIONS
CHAPTER 3: THE PURPOSE AND NATURE OF ANIMAL EXPERIMENTS
8. The Animal Procedures Committee should invite
submissions from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, the
Farm Animal Welfare Council and others to establish the appropriate
application of the 1986 Act or the modification of its regulations
for experimental farm animals. (paragraph 3.17)
9. Government funded research or training using
animals abroad should be consistent with the requirements of the
1986 Act. (paragraph 3.26)
CHAPTER 4: THE EFFICACY OF ANIMAL EXPERIMENTS
10. The Government should take greater steps
to promote the adoption of replacements and the incorporation
of refinements into animal test guidelines issued by the International
Conference on Harmonisation and the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development. (paragraph 4.40)
11. The Government and the scientific community
should engage in a systematic and visible search for methods involving
the Three Rs in toxicology. The Government should nominate one
department to take the lead on this. (paragraph 4.44)
12. The UK Government should use their influence
to urge the EU to make the development and validation of replacements
for animal experiments a priority, particularly in toxicology.
(paragraph 4.45)
13. The promotion of the commercial advantages
of the Three Rs needs a clear lead from a nominated department
within Government. (paragraph 4.49)
CHAPTER 5: REGULATION AND THE ANIMALS (SCIENTIFIC
PROCEDURES) ACT 1986
THE INSPECTORATE
14. The Home Office Inspectorate should be subject
to periodic review, by a body other than the Inspectorate itself.
(paragraph 5.13)
15. Designated establishments should be inspected
at least once a year by an Inspector from another area. (paragraph 5.17)
WEIGHING OF HARMS AND BENEFITS
16. The substantive details of anonymised project
licences, which describe the expected benefits of the research
and harms to the animals involved, should be made public after
they have been approved and funded. (paragraph 5.24)
17. The current restrictions on the use of terminally
anaesthetised animals for training surgeons should be relaxed.
(paragraph 5.27)
LICENCE APPLICATIONS AND BUREAUCRACY
18. Urgent consideration should be given by the
Home Office to the simplification of project licences, with the
aim of reducing the length of a typical licence to 10 pages. (paragraph 5.40)
TRAINING MODULES
19. Visiting scientists and students in higher
education should be allowed to carry out work under the licences
of an established licence-holder, who would take responsibility
for their actions and for the maintenance of animal welfare. (paragraph 5.46)
20. Scientists of whatever grade should have
a personal responsibility for the welfare of animals in their
care. (paragraph 5.47)
THE ANIMAL PROCEDURES COMMITTEE
21. The secretariat of the Animal Procedures
Committee should be strengthened and more clearly separated from
the Home Office regulators. (paragraph 5.52)
CHAPTER 6: THE ETHICAL REVIEW PROCESS
22. The Home Office should delegate interim authority
to the local Ethical Review Process to approve routine or minor
amendments. (paragraph 6.11)
23. Each Ethical Review Process should be required
to have an external, lay member, whose term of office should be
time-limited. (paragraph 6.21)
CHAPTER 7: THE THREE RS: ALTERNATIVES TO ANIMAL EXPERIMENTS
24. A Centre for the Three Rs should be set up,
consisting of a small, administrative hub which co-ordinates research
units embedded in existing centres of scientific excellence. (paragraph 7.18)
25. The current Animal Procedures Committee research
budget of £280,000 should be given to the Centre to disburse.
The Centre should co-ordinate the Government spend on the Three
Rs across all departments. A Centre would also require further
funding from Government, industry, and animal welfare charities.
(paragraph 7.23)
CHAPTER 8: GENETICALLY MODIFIED ANIMALS
26. A welfare assessment of all new strains of
animals used in experiments (whether produced by new technologies
or by more traditional methods) should be made as a matter of
course. (paragraph 8.12)
27. Animals from genetically modified strains
which are bred but not otherwise used in regulated procedures
should be excluded from the Home Office Statistics, provided
that they have no characteristics with adverse welfare implications.
(paragraph 8.16)
CHAPTER 9: PUBLIC INFORMATION
28. Section 24 of the 1986 Act (the "confidentiality
clause") should be repealed. Specific justification should
then be made for each class of information that needs to be kept
confidential, such as the identity of researchers and matters
of commercial confidentiality and intellectual property. (paragraph 9.18)
29. The Inspectorate should convene a regular
forum to discuss specific scientific and welfare issues related
to the use of animals in experiments. (paragraph 9.22)
30. A formal consultation on the Statistics
should be carried out with a view to making them easier to interpret.
(paragraph 9.29)
31. Serious efforts should be made to provide
better statistics on animal suffering. The Home Office Inspectorate
should develop or approve a "scoring system" for animal
suffering which could be operated by Named Animal Care and Welfare
Officers and Named Veterinary Surgeons, and used to provide data
for the Statistics. (paragraph 9.38)
