Chronic pain and depression: ‘moderate’ suffering for animals?

Our first letter went out in April 2023. Three projects that had just been approved jumped out at us. For one, whose classification as ‘non-recovery’ was clearly wrong (fish exposed to pollutants while fully awake), the Ministry has noticed its error and has simply corrected the classification – without explaining how such a major error was able to pass through the filters of the ‘ethical committees’ and APAFiS National Services in charge of project authorisation.

As for the others, they didn't give up: depression, chronic pain... regardless, these experiments would be classified as ‘moderate’ or even ‘mild’. A well-practised classification to reassure the public... but we will not give in one bit.

‘Mild’ injections with psychotropic drugs and inappropriate tests

The second project, classified as ‘mild’, specifically involved repeated injections of psychotropic drugs into the abdomens of baby mice. We spotted mentions of anxiety and depression measuring lasting five to ten minutes – which immediately made us think of the forced swimming test, still used despite very questionable scientific interest and widespread public opposition.

According to the Ministry, forced swimming would not be used in this project. In fact, “the test used to evaluate depression is the Classic Labyrinth Test”. Here is another problem. In fact, this test is normally used to measure anxiety, and not depression at all, in rodents. Did the research team blindly choose its tests without checking what they were supposed to be used for? Another letter from us – as yet with no response.

Chronic pain: ‘moderate’?

The third project, classified as ‘moderate’, is even worse, with more than 1000 baby mice being subjected to chronic pain for five to twelve weeks. In response to our report, we simply read that the surgery (done to induce chronic pain) is carried out under anaesthesia and that cut-off points are defined to kill the animals if they suffer too much. But also that “in this model of neuropathy, animals show no clinical signs of severe pain”.

The Ministry has clearly forgotten the regulations that they wrote and passed themselves more than ten years ago – which state that any chronic suffering should be classified as ‘severe’. Again, we received no response.

Sweet nothings to reassure the public

Meanwhile, other experiments received approval from the APAFiS Service to make animals suffer and to kill them. And as part of the ‘moderate’ group, we found even more aberrations that we have also reported. Thus, in one project, almost 200 mice will be made to be stressed by repeated electric shocks, then kept in individual cages for weeks to study post-traumatic stress. In another, more than 500 rodents will endure “chronic pain along with the development of anxious-depressive problems” and electrodes being implanted into their skulls.

This is no laughing matter when each year we read in statistics published by public powers that for “all species combined, the least restrictive procedures, that is to say moderate or mild classifications, are the most numerous”. With the number of ‘mild’ projects decreasing while ‘moderate’ experiments increase year upon year, we understand why the industry tries to manipulate public opinion, even when three quarters of French people are opposed to these practices. Experiments that are done, still, to the detriment of animals that are victims of laboratories.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice