YORKSHIRE — In a report on the use of animals in scientific procedures, a House of Lords select committee said yesterday (24 July) that the practise is "morally acceptable" for both product testing and extending knowledge, but that more effort needs to be made to find alternatives.

In particular, the report recommends that a Centre for the Reduction, Refinement and Replacement (known as the 3Rs) of the use of animals in research should be established. This body would co-ordinate existing university research in the area. Currently, the report says, "the committee remains unconvinced" that all scientists always seek to avoid the use of animals and minimise suffering.

The report also advocates greater openness, fewer but better enforced regulations and more work to discover whether new strains (genetically modified and selectively bred) of animals suffer increased distress.

Scientific organisations have welcomed the report. In particular, says Sir George Radda, chief executive of the Medical Research Council, the MRC is ready to discuss options for a national centre for the 3Rs. Radda emphasized, however, that he considers animals essential for medical research, while neuroscientist Baroness Greenfield, president of the Royal Institution, regrets that the report does not advocate labelling medicines to say they have been tested on animals.

The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council said it is already committed to the 3Rs, and funds research aimed at finding appropriate alternatives to animal experimentation, including projects related to the promising chicken DT40 cell line.

"As reports go, it's very useful, and you couldn't expect a highly radical, anti-vivisection report from the House of Lords," says Jill Langley, a scientific adviser to the Dr Hadwen Trust, which funds research into the 3Rs.

Langley, who is also a member of the Animal Procedures Committee — a public body that advices the Home Office on the practice of the Animal (scientific procedures) Act (1986) — says that the proposed National Centre for the 3Rs could decide on a national strategy for research, prioritising those procedures for replacement that cause animals most distress.

Currently, research into the 3Rs is not co-ordinated nationally, though the Medical Research Council has set up a centre for best practice in the use of animals in research and has earmarked funding for research into the 3Rs.

The Animal Procedures Committee also has £280,000 per year to allocate to proposals in the three areas as well as to pay for investigations into implications of the Act in practice and dissemination of information about latest findings of research in the 3Rs. This money is allocated by a sub-group, working part time on a voluntary basis. "These people do their best, but that is no way to administer public funds," says Langley. One task that a group of experts — working full time and being paid by a National Centre — could do, she argues would be to allocate research funds for the 3Rs. The experts' work would, she says, complement that of the Animal Procedures Committee.

Though the report advocates greater emphasis on the 3Rs, its tone overall is accepting of the inevitability that for now there is no viable alternative to the use of animals in research. It points out that in testimony to the committee, Herman Koeter from the OECD, said that toxicology testing (for determining product safety) is a jigsaw of interconnected tests and that replacing one would not save many animals. What was needed, argued Koeter, was a completely new approach.

How long it will take to develop a new approach is an open question, with views ranging up to as long as 20 years to replace 90% of the animals used in toxicology testing. The report points out, however, that the best scientific minds are not addressing the problem.

The difficulty, according to Langley, is that there is no career structure or kudos attached to research on the 3Rs. "Grants are made ad hoc," she says, "and the Hadwen Trust alone is allocating more than comes from the public purse." (This year, the Hadwen Trust allocated £304,300 to support research in the 3Rs.)

To further the aims of the 3Rs, the report recommends that the government and the scientific community should begin a systematic and visible search for methods involving the 3Rs in toxicology. One government department, they argue, should take the lead. At the same time the Home Office Inspectorate responsible for animals in research should "make a serious effort" to provide better statistics on animal suffering.

Greater openness, too, is advocated, with the committee recommending a switch from the presumption of confidentiality to the presumption of openness, unless there is good reason for keeping something secret. Given the threats made to scientists working with animals, the committee acknowledges that the identities of researchers may need to be kept secret.

Genetically modified animals were a particularly contentious element of the committee's work, with some witnesses arguing that GM animals suffer more than non-GM strains. As yet, acknowledges the report, there is no consensus about this issue, as recent reports by the Royal Society and Animal Procedures Committee demonstrate.

Given the lack of current consensus, the report endorses the recommendation last year of the Animal Procedures Committee that better knowledge is needed about the welfare of GM animals, and says there should be a welfare assessment of all new strains, whether genetically modified or selectively bred.

Finally, the Lords point out that although Home Office statistics show an increase of GM animals in scientific procedures from 8% in 1995 to 21% in 2000, many of these animals are included in the statistics simply because they were bred by biotechnology methods of genetic modification. Often they are never used in a procedure. The Committee endorses the Medical Research Council's view that such animals should not be included in Home Office statistics.

The report follows a government policy statement in April, supporting the use of animals in research.