Doesn’t the UK have the toughest ‘animal experiments’ law in the world?
We often hear the UK government and research industry claim that the UK has the toughest legislation and tightest restrictions in the world when it comes to protecting laboratory animals. The Dr Hadwen Trust questions this claim for a number of reasons. Firstly it would be misleading to give the impression that the legislation governing animal experiments, the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, is a piece of animal welfare legislation. Its purpose is not only to limit what scientists can inflict on animals and thereby offer them protection, but also to afford legal protection to scientists who would otherwise fall foul of animal protection laws such as the Animal Welfare Act (2006). It is under the ‘1986’ Act that animal experiments are licensed and defined as procedures likely to cause an animal “pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm.” Secondly, the claim that the UK has the strictest legislation in the world is based rather more on assumption than fact. It is undoubtedly t
