Science is a slaughterhouse. We rarely acknowledge the degree to which animal life underwrites the research that provides us with medicines, or the regulation that keeps us safe. Live animals were used in 2.64m officially sanctioned scientific procedures in the UK in 2024, many of them distressing or painful and many of them fatal. But the government’s new strategy to phase out animal testing – published earlier this month – suggests that in the near future emerging technologies can largely replace the use of animals in our scientific endeavours.
The UK previously banned cosmetics testing on animals, and has already taken steps to regulate and reduce their use in research. But some needlessly cruel experiments still take place: the forced swim test (FST) for example, in which a rodent is placed in a body of water it cannot escape and researchers measure whether antidepressants extend the time it struggles for life. The government says no new FST licences will be granted, in effect banning it. Similar targets are set over the next few years to end the testing of caustic chemicals on eyes and skin.
This is welcome, but there are many other widespread practices – such as giving mice tumours to research cancer – which most people would still consider acceptable, despite their obvious barbarity. When animal wellbeing is pitted so starkly against human benefit, our collective compassion has a limit. The government will succeed only if it can convince scientists and the public that these longstanding and trusted experimental methods can be replaced with something as good or better.
Fortunately, there are emerging alternatives. So-called organ-on-a-chip systems, which use lab-grown cells arranged into a miniature network that can simulate complex bodily systems, are already in use. And machine learning systems are proving as adept at predicting potential toxic effects from medicines as they have been at predicting protein structures. These approaches won’t always provide perfect insight into how a given treatment might work for humans, but of course neither do animal tests. Undergraduate scientists are still taught these classic cautionary tales: paracetamol is toxic to dogs and cats, while thalidomide was shown to be safe in rats.
Unlike the slogans and aspirations in its AI strategy, the government appears to have a real plan for applying these technologies. There is £60m in direct funding committed– and a focus on identifying specific animal research methods currently in use, measuring their effectiveness and validating animal-free alternatives that could provide similar results. And it is heartening that the strategy maps out several points over the next decade when specific alternative methods are expected to mature, rather than gesturing at technology in general as a panacea.
This is an opportunity for both scientific and economic progress. Animal testing isn’t just cruel, it is expensive and time-consuming. The EU and US have similarly committed to reduce animal experimentation, so there will be rewards for developing technology and knowhow that can be applied worldwide. But most importantly, there is a moral imperative to free these animals. Previous governments greatly reduced the number of so-called charismatic species – animals favoured by humans such as dogs and horses – used in experiments. Today, 95% of lab animals in the UK are rodents, birds or fish. Do they not deserve the same consideration?
