Experimentation: well done with the figures, nothing has changed!
One Voice leads a nonviolent fight to defend animal rights and respect all life forms. The organization operates independently and is thus free to speak and act freely.
It is not for the lack of demanding that the state respects the law. In May 2019, the statistical survey on experimental procedures completed in 2017 has just been released. Still as many victims, no progress, just a token gesture.
One
Voice has worked hard to ensure that the State finally complies with
European rules requiring Member States to provide annual statistics
on animal testing: A complaint to the Ministry concerned,
demonstrations before the European Parliament and several actions to
denounce the lack of published data. At the end of April 2019, the
official figures remained as those prior to 2016, a reassuring
scientific follow-up.
Having
campaigned it finally paid off! The famous figures were published on
April 30th
by the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation,
accompanied by an explanatory note, very cosmetic, containing some
surprises …
All
species combined: 1,914,174 victims in 2017 compared to 1,918,481 in
2016. The State welcomes a decrease of 0.2%, all the more significant
according to him, as more research establishments responded to the
survey (+ 8.2%), suggesting a drop in the average number of animals
used per establishment. But one wonders then what statistical base
has this annual survey (the real number of respondents not being
communicated) … Some labs may or may not have answered? Where is
the scientific precision in these figures that we hoped for? The
photo is blurred, but we are assured that it is a pretty image !
Experimental determination
It
is also pointed out that 40,000 animals (+ 12%) are reused several
times in different experiments. In such cases, a veterinarian must
validate that the animal has “fully recovered its general health
and well-being”. Something easy when you know the levels of
well-being offered by the cages in these animal research facilities
and the various types of trauma endured by them. “Well-being”
here it becomes an obscene term …
Better !
These regulated re-uses* are presented as a way to reduce the number
of individuals engaged in experimental procedures. Does repeated
abuse and a prolonged captivity really correspond to more “refined”
procedures? The prolonged and repeated torture of these reused
animals, ultimately the worst, is quite the opposite of the objective
pursued by the European directive. Yet the state, basing itself on
who knows what text, here claims to respect the wishes of Brussels.
Let’s be serious here: if it is a question of minimizing pain and
suffering, this cannot be the case when the same animals are tested
several times in a row.
You can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear…
Finally,
we are told that “in order to rationalize the use of animals in
science, France continues to very actively promote the principle of
Replacement, Reduction and Refinement“. If we applied this
famous 3R principle effectively – replaces (by other methods),
reduces (the number of uses), and refines (less pain inflicted), we
should not only see the numbers of animal testing, but also the
proportion of the cruellest experiments? However, this is not the
case in these supporting figures: we have the 3Rs, but not the best
results !
Get out of the fog!
“After
three years of statistics collected according to the format imposed
by the directive 2010/63 / EU, trends are starting to appear,”
the ministry told us (to be confirmed in 2020 with regard to the 2018
figures). But by the way, what trends? None are emerging – the
differences between the years have not even been calculated! -,
except for a tenacious stability of the figures. If so many so-called
efforts have been made in the research institutes and the ethics
committees that oversee (but emanate from) them, then why don’t the
numbers go down?
The
explanation would be that most of the projects authorized are over
several years (five at most). So, should we wait a few more years
before France sees some positive results in European policy aimed at
reducing the victims of animal testing?
Rather
than stumbling over to apply ethical rules, without the number of
victims or their levels of suffering decreasing, is it not time to
stimulate the search for alternative methods that are humane for
animals and to impose them as soon as they save lives? Isn’t
pretending to do good and doing better when the numbers are
unchanging, it makes a mockery of the world?
The
only satisfaction is that the transitional regime established by the
decree in France between 2013 and 2018 is over for projects launched
under the old Directive 86/609 / EEC. The researchers had time to
familiarize themselves with the concept of experimental procedures
that define the thresholds and the degrees of severity to which
animals are victims. Which in effect has changed nothing for the
latter.
(*Article R. 214-113 of the rural code)