Ressources pour BULL automne 2007 (labo)

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Rise in animal testing in New Zealand
Sep 11, 2007 9:37 PM




New figures reveal more than 300,000 animals were used in laboratory tests and experiments last year and just under a third were killed.
Sheep, cattle, even cats and dogs have all been used in lab experiments over the last year.

The report has outraged anti-vivisectionists who say animals are being needlessly hurt.

"They come out with these reports and they say they are trying to reduce things and they are trying to make things better. Nothing ever happens and it just gets worse," says Mark Eden, an anti-vivisection campaigner.

But John Martin from the Animal Ethics Advisory Committee says New Zealand has a "very rigourous" approval system.

MAF's report reveals that over 300,000 animals were used in research and testing last year. Of those, 4,804 were subjected to severe suffering, while 11,489 were subjected to very severe suffering.

The report says animals that suffer severely are given pre and post-operative pain relief and if the animals continue to deteriorate they are either removed from the study or killed to put them out of their misery.
All up, nearly 99,000 animals were killed.

"One needs to identify the benefits, then ensure that one is using only those animals you have to use; that the numbers for each experiment are the minimum and that they are treated with care," says Martin.
The report also shows that livestock has overtaken rodents as the most tested and examined lab animals.

Also, 12 chimps and two Asian elephants were tested in New Zealand last year.

MAF claims last year's animal testing aided research into arthritis and wound healing in humans. But the bulk of the testing is used to improve sheep and dairy herds.


http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/536641/1341984

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Humans May Receive Organ Transplants from Pigs

by Lisa Zyga, September 16, 2007


Well-known scientist Robert Winston from the UK is setting up a lab to breed pigs with special organs that could one day be transplanted into humans who would otherwise die. The first genetically modified pigs could be bred in two years, and the first pig-human transplant might occur in the next decade.

There is a worldwide shortage of organ transplants. In the US alone, about 100,000 people are waiting for a transplant, and about 60% of these individuals will die on the waiting list. Winston's pigs, however, would have a supply of organs--hearts, livers, kidneys, and more--ready for those who are most desperate.

Winston and his colleagues from the Imperial College of London have already created pigs with genetically modified sperm. However, the group is still waiting for permission from the EU to breed the animals. The researchers then plan to genetically alter the sperm so that the pigs' organs won't be rejected by a human immune system. The method would alter certain molecules on the surface of organs, in effect cloaking the organ so that the origin would be hidden from the human immune system.

Animals with foreign genetic material are described as "transgenic." The researchers chose pigs because their hearts are similar to those of humans in size, shape and structure. Today, pig heart valves are regularly used in human heart surgery, after they have been stripped of their tissue to prevent rejection by the immune system.

The proposal has critics, of course. Some warn that, even if the complicated immunology can be accomplished, there is no guarantee that animal organs would actually work inside a human body. Some also fear that animal organs may carry viruses into the human body. Another concern centers on the different lifespan of animals, and the different aging rate of their organs, compared with a human's aging rate.

The concept of "xenotransplantation," or transplants of organ or tissue from one species to another, has long fascinated scientists and others. However, nearly every attempt at such a transplant has been fairly unsuccessful. As far back as 1682, bone from a dog was used to repair the skull of a Russian aristocrat. As for the days of modern science, in 1906 French doctors grafted kidneys from goats and pigs onto people with kidney failure, but the organs lasted only an hour. Other attempts have also been short-lived, although xeontransplantation with genetically modified animals began only in 1995.

In addition to growing organs for transplants, the organs could also be used for testing new medications, giving results that would be more similar to human reactions than a normal animal organ would give.

Xenotransplantation would serve as an alternative to stem cells, which can potentially generate new tissue for any organ in the body.

As for the animals' rights, Winston explained that the group intended to raise the pigs to maturity in a healthy and happy environment , and, when the time came, their organs would be used to save a human's life.



http://inventorspot.com/articles/humans_may_receive_organ_transpl_6900

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Medical Schools Stop Using Dogs and Pigs in Teaching

Training of future doctors now largely depends on new technologies rather than lab animals

By KATHERINE MANGAN

Medical students who have qualms about practicing their surgical skills on dogs and pigs no longer have to worry that refusing to participate will hurt their grades. In most cases today, the medical schools themselves are opting out of live-animal teaching labs.
Although animals are still widely used in research, only a dozen of the nation's 125 accredited medical schools still use live animals to teach skills in physiology, pharmacology, and surgery. That number is dropping fast: nine schools stopped in the past year alone.

Medical educators say three main factors have prompted the shift: the increasing availability of realistic alternatives, such as interactive computer simulations, cadavers, and lifelike mannequins; students' ethical concerns about using live animals; and the expense of staffing and maintaining animal labs.

One of the leading advocates of the change is John J. Pippin, a cardiologist and a former medical researcher at the Medical College of Virginia and the University of Oklahoma, who now works with a group called the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. He has been writing to medical schools that use animals and urging them to stop.

Medical students can test drug interactions, for example, on mannequins with anatomically correct airways, pupils that constrict and dilate, and heart and lung sounds. The devices are programmed to show human responses to dozens of drugs.

"You can correct your mistakes as you go along, rather than giving two to three drugs to a dog, recording what happens to the heart rate, and then killing the dog," he says.
What's more, Dr. Pippin argues, animals' responses don't necessarily mirror those of humans, and simulated humans and even cadavers provide more-reliable measures of results. Surgical trainees can practice on mannequins equipped with fake blood and simulated tissue layers.

Those options weren't available to Dr. Pippin in the late 1980s, when he was a graduate student at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. He says he had a grant from the American Heart Association to conduct a study in which he induced heart attacks in dogs and monitored their responses using imaging technology.

When he realized that he was scaring and hurting the animals without learning anything that directly translated to humans, "it was a real epiphany for me," Dr. Pippin said in a telephone interview punctuated by barking from one of his nine rescued dogs. "I felt my career was a fraud."

Defending the Use of Animals

Some medical professors, taking issue with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, say its name is misleading. Far from being an impartial advisory group, they say, it is an animal-rights advocacy group with ties to the controversial group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a connection that Dr. Pippin denies.
"Only about 5 percent of their members are physicians, and I refuse to respond to them until they change their name," says Robert G. Carroll, a professor of physiology at East Carolina University's Brody School of Medicine.

Dr. Carroll, who leads the committee that oversees the use of animals at the school, challenges the estimate that only a dozen schools still use animals for teaching. He believes that at least half of them do so in at least one lab, but that many are reluctant to divulge that for fear of angering animal-rights activists.

At East Carolina, fourth-year medical students practice life-support skills on pigs in an advanced trauma lab. No matter how realistic a computer simulation, Dr. Carroll says, it won't give a student hands-on practice in serting an endotracheal tube when a patient's airway closes, or stanching severe and potentially fatal hemorrhages.

"I don't agree with the argument that it is morally reprehensible to use animals for teaching purposes," as long as the animals are well cared for and properly anesthetized during surgical procedures, he says. "I believe faculty members should have the option to use animals if it meets their educational goals."

That's the same stance taken by the Association of American Medical Colleges, says a spokeswoman, Retha Sherrod.

Labs Without Pigs
Among medical schools that have recently given up the use of animals in training, the St. Louis University School of Medicine has discontinued a cardiovascular teaching lab that had used live pigs, and a teaching hospital affiliated with the State University of New York at Stony Brook has dropped its last animal teaching lab.

It did so after receiving a letter from the Association of the Bar of the City of New York warning that the hospital might be violating the federal Animal Welfare Act, which requires medical schools that use live animals in teaching labs to demonstrate that they have adequately explored nonanimal alternatives.

The Stony Brook affiliate, Winthrop-University Hospital, used live pigs in a surgery lab geared toward medical residents but open for observation by fourth-year students. The trainees practiced performing laparoscopic surgery on the pigs, making small incisions in the abdomen and inserting surgical tools to repair injuries.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture cited the program in March for failing to adequately document its efforts to find acceptable nonanimal alternatives, a problem the hospital corrected by turning over additional records.
But in July pressure on the medical school escalated with a letter, not from students or animal-rights groups, but from two officers of the bar association: Jane E. Hoffman, chair of its Committee on Legal Issues Pertaining to Animals, and Joyce Tichy, chair of its Committee on Health Law.

"We strongly urge you to discontinue the use of live pigs in your physiology and surgery laboratories on legal, scientific, and ethical grounds," the lawyers wrote. They described how other medical schools used simulators in surgical training, and interactive computer models to show students how to measure heart rates, blood pressure, and the effect of medications on patients.

Continuing an outmoded practice that results in "the suffering of sentient beings" could also violate the Animal Welfare Act, the letter stated.

A similar letter was sent in June to New York Medical College, the other medical school in the state that still uses live animals in the curriculum.
Officials there declined to comment but said a committee had been assigned to evaluate the school's use of live animals in physiology and surgery labs.
The letter writers relied heavily on statistics provided by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Ms. Hoffman said in an interview.


'Not a Veterinarian'

As advances in technology make alternatives more educationally sound, the pressure to drop animal labs is increasing. An article last month in Academic Medicine, the journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, said animal use in the undergraduate medical curriculum had "dropped dramatically."

In March the American Medical Student Association approved a resolution that "strongly encourages the replacement of animal laboratories with non-animal alternatives in undergraduate medical education."

For years students have had the option of skipping animal labs if they objected to them, and a small percentage of students have done so.

Jeffrey Tomasini, a second-year student at the Medical College of Wisconsin, says he opted out of a physiology lab in which students opened an anesthetized dog's chest, placed catheters in the heart, and injected it with drugs to see how the dog reacted. Aside from his ethical objections to the exercise, "I don't care what a dog's heart looks like," he says. "I'm not going to school to be a veterinarian. I'm interested in human hearts."

But some educators wonder whether a computer model or a rubberized mannequin can adequately prepare would-be doctors for the first time they are responsible for the life of a living, breathing human patient. As distasteful as the prospect might be, these professors and students believe that animal labs deserve a place in the curriculum.

http://chronicle.com
Section: The Faculty
Volume 54, Issue 7, Page A12
From the issue dated October 12, 2007

http://chronicle.com/subscribe/login?url=/weekly/v54/i07/07a01201.htm

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Winston blames red tape for move to US

By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 11 September 2007

The fertility doctor and television celebrity Robert Winston is moving a key part of his research on organ transplants to America because of government red-tape that he says has ruined one of his experiments.

Lord Winston said yesterday that his experiments on genetically modified pigs were part of an area of research that could eventually prove more useful for NHS patients than the sequencing of the human genome, yet the work was being thwarted by bureaucracy over animal welfare.

Speaking at the British Association's Science Festival in York, Lord Winston said that it took him 13 months to obtain a simple research licence from the Home Office for the pig experiment, which had eventually to be abandoned because of an obscure European directive covering the movement of farm animals.

The aim of the research was to modify the genes of a male pig's sperm cells so that the animals could then take part in a breeding programme to produce "transgenic" pigs with humanised organs which could be transplanted into patients in need of them.

Lord Winston said: "One of the biggest problems in Britain is the regulatory framework. It's been very difficult to get this sort of animal work going. It took about 13 months to get an animal licence to simply inject the testes of six pigs. That, I think, is not really very acceptable.

"We were then refused permission to mate the animals so we couldn't demonstrate that we had actually got the appropriate gene target in the right place and that it was expressing in the offspring. That was very disappointing."

Lord Winston said the regulatory framework covering animal experiments in Britain was so limiting that it was easier for scientists like him to go abroad, especially to the United States where there was money and interest as well as less restrictive laws. He said: "What I fear is that this work is bound to go on elsewhere. Certainly there is increasing interest in America. We will certainly apply to the US National Institutes of Health to continue this work in Missouri."

He said in his experiment, the six pigs were moved from a farm to a laboratory where they underwent an operation to alter their sperm cells. But when they were moved back to the farm they were not allowed to breed because of a ruling by the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

He said: "It does seem rather blinkered not to allow work that causes absolutely no suffering to the animal and simply allows them a bit of pleasure when they mate.

"The ability to generate genetically modified animals is infinitely more important and has greater impact scientifically than, for example, the sequencing of the human genome.

"The Home Office is increasingly nervous about what is perceived about public concern about animal experimentation. In my view it's not been a well handled subject.

"For too long scientists have been rather intimidated by what is perceived as a very aggressive and violent reaction by a relatively small number of people who are firmly convinced that any kind of experimentation on animals is wrong."

Lord Winston believes transgenic organs could end waiting lists for heart and other transplants.

A regular complaint from scientists

It has frequently been said by scientists working in Britain that this country has the toughest set of regulations in the world governing animal experiments. Lord Winston's story highlights some of the difficulties they face.

Even the smallest "procedure" on an animal – such as taking a blood sample – requires researchers to apply for an individual research licence from the Home Office. Each procedure is considered in isolation and an institute cannot carry out experiments wholesale even if it has a site licence for animal research.

In the past it has taken many months for these licences to be granted. As one scientist wrote in The Times Higher Education Supplement: "Nobody appears to be able to stand up to this regulatory excess. I suspect that by making animal experimentation as long-winded and tortuous as possible, the hope is to make it difficult to do any real work."

Nevertheless, the number of animal experiments conducted in Britain has reached its highest level in 15 years with more than 3 million "procedures" performed in 2006 – a 4 per cent increase on 2005.



http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article2950304.ece

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Capecchi, Smithies and Evans share the Nobel

Researchers are honored for developing genetic techniques for making knockout mice

08/10/07


Mario Capecchi of the University of Utah, Sir Martin Evans of Cardiff University in the UK and Oliver Smithies of University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, will share this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work in gene manipulation that let to the development of knockout mice.

Learning this morning that he had received the award filled him with a "sense of peace," Smithies told The Scientist. "It was a nice finale to a life's work."

Since the first knockout mouse publications in 1989, the technique has become ubiquitous in mammalian biology, allowing researchers to investigate gene function and to create animal models for diseases.

"People have been expecting this since the 1990s," said Jeremy M. Berg, director of The National Institute of General Medical Sciences. "The surprise is that they hadn't won it before."

The trio started from different lines of research, but in the 1980s, their work began to converge.

Evans' research used a cell line derived from embryonic carcinoma that could differentiate into cancer tissue. In a 1975 publication, he demonstrated that the embryonic carcinoma cells could be inserted into embryos and the embryos could then be carried to term by a surrogate mother.

Working separately, Capecchi and Smithies each advanced techniques for inserting specific DNA fragments into mammalian cells. Capecchi improved on a homologous recombination technique developed by Richard Axel by using a glass pipette to inject DNA directly into the nucleus in 1980. Others quickly recognized the potential of combining this method with Evans' work enabling mouse embryos to be transformed with foreign genetic material.

Meanwhile, Smithies, who had a medical background, was investigating homologous recombination as a tool to repair genes responsible for hereditary diseases. He focused on using the technique to correct a deficiency in the enzyme HPRT (hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase), responsible for Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome, in a mouse model.

Smithies contacted Evans to obtain a sample of embryonic stem cells that he could manipulate for the experiment. "[Evans] brought a sample of his embryonic stem cells in his own pocket," said Smithies. "It was science in its best form."

Smithies then took defective embryonic stem cells with the HPRT deletion and injected the corrected DNA on a plasmid. To select for correctly transformed cells, he used a medium in which only those cells with a functioning HPRT gene could survive.

Capecchi's lab, which had also begun working with HPRT, developed a different selection strategy. In his 1987 paper demonstrating targeted mutagenesis in mouse embryo cells, which has been cited more than 1200 times, he wrote that the method "will provide the means for generating mice of any desired genotype."

"Capecchi and Smithies developed clever tricks," to isolate cells that had properly recombined, said Berg.

In 1989, several labs used the methods developed by Evans, Smithies and Capecchi to create mice in which genes for proteins had been knocked out. Two years later, Smithies used the technique to create the first mouse model of a human disease by knocking out the gene responsible for causing cystic fibrosis in humans.

The trio received the Lasker Award in 2001 for their work.

"The concepts developed in Martin's, Mario's and Oliver's laboratories allow researchers worldwide to examine gene activity in mice and other organisms," said Allan Bradley, Director of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, UK, who worked in Evans' lab for many years.

Edyta Zielinska

http://www.the-scientist.com/news/home/53683/

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Super-souris comparables chez les humains à Lance Armstrong

01.11.2007 - 21:00

Des chercheurs américains ont fait naître des souris transgéniques capables de courir à la vitesse record de 1,2 km/h durant six heures sans pause, soit plus de 7 km. Ces capacités physiologiques sont comparables à celles du champion cycliste Lance Armstrong, selon une étude.

"Elles sont métaboliquement similaires à Lance Armstrong grimpant des cols dans les Pyrénées", selon Richard W. Hanson, professeur de biochimie à l'université Case Western Reserve à Cleveland, aux Etats-Unis. Il est le principal auteur de ces travaux parus dans la dernière édition du "Journal of Biological Chemistry".

"Ces super-souris brûlent essentiellement des acides gras pour obtenir leur énergie nécessaire à ces efforts tout en produisant très peu d'acide lactique", ajoute-t-il. Cet acide se forme au cours du travail musculaire intensif.

Ces souris transgéniques, qui sont beaucoup plus agressives que les autres souris, mangent aussi 60% plus de nourriture que leurs congénères sauvages, tout en restant minces, en pleine forme et en vivant plus longtemps. Les femelles peuvent aussi engendrer jusqu'à l'âge de 2 ans et demi soit plus du double que la limite d'un an, considérée comme normale.

La clé de ces qualités physiologiques exceptionnelles est la sur-expression du gène jouant un rôle important dans la production de l'enzyme PEPCK-C (phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase cytosolique), explique Richard Hanson.

Les chercheurs ont créé cette nouvelle espèce de souris dite PEKCK-C au cours des cinq dernières années dans le cadre d'une recherche visant à comprendre la fonction métabolique et physiologique de PEPCK-C dans les muscles du squelette et les tissus adipeux.


http://www.edicom.ch/fr/news/international/1188_4476811.html

___________________

Une "super-souris" aux capacités décuplées
03/11/07

Bientôt dépassés, l'EPO et autres produits dopants à prendre en cure ? Le fantasme d'un dopage par thérapie génique est relancé par un article mis en ligne en août et prochainement publié par la revue hebdomadaire américaine Journal of biological chemistry : une équipe de la faculté de médecine de Cleveland (Ohio), dirigée par Richard Hanson, y détaille l'augmentation spectaculaire des performances de souris génétiquement modifiées par ses soins.

Les créateurs de Speedy Gonzalez, cette souris de dessins animés qui court sans relâche, étaient donc des visionnaires. Les souris génétiquement modifiées sont spontanément sept fois plus actives dans leurs cages que leurs congénères. Sur un tapis roulant, elles peuvent courir jusqu'à six kilomètres à la vitesse de 20 m/minute, quand les souris normales s'arrêtent au bout de 200 mètres.

L'amélioration de leurs capacités à courir s'explique par leur consommation d'oxygène, plus élevée de 40 %, et leur faible production d'acide lactique, fruit de la consommation du glucose par les cellules musculaires, dont l'accumulation entraîne les crampes.

Ce n'est pas tout : si les souris créées par l'équipe de Richard Hanson mangent 60 % plus que les animaux servant à la comparaison, leur poids est deux fois moindre. Leur taux de graisse corporelle est beaucoup plus réduit : deux à trois fois moins que les rongeurs normaux.

A cela s'ajoutent une longévité supérieure et un vieillissement ralenti : à l'âge de deux ans et demi (une souris peut vivre de deux à quatre ans), les animaux de la lignée génétiquement modifiée couraient deux fois plus vite que des animaux témoins âgés de six à douze mois.


DÉTOURNEMENT


L'ensemble de ces modifications est lié à la surexpression dans le muscle squelettique d'un gène, celui de l'enzyme "phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase cytosolique" (PEPCK-C). Cette enzyme est impliquée dans la synthèse du glucose, le carburant des cellules, et du glycérol, qui se trouve dans les graisses.

Voulant étudier le métabolisme énergétique, les chercheurs de Cleveland se sont logiquement tournés vers cette enzyme clé. Ils ont créé, voici quatre ans, un gène chimérique en combinant un brin d'ADN correspondant à la séquence codant la production de la PEPCK-C et un gène promoteur de l'actine alpha squelettique, une protéine essentielle pour la contraction musculaire.

Les premières souris transgéniques exprimaient ce gène dans leurs muscles à un niveau d'une à trois unités par gramme de tissu musculaire. Les chercheurs les ont fait se reproduire entre elles pour obtenir des souris atteignant un niveau de neuf unités par gramme de muscle. Ce sont ces descendants présentant une surexpression du gène PRPCK-C qui ont été étudiés.

Les auteurs soulignent qu'"il est remarquable que la surexpression d'une seule enzyme impliquée dans la voie métabolique puisse entraîner une modification si profonde du phénotype de la souris".

Ils reconnaissent que l'étude ne permet pas de déterminer la nature des modifications du cerveau des souris transgéniques, à l'origine de leur comportement particulier, et n'explique pas l'accroissement de leur longévité alors que leur apport alimentaire est fortement augmenté. Les études avaient jusqu'alors montré qu'à l'inverse, l'accroissement de la durée de vie est associé à une restriction calorique.

Interrogé par le quotidien britannique The Independant, Richard Hanson affirme ne pas voir dans ces souris transgéniques un modèle pour une thérapie génique chez l'homme : "Il n'est pas possible actuellement d'introduire des gènes dans les muscles squelettiques humains et il ne serait pas éthique de le tenter", dit-il.

Les connaissances acquises grâce à ces travaux pourraient cependant servir à l'industrie pharmaceutique pour développer des médicaments améliorant les performances musculaires. Ce qui, selon Richard Hanson, rend "très possible" le détournement de telles molécules par des sportifs à des fins de dopage.


Paul Benkimoun

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3244,36-974172@51-974246,0.html

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UK second in EU's animal experiments list

By Paul Eccleston
Last Updated: 7:01pm GMT 08/11/2007



The UK is one of the two top countries in Europe for the use of animals in laboratory experiments, according to the latest figures.

France topped the list by using a total of 2.3m animals with the UK second on 1.87m. Germany was marginally the third biggest user on 1.82m although this represented a 12 per cent fall on previous figures.

The use of animals by the top three countries represents 50 per cent of all animal experiments in the EU. In all more than 12m animals were used for testing across the EU.

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The figures for 2005 - the latest available -show a 3.2 per cent rise before the figures from the 10 new member states were included.

More than 60 per cent of animals were used in research and development for human medicine, veterinary medicine, dentistry and in fundamental biological research..

Production and quality control of products and devices in human medicine, veterinary medicine and dentistry involved 15.3 per cent of experiments. Toxicological and other safety evaluation represented 8 per cent of the total.

The EU figures were immediately condemned by animal campaigners who claimed member countries had failed on a pledge to cut the number of experiments.

Michelle Thew, chief executive of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, said: "We are shocked and appalled to hear that the number of animals condemned to lives of suffering in EU laboratories has hit a 10 year high.

"It is simply morally indefensible that in the 21st century some of the most advanced laboratories in the world are still pouring tens of millions of pounds of public money into the type of research that belongs in the dark ages."

The Dr Hadwen Trust, the UK's leading medical research charity which campaigns to end animal experiments, said Britain's record was shameful and if genetic modification experiments on mice had been included in the figures, the UK would have topped the list.

The Trust's spokeswoman Wendy Higgins said: "This is a sad indictment of the Government's utter failure to reduce laboratory animal suffering. Home Office assurances that animals are only used when absolutely necessary ring hollow when in the 21st century we still kill more animals in laboratories than almost any other European country."

The UK figures reveal just over 1.87 million animals were used for the first time in procedures started in 2005, a rise of 57,000 on the number reported for 2002. 1,463,565 (78 per cent) of the animals used were mice and rats.

Cold-blooded animals - fish, amphibia, and reptiles - accounted for 203,173 animals, 11 per cent of the animals used.

Cats, dogs, horses and non-human primates are given special protection in the UK and together amounted to 9,104 animals, 0.5 per cent of the animals used - a reduction of 841 compared with 2002.

Non-human primates accounted for 3,115 animals, 0.16 per cent of animals used - 58 fewer than in 2002. France at 3,789 was the top user of primates and also of dogs with 5,500.

The total number of cats used across the EU was 3,600, a decrease of 4.8 per cent. The largest increase was in the use of hamsters which rose by 41 per cent. A total of 6m mice were used.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/08/ealab108.xml



Le nombre d'animaux utilisés pour l'expérimentation dans l'Union européenne n'a jamais été aussi élevé: en 2005, l'Union européenne (regroupant 25 états membres) a utilisé pas moins de 12,1 millions d'animaux de laboratoire. C'est ce que révèlent les statistiques publiées hier, de la Commission européenne. Pour les 15 états membres d'avant l'élargissement, il s'agit de 11.070.299 d'animaux de laboratoire. Comparé à 2002, cela représente une augmentation de 3,2 %, soit, plus de 339. 279 animaux. Les nouveaux états membres prennent seulement 8% du nombre total d'animaux de laboratoire utilisés pour leur compte. L'organisation pour les droits des animaux GAIA parle d'une évolution alarmante. "Alors que tous les responsables, les autorités comme les scientifiques, ne font que parler de l'importance de diminuer le nombre d'expérimentations animales, dans les faits le nombre d'animaux utilisés ne cesse d'augmenter. Cette tendance, qui est évidente, doit absolument être renversée dans toute l'Europe", dit le président de GAIA, Michel Vandenbosch. "Il faut que l'on investisse beaucoup plus dans les alternatives et qu'on élabore une stratégie à court, à moyen et à long terme, en vue de diminuer de plus en plus l'utilisation d'animaux de laboratoire." La révision de la Directive européenne de 1986 pour la protection des animaux de laboratoire, actuellement en cours à la Commission européenne, offre une chance inespéré d'améliorer la situation.

La Belgique est sixième dans le top dix des pays qui utilisent le plus d'animaux de laboratoire (718.976 en 2005!, soit une augmentation de presque 6 % comparé à 2002) :

1. la France (2.325.298 une augmentation de 19,19 %),
2. le Royaume-Uni (1.874.207, une augmentation de 15, 47 %)
3. l'Allemagne (1.822.424, une augmentation de 15, 04 %). À noter que ces trois pays représentent à eux seuls 50 % du nombre total d'animaux de laboratoire dans l'UE.
4. la Grèce (926.092),
5. l'Italie (896.966, soit une diminution de 7, 4 %).
6. la Belgique (> les statistiques )
7. l'Espagne (595.597)
8. les Pays-Bas (531.199, soit une diminution de 4, 38 %), bien que les statistiques nationales soient plus élevées parce que les Pays-Bas y reprennent des expérimentations dans des catégories supplémentaires non comprises dans celles de l'UE.
9. la Suède (505.681, une augmentation de 4, 17 %)
10. le Danemark (365.940).

Seule Malte n'utilise pas d'animaux de laboratoire. En Belgique, le nombre d'animaux utilisés pour l'expérimentation en 2006 a augmenté de 5,2 % comparé à 2005. Comparé à 2000, l'augmentation est de 16 %.
GAIA veut que dans le prochain gouvernement, un ministre responsable du "bien-être animal" soit nommé et que sa compétence soit clairement reprise dans son titre. Il faut qu'il se mette sérieusement au travail pour élaborer une politique qui soit vraiment proactive, et qui ait pour résultat de diminuer le nombre d'animaux de laboratoire de 25% pour la fin de la législature, soit une diminution d'au moins 5% d'animaux de laboratoire par an.

Le nombre d'animaux utilisés pour des tests de cosmétiques a augmenté de 107% dans l'UE en 2005, atteignant le nombre de 15.571 animaux (une augmentation à mettre principalement sur le compte de la France). Ces chiffres comprennent 900 cobayes et 600 lapins, bien qu'il existe des alternatives tout à fait valides. Pour le test LD50, un test de toxicité qui n'a aucune valeur scientifique, par lequel on cherche à déterminer quelle quantité d'une substance aura pour résultat la mort de 50% des animaux de laboratoire utilisés, 231.613 animaux ont été empoisonnés en 2005, dont 841 chiens. L'utilisation de singes (du nouveau et de l'ancien monde) a augmenté de 5% pour atteindre 9715 individus. Au total plus de 10.000 primates ont été utilisés pour des expériences en 2005. Aucun singe anthropoïde n'a été utilisé à des fins d'expérimentations. Raison de plus pour interdire l'expérimentation sur les singes anthropoïdes dans l'UE, dit GAIA, qui veut voir rapidement une interdiction totale des tests sur tous les primates mais aussi sur les chiens, les chats et les chevaux. Plus de
24 000 chiens, 300 000 lapins et 600 000 oiseaux ont été soumis à des expérimentations. De plus, le nombre de lapins a augmenté de 9,5 % et le nombre de souris de 10, 6 %.

> En savoir plus sur notre campagne contre la souffrance des animaux de laboratoire

Le nombre d'animaux de laboratoire dans l'UE a encore augmenté pour atteindre le chiffre effarant de 12 millions - 09/11/07
www.gaia.be/fra/control.php?&topgroupname=&groupname=cp79