Animal rights petition ‘existential threat’ for EU research

Animal rights groups have gathered more than 1.2 million signatures for a European Union petition demanding that a plan be in place by 2024 for how the bloc will phase out all animal testing.

Plotting a path towards a total phase-out was the last of three demands under the “save cruelty-free cosmetics” campaign, which also aims to extend an existing EU ban to cover cosmetic ingredients and to ensure future environmental toxicity testing does not involve animals. The success of the European citizens’ initiative means the European Commission must respond to the demands and the European Parliament will hold a hearing on the issue.

Kirk Leech, executive director of the European Animal Research Association, said the petitioners’ success was “an existential threat to the use of animals for science in Europe” and that publicly funded, curiosity-driven research was a particular target. He said the “politically inspired attempt” to end animal use in biomedical research was a “potentially historic juncture” for those working in such fields, who should ask themselves “what we can do collectively to halt this”.

Roman Stilling, a researcher at the German Primate Centre who leads the initiative Understand Animal Testing (Tierversuche verstehen or TVV), which represents public research institutes in Germany, said the latest petition was “a bit more clever” than previous campaigns as the phase-out call was “quite well hidden”.

A 2015 petition called “Stop Vivisection” led with the call to phase out animal testing and attracted more than 1.1 million signatures. In response to it, the European Commission said it “does share the conviction that animal testing should be phased out”, but only when this was “scientifically possible”.

Julia Baines, science policy manager for the animal rights group Peta, which sponsored the initiative, said campaigners had been transparent about its goals. “All three are listed right next to where people sign,” she said, adding that EU officials had checked the petition for clarity. The text calls on EU officials to prepare a draft law that includes “ambitious and achievable science-based targets” to reduce animal use. “We need to make sure the most scientifically valid methods are used,” Dr Baines said.

“There is no alternative for the type of research we are doing,” said Christelle Baunez, a researcher with France’s National Centre for Scientific Research and chair of the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies’ animal research committee. She said that, although animal alternatives were becoming available for some toxicology work, non-animal methods for probing high-level brain functions were nowhere near the horizon.

She said the killing of animals at the end of an experiment was upsetting. She added: “You need to like your animals enough, but not too much, otherwise it’s really too difficult at the end. That’s the balance we have to find. It’s constant pain, but in a way we are also driven by the excitement of the findings and the satisfaction to get results and make progress.”

In 2021 the European Parliament voted 667 votes to four in favour of a resolution for fresh EU plans and actions to “accelerate the transition to innovation without the use of animals in research, regulatory testing and education”. MEPs are set to hold their hearing on the latest citizens’ initiative on 25 May.

ben.upton@timeshighereducation.com