UC Cuts Use of Animals in Experiments
University of California researchers, aided by new technological alternatives, have cut back sharply in the last few years on their use of animals for experimentation, a report prepared by the University of California said Friday.
The study, which had been ordered by the state Legislature, said that although scientists have become less dependent on animals, there may never come a time when animals will not be sacrificed in the study of disease.
In all, the report said that 469,394 animals were used in experimentation in California in the 1986-87 fiscal year, 80% of them rats and mice.
Sharp Decline
That represented a sharp decline from the more than 600,000 animals used in research projects during the 1982-1983 fiscal year, the report said. But while the total number of animals used declined, the percentage of larger animals used----dogs, cats, primates, sheep, pigs or goats--remained at between 2% and 3%.
The report said that many new methods of research have been developed over the last decade to reduce the number of animals used in medical experiments, including sophisticated cell-culture techniques, computers and advanced imaging technologies.
It further noted that UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health has reduced the number of mice it uses each year from 20,000 in the early 1960s to between 100 and 200 currently.
The report comes at a time when use of animals in research has come under strong attack from those who believe that experimenting with live animals is morally wrong and scientifically fraudulent.
Try to Avoid Killing
Whenever possible, the report said, these alternatives are used to avoid killing the tens of thousands of rodents, pigs, primates, dogs and cats used each year in California in scientific research.
Prepared by a committee of 16 scientists from the University of California, Stanford University, Caltech and USC, the report looked at the current state of animal research within the university system and found it fundamentally sound.
The report found that university medical centers take precautions to make sure that animals are not needlessly killed, and that when they are sacrificed, it is done in a humane way.
“I think that among the most important conclusions is that there are incentives and pressures in favor of using these alternative methods in research,” said Belle Cole, director of public policy for the UC system. “We believe that the system we have in place is a good one.”
‘What Else Is New’
But the release of the report Friday drew immediate fire from animal rights supporters.
“So what else is new?” said Judy Stricker, head of the Society Against Vivisection, a national group headquartered in Costa Mesa. “It’s the same old (nonsense). They do not cure a darn thing. All they do is mask the symptoms and produce more problems. We don’t even have a cure for the common cold.”
“We keep dying like flies out here. This health system we have in this country is a big joke. They have been conducting studies forever. This is just another study.”
The report was ordered by the Legislature after UC Berkeley requested money for a new animal research center. The Legislature said it first wanted to make sure that everything was being done to find alternatives to the use of live animals in experiments.
The report noted that the campus review system required by federal and institutional law included incentives and pressures favoring the use of alternative methods in research.
Question Animal Use
“Every university campus has an animal-care committee and it reviews the research proposals, and they ask the question: ‘Do you need to use these animals, do you need to use this number of animals?’ ” Cole said.
One militant group, which calls itself the Animal Liberation Front, has targeted UC Irvine to protest the use of dogs in smog and sleep-disorder research. Thirteen beagles were recently stolen from the facility.
Prof. Robert F. Phalen, who is directing the UC Irvine research, welcomed the report Friday, saying it was a vindication of his research.
“The biomedical community has always been strongly in favor of using alternatives when available,” he said. “The animal rights people attempt to paint the research community as greedy and it simply isn’t fair.”
No Alternative
Phalen said in his research, there is no alternative to the use of animals.
The report agreed that in some cases, there is no substitute for live animals. It cited research into acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) as an example.
“Animal models and cell and tissue culture studies have played important roles” in AIDS research, the report said.
Ultimately, it added, any type of AIDS vaccine or drugs “must be tested in animal models to minimize the dangers to which humans might otherwise be exposed.”
The report concluded that the “use of live animals will continue to be necessary in the biomedical and behavioral sciences” and added that “. . . alternative models that completely describe the complexity of organ systems and the interactions that take place in living systems do not exist. Also, animals are needed in procedures to obtain alternative models.”
Responding to concerns that not enough thought is given before animals are used in scientific experimentation, the report said that a campus review system required by federal and institutional restrictions includes proper incentives and pressures favoring the use of alternative methods in research.
It said that each experiment involving animals is scrutinized to make sure that the research was necessary.
