The Ethics of Research Involving Animals

The Council published a report in 2005 which seeks to clarify the debate and aims to help people think through the scientific and ethical issues that are raised. Research involving animals has been the subject of intense debate in the UK and elsewhere. This debate is too often presented in a polarised manner, differentiating only between those "for" or those "against" all research involving animals. This is overly simplistic. There is in fact a continuum of views between these two ends of the spectrum. The report also makes practical recommendations for future policy and practice. Table of Contents: Council membership and terms of reference; Foreword; Acknowledgements; Members of the Working Party; Working Party terms of reference; Summary and recommendations; Section 1: Introduction and Context: Chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2: The context of animal research: past and present; Chapter 3: Ethical issues raised by animal research; Chapter 4: The capacity of animals to experience pain, distress and suffering; Section 2: Use of Animals in Scientific Research: Chapter 5: The use of animals in basic biological research; Chapter 6: The use of animals in the study of human disease; Chapter 7: Genetically modified animals in the study of human disease; Chapter 8: The use of animals for research in the pharmaceutical industry; Chapter 9: Animal use in toxicity studies; Chapter 10: Summary of Section 2; Section 3: Alternatives: Chapter 11: Replacements; Chapter 12: Reduction and Refinement; Section 4: Legal, Ethical and Policy Related Issues: Chapter 13: Legislation, regulation and policy relating to scientific procedures on animals; Chapter 14: Discussion of ethical issues; Chapter 15: Discussion and recommendations. For more information on this report, please click here.

Comments & References: Includes 15 chapters. All files are PDFs and less than 350KB. Each chapter may be downloaded individually. Please click here to read the whole report. The report was produced by a Working Party comprised of academic and industry scientists, philosophers, members of animal protection groups, and a lawyer.

Price: May be downloaded free of charge from the web.

In 2017, Catherine Joynson wrote a blog looking back at animal research in the period from 2005 until then.