The RSPCA is demanding urgent action to try and discover new ways to test veterinary vaccines in an effort to eliminate suffering and death of lab animals.

Thousands of lab animals are used every year in tests on vital veterinary vaccines for pets and farm animals, a groundbreaking new RSPCA report highlights.

Approximately 425,000 animals are used in the EU every year to produce and test these vaccines which, the RSPCA recognises, are invaluable in preventing disease in pets and farm animals. Dogs, cats, horses, hamsters and guinea pigs are just some of the animals used in the tests which are required by international legislation.

The RSPCA is urging regulators, policy makers and manufacturers to find new ways of testing these essential vaccines and is calling for:

* information about the number of animals used in tests on veterinary vaccines to be collected and published regularly
* the development and use of alternatives to tests on animals
* red tape to be cut – currently it can take more than 10 years for alternative tests to be given the green light
* any unnecessary tests on animals to be stopped
* greater effort to reduce the numbers of animals used and levels of suffering until new methods can be developed.

Dr Jane Cooper, an RSPCA senior scientist and author of the report, said: “Around 31,000 animals are used in vaccine tests every year in the EU and many experience substantial pain and suffering*.

“More humane, allternative ways of testing must be sought. Our report recommends practical steps that regulators, policy makers and vaccine manufacturers should take to improve animal welfare.  We recognise that some manufacturers and regulators are already working on these issues but a more consolidated approach is urgently required.

“Ultimately, the RSPCA wants to see animal tests replaced with humane alternatives but, until then, the number of animals used and their suffering must be kept to a minimum.

“I must stress that members of the public should continue to have their animals vaccinated as this is essential to help prevent disease.”

In the UK more than half of the lab animals used in vaccine tests are used to ensure that newly manufactured batches of vaccine are effective. The tests have to be carried out by law as vaccines are biological and their results can vary. Many of these tests involve infecting animals with serious diseases which causes considerable suffering (further details below)**.

The RSPCA report – as well as calling for the development of replacements for these tests – is calling more humane test methods to be approved by regulators much more quickly. Currently it can take more than 10 years for them to be accepted.

Dr Cooper added: “Often the number of animals used in a test seems to reflect the perceived “value” of the animals involved. For example, even though there is no evidence that birds or mice suffer less than other animals, tests that use these species typically use more animals than tests involving dogs or horses.

“There is no obvious scientific reason for this and so the RSPCA is calling for a panel of independent experts to look at the numbers of animals required by the regulations for all tests, regardless of species, to see if it’s possible to use fewer.”

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