Closed petition Remove the legal requirement to test pharmaceutical drugs on animals

Closed on 5 April 2014

We believe animal experimentation is unjustifiable and we are asking the government to remove the legal requirement, as set out in the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, for pharmaceutical drugs to be tested on animals.
Over 3.7 million animals were experimented on in the UK in 2011, the highest figure in 25 years, despite the government pledge to replace, reduce and refine. The 3Rs are weak and inadequate.
One in four human deaths in the UK occur as a result of adverse reactions to animal tested drugs; animal testing cannot predict human responses. 92% of drugs fail clinical trial and mean a huge and unnecessary animal death toll.
Advances in alternative biomedical and toxicological technologies are our best hope of answers to human conditions, but are blocked by an outdated law. The vested interests of the pharmaceutical industry hide behind the legal requirement to justify unreliable methods, costing millions of lives and starving alternatives of funding.