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Animal Testing Fact Sheet

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Claims Regarding Animal Testing


In 2024, there were 2.64 million tests carried out on animals in the UK. 54% were experimental, and 2,646 individual experiments were on dogs. [1]


A total of 1,651 individual dogs were used in these experiments. 1,317 of the experiments on dogs were repeated-dose toxicity testing, with 31% (408) of those lasting longer than 90 days. [2]


2025 YouGov polling suggested that: [3]

70% of UK adults would support legislation to end medical testing and research on animals by 2035.

75% of UK adults would support switching current public funding for animal experimentation to the development of non-animal methods.


2021 YouGov polling suggested that: [4]

73% of UK adults are against the use of animal testing for cosmetics.

Only 37% of UK adults support the use of animal testing for medicine.


As heard (and contested) in the House of Commons in 2022, around 90% of tests carried out on animals do not bring any benefit to humans. [5]


As long ago as 2004, the British Medical Journal explicitly questioned the empirical basis for animal testing. They cited poorly conducted experiments and a lack of systemic evaluation. [6]


A 2014 paper in the same journal revisited the question of the empirical basis for animal testing and found, still, that there was no sufficient systematic review of its efficacy that would warrant the claim it is utterly necessary. [7]


A 2015 paper in the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics concluded that “collective harms and costs to humans from animal experimentation outweigh potential benefits and that resources would be better invested in developing human-based testing methods.” [8]

Furthermore, the same piece of research suggested that animal experiments are poor predictors of human outcomes and are widely unreliable across different areas of disease research.


A 2008 paper in the Royal Society of Medicine Journal stated that it was “far from clear” that the claim that medical progress in the past century has relied upon animal testing could ever be formally validated. [9]


A 2009 paper from the Dr Hadwen Trust for Human Research stated that AIDS vaccine trials had a 100% failure rate when moving from animals to humans. [10]

The same paper stated that more than 1,000 potential drugs to treat strokes had been tested in animals, with only 97 of these reaching human trials, and only two of these being successful.


A 2014 paper in the Alternatives to Lab Animals Journal analysed 2,366 drugs developed through animal testing and found that animal testing had extremely poor predictive value for human toxicity and was comparable to what could be achieved by chance. [11]


Several drugs have passed toxicity testing on animals and been approved for human use, with (sometimes) fatal consequences. [12]

  • Vioxx, an anti-inflammatory, was associated with 88,000 heart attacks and 38,000 resultant deaths.

  • Isuprel, an asthma medication, caused 3,500 deaths in the UK alone.

  • TGN1412, a treatment for human autoimmune disease, caused critical illness in six trial volunteers after being administered at 1/500th the dose it was in animal testing.

  • BIA-102474-101, a supposed wonder drug, caused brain haemorrhages and one death in human tests.

  • Thalidomide, for morning sickness, passed animal toxicity testing and resulted in tens of thousands of cases of infant phocomelia.

On the opposite side, drugs including paracetamol, penicillin, and aspirin would never have reached human use if they’d required animal testing, as all of them result in adverse reactions in various animals.


As reported in The Independent in 2020, in a calendar year, animal experimenters broke either the law or their license 30 times. This caused over 500 animals to experience negative impacts on their welfare beyond what had been authorised, with more than 100 of these animals dying as a consequence. [13]

One of these cases saw the forced-feeding of dogs and unlicensed semen collection from male animals.


A 2013 Paper in the PLoS Biology Journal gathered research that suggested researcher bias pervades the reporting of animal testing. This potentially leads to the unwarranted and unjustified advancement of further trials in humans. [14]

Note: The research does not suggest wilful fraud on the behalf of animal researchers, but rather attributes the mistakes to biases. However, wilful fraud is not ruled out as an explanation.


A 2018 paper in the Journal of Translational Medicine concluded that animal models can never be a truly valid way of testing for human relevance and that this could not be achieved, even with several more decades of refinement. [15]


A 2019 paper in the BMC Medical Ethics Journal identified that - still - no sufficient and systematic data existed to support the medical paradigm that medicine for human use must require animal testing. It concluded that both tests and legislation were plainly unfit for their purpose of advancing medicine. [16]


Claims Regarding Alternatives To Animal Testing


Non-animal alternatives are up to 30x cheaper than animal testing. [17]


There are many viable alternatives to animal testing that could, potentially, provide superior alternatives, such as: [18]

  • In Vitro Research: the practice of growing human cells and organ tissue in a laboratory environment provides human-identical cells for research.

  • Organ-On-Chip: This practice creates microcosm replications of human organs to give a like-for-like comparison with humans. These chips can even be linked to provide a system of organs to study.

  • In Silico Research: The use of simulations, statistics, and mathematical models to predict a variety of human responses.


In 2019, the US Environmental Protection Agency announced its plans to cease all mammal testing by 2035, announcing a $4.25 million grant for the development of alternatives. [19]


Though this promise was later repealed under the Biden administration, it was announced earlier this year that the target was set - again - for 2035. [20]


In November 2025, the British Government announced plans to replace animal testing for some major safety tests by the end of the year, whilst also committing to a 35% reduction in the use of dogs and nonhuman primates by 2030. [21]

The announcement also included £75 million in funding for the development of new testing methods.


Research into the impacts of the Zika virus using organoids resembling the human brain helped to discover that the virus could cause microcephaly, something not possible in animal experimentation. This research helped to develop medicines to counteract this. [22]


Several protease inhibitors, intended for the treatment of HIV, have been developed using non-animal methods such as in vitro testing and human cell studies.

They include PPL-100 and GS-8374. [23]


Ganciclovir, a highly effective drug for the treatment of AIDS-related cytomegalovirus (CMV), was successfully used in over 300 patients on compassionate grounds without passing animal testing. [24]

This is because CMV in humans is highly specific, and testing in animals yielded inconclusive results.

For wider use, the drug’s development faced a 4-year delay due to this.


In 1997, Roche Pharmaceuticals had a heart drug approved on the basis of virtual testing after inconclusive animal testing. [25]


Within the past two years, it has become clear that more appropriate testing than the “Draize Test” for eye irritation has been successfully trialled and implemented. [26]


This paves the way for the complete cessation of the use of rabbits for this test. [27]


Claims Regarding MBR Acres and Marshall BioResources


Political lobby groups and/or interest groups for the promotion and protection of animal testing are funded by Marshall BioResources (MBR). [28] [29]


Green Hill, an Italian beagle-breeding facility owned by the same parent company (MBR), was shut down, and roughly 3,000 dogs were rehomed in 2015. [30]

This followed a 2012 undercover investigation that revealed criminally poor conditions and treatment of dogs at the site.

Three senior employees of the site received significant prison time.

In the period from 2008-2012, over 6,000 dogs perished at the facility.


Ridglan Farms, a US facility owned by the same parent company (MBR), shut down voluntarily in October 2025 in order to avoid criminal prosecution for alleged animal abuse. [31]

Claims included inadequate conditions for dogs, procedures carried out by unqualified staff, and untreated wounds.


Undercover footage captured at MBR Acres in 2021 and 2023, then released in the Daily Mirror, shows conditions at the site. [32] [33]

The footage appears to show incredibly distressed dogs whimpering and exhibiting stress indicators. Whilst conditions inside the facility seem to show excrement inside cages, a lack of enrichment for the animals, and overcrowding with five or six dogs in a single, small cage.


Footage captured by Animal Rising on multiple occasions in 2022 shows the conditions dogs are kept in at MBR Acres. [34]

Similar to the footage that appeared in the Daily Mirror, it shows large amounts of excrement on the concrete floors of cages, five dogs in each cage, a lack of enrichment, stress indicators from the beagles, and all lights on inside the buildings during nighttime.


MBR Acres possesses a so-called “bleeding licence” that allows them to (onsite) drain dogs of blood and harvest organs for selling onto experimentation. [35]


 
 
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