Animal Experimentation

Debate between Chris Williamson and Baroness Featherstone

Wednesday 7th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Lynne Featherstone]

I can assure all Members in all parts of the House that the Government want the development of those medicines to continue, as long as a responsible and careful attitude is adopted to the animals that are used in the quest for better medicines. Those who conduct such experiments must adhere to the stringent standards to which I have referred, and search further and harder for alternative technologies. When I visited University College hospital recently, I saw some of the machinery that it is using instead of animals. The advances that have been made, have almost been made or will be made in the near future are amazing, and I am sure that any institution, whether a university, a scientific research establishment or a commercial venture, will want to provide the best conditions for their animals in order to get the best results.

[Chris Williamson]

On that basis, will the Minister assure us that we can look forward in the next few years to a significant reduction in the use of animals in experimentation, given that alternative methods are now available and more are coming on stream?

[Lynne Featherstone]

My intention and job is to push as hard and as far as I possibly can. In that, I have to be advised by the scientific community, my advisers, the Animal Procedures Committee and other groups, and I often meet animal rights and welfare groups to ensure that I get the balance right. I cannot give a definitive number, but the intention is to secure a reduction, as promised in the coalition agreement, in the use of animals. The NC3Rs is doing some amazing work and incentivising scientists to be innovative and to come up with good things that people will want to use. I have not brought the brochure with me but it was incredibly impressive on some of the changes that it is delivering. However, we can only go at a pace that can be gone at because, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, I would not wish to inhibit genuine advances in what we can do to preserve human life.

Although there are differences between animals and humans, there are also many similarities, and it is these similarities that scientists seek out when choosing and developing animal models. In most cases, because body systems in other mammals tend to work in similar ways to those in humans, animal tests can predict how the human body will react to a new drug. Otherwise, they would not be used. It would be useless.

On the safety of medicines, which goes to the heart of this debate, animal studies are considered to be an indispensable component in the assessment of the safety and efficacy of a new medicinal product. Without animal testing, it is highly likely that a large number of potentially dangerous medicinal products would have to be tested in healthy volunteers and patients in clinical trials. That would be quite unacceptable. I shall mention micro-dosing in a moment.

For a medicinal product to be granted a licence, European and international legislation requires that the toxicity profile of a new drug be defined. In part, that entails the use of animal studies. Nevertheless, I accept the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West that the earlier a potential new drug can be safely tested in humans the better. Companies are pursuing this through methods such as micro-dosing, but that approach does not replace animal tests entirely.

On the use of new technologies and non-animal tests, I can assure my hon. Friend that, contrary to his fears, the testing of medicines has evolved and that new scientific methods, including those using human tissues, are being used and do have a place in safer medicine testing.

Today’s approach to drug development has evolved on a rational and scientific basis over more than 30 years and involves an integrated programme of computer-based work, in vitro studies, animal testing and clinical trials. I can report from my own observations on a recent visit to one of our leading universities that modern researchers use a variety of in vitro and computer-based methods alongside animal methods.

My hon. Friend mentioned adverse drug reactions. This is a far more complex matter than it at first appears. Like other Members, I have personal experience of this, as I am allergic to some common drugs that most people can take without difficulty. I attribute that not to an inherent fault in the drugs, which seem to work perfectly well for millions of other people, but rather to a quirk in the way my body reacts to them. I am allergic to certain antibiotics.

More generally, I think it is going too far to suggest that the occurrence of adverse drug reactions can be attributed to flaws in safety testing using animals. It has been estimated that 76% of adverse drug reactions are what are known as type A reactions, in which the medication has a predictable, but exaggerated, effect. Of the remaining, unexpected type B reactions, most are the result of allergies, such as mine, or individual susceptibilities that are difficult to predict in any trial.

On the attrition rate in the development of new drugs, new drugs are first tested in batteries of computer-based and in vitro tests. Refinements of these tests, including by using human tissues, are making them increasingly predictive. Many compounds are rejected as a result of findings from these tests before they are even tested in animals. It is true that at the next stage, as a result of adverse findings from animal studies a large number of drug candidates never progress to being tested in humans. However, as I have already mentioned, companies hope that this attrition rate will be reduced by using human material.

Finally, on the value of animal research, it is at present the case that without the judicious use of animal studies we would have no modern drugs, and we should acknowledge that the national health service would be unable to function effectively were it not for the availability of medicines and treatments that have been developed, or validated, through research using animals.

As I have explained, the Government are committed to minimising animal testing and to encouraging the development of other non-animal methods in place of animal testing where possible. The National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research brings together stakeholders in academia, industry, Government and animal welfare organisations to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas and the translation of research findings into practice that will benefit both animals and science. We will continue to give the work of the national centre our wholehearted support.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West asked the key question at the end of his speech: on what basis do the Government refute the evidence that a number of human biology tests predicted adverse drug reactions that animal tests failed to predict? The Government do not doubt the value of human biology tests in the testing of the safety of medicines, but it is important to recognise that all medicines have the potential for unwanted effects. There is not one in vitro test, or one series of in vitro tests, specifically for adverse drug reactions. It must be recognised that even extensive clinical trials in humans do not always predict the adverse drug reactions seen later when drugs are in widespread use.

If I have omitted to answer any of my hon. Friend’s questions, I will write to him. I thank him and all Members who have participated. This has been a valuable and thought-provoking debate, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing it.

Question put and agreed to.