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#CrueltyFreeEurope statement on moratorium on animal experimentation

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In its response to a petition brought to the European Parliament’s Petitions Committee asking for a moratorium on experiments on animals while their value is being assessed, the Commission has once again said that it is fully committed to the ultimate goal of fully replacing animal tests.

Cruelty Free Europe – a network of animal protection organisations dedicated to bringing animal testing to an end in the European Union – welcomes that commitment but believes that it is now time to put in place a road map to turn words into a plan of action.

Cruelty Free Europe Director of Science Dr Katy Taylor said: “Now more than ever, the EU should show ambition to develop better science and turn to more humane and human relevant research and innovation. 95% of all drugs shown to be safe and effective in tests on animals fail in human trials. The cost of this failure is huge monetarily and for animals and people. If any other system were failing so comprehensively, surely it would long ago have been scrapped and other better solutions secured?”

“Back in 1993 – 27 years ago – in the fifth EU environmental action programme towards sustainability, a target was set to achieve as a priority by 2000 a 50% reduction in the number of vertebrate animals used for experimental purposes. By 1997, this action had been quietly dropped and the number of animal tests in Europe remains high. So we have heard the commitments before. It’s high time for change.”

The Commission’s response also highlights its efforts to encourage the development of non-animal methods to replace animal research. Cruelty Free Europe recognises the ground-breaking work that has been done in Europe through organisations like ECVAM, collaborations like the EPAA and Horizon funding, but says that much more needs to be done.

Dr Taylor continued: “Take the Horizon research programme where our calculations suggest that funding for Horizon 2020 projects claiming primary and secondary benefits for non-animal methods comes to a mere 0.1% of the total €80 billion programme for the period 2014 to 2020. Consider that whilst 48 Horizon projects in some way claim to contribute to non-animal methods, in the region of 300 cite the use of ‘animal models’ as part of their methodology. If Europe is serious about its goal of replacing animal experiments, then it needs to really put its money where its mouth is.”

In November 2019, a petition was submitted to the presidents of the European Commission and the European Parliament calling on the EU to carry out a systematic review of all research areas in which animals are used. In May this year, the European Parliament Committee on Petitions confirmed that the petition had been accepted as admissible and would be formally considered by the committee. Together with our European partners Cruelty Free Europe has been calling on the Commission to commit to a comprehensive plan with targets and timetables to bring an end to animal testing in the EU.

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