Animal Experiments

Each year inside British laboratories, around 3 million animals are experimented on. Every 8 seconds, one animal dies. Cats, dogs, rats, mice, guinea pigs, rabbits, monkeys and other animals are used to test new products, to study human disease and in the development of new drugs. They are even used in warfare experiments. Animal Aid opposes animal experiments on both moral and scientific grounds. Animals are not laboratory tools. They are sentient creatures capable of experiencing pain, fear, loneliness, frustration and sadness.

To imprison animals, denying their freedom to express natural instincts, and to deliberately inflict physical pain in the name of science is unacceptable. All the more so because the experiments are bad science in the first place: they do not produce information that can be reliably applied to people. Ending animal experiments will benefit people as well as animals.

Universities Challenged

Our campaign targets universities to ensure that cruel experiments are consigned to the history books. We want to shed light on what types of experiments are being conducted and which species of animals are being routinely abused. In addition, the information provided here can be used by students who are already at university, whether or not they are studying science, who deserve to know how their tuition fees are being spent.

Find out more.

Which Charities Fund Animal Testing?

While many health charities fund or conduct experiments on animals, there are many more who direct their resources toward non-animal research or to help sufferers in other ways.

Victims of Charity Campaign

Animal Aid’s Victims of Charity campaign exposes and challenges animal experiments that are funded by medical research charities. We make it simple for you to register your opposition directly with the chief executive of the charity concerned. In addition, we identify those charities that are involved in humane medical research.

The Case Against Animal Experiments

The scientific case against animal experiments is now being voiced in leading scientific journals. In an era of evidence-based medicine and of powerful new analytical tools including high powered computers and robotics, the fatal weaknesses of the ‘animal model’ are becoming more widely known.

Humane Research

Hundreds of thousands of animals are bred and killed every year so that their body parts can be used in test tube studies. At the same time, huge amounts of a genuinely useful research material – human tissue – is being incinerated. Since 1991, Animal Aid has fought this nonsensical situation.

The Suffering of GM Mice

A major and neglected aspect of the debate over animal experiments are the millions of genetically modified (GM) mice who suffer every year in crude, medically-useless experiments. For every GM mouse used in a ‘procedure’, hundreds more die or are killed as ‘surplus’ or ‘failures’. Not only does breeding and experimenting on GM mice cause terrible suffering, it is also failing to produce cures for people.

Key reports

Animal Aid has produced revealing and thoroughly researched reports and briefings on a wide range of animal research related topics. They include genetically modified mice and the unethical practices of drug companies.