Open brief aan de Ministers van Dierenwelzijn en van Innovatie

Dear petitioners,

The website of "Understanding Animal Research", an organization from the UK that aims to achieve broad understanding and acceptance of the humane use of animals in biomedical research to advance science and medicine, provides a lengthy list of reasons why animal research is required.

Here is the list!
Animal research has played a vital part in nearly every medical breakthrough over the last decade.
Nearly every Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine since 1901 has relied on animal data for their research.
We share 95% of our genes with a mouse, making them an effective model for the human body.
Animals and humans are very similar; we have the same organ systems performing the same tasks in more or less the same way.
Animals suffer from similar diseases to humans including cancers, TB, flu and asthma.
All veterinary research has relied on the use of animal research.
While non-animal methods play an important part of biomedical research, they cannot replace all use of animals.
In vitro methods and computer modelling play an important part complementing data from animal models.
Many veterinary medicines are the same as those used for human patients: examples include antibiotics, pain killers and tranquillisers.
Modern anaesthetics, the tetanus vaccine, penicillin and insulin all relied on animal research in their development.
Modern surgical techniques including hip replacement surgery, kidney transplants, heart transplants and blood transfusions were all perfected in animals.
Scanning techniques including CT and MRI were developed using non-human animals.

Here are also some examples of medical breakthroughs!
Thanks to animal research, primarily in mice, cancer survival rates have continued to rise.
Herceptin – a humanised mouse protein – has helped to increase the survival rate of those with breast cancer; it could not have been attained without animal research in mice.
Thanks to research on animals leading to the development of Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapies (HAART), AIDS is no longer the death sentence it was 30 years ago.
While Fleming discovered penicillin without using animals, he shared the Nobel Prize with Florey and Chain who, by testing it on mice, discovered how penicillin could be used to fight infections inside the body.
Animal research is responsible for the development of asthma inhalers; asthma still kills around 2,000 people in the UK every year.
Animal research has helped develop modern vaccines including those against Polio, TB, Meningitis and, recently, the human papillomavirus (HPV) which has been linked to cervical cancer.
The development of Tamoxifen in animals led to a 30% fall in death rates from breast cancer in the 1990s.
The 450,000 people in the UK suffering from Type I diabetes rely on Insulin – which was developed through experiments in rabbits and dogs.
Smallpox has been eradicated from Earth thanks to research in animals.
Statistics
Dogs, cats and primates altogether account for less than 0.2% of research animals

Lastly, it is important to mention that the use of laboratory animals is strictly regulated. Belgium has high standards of laboratory animal welfare and all research must be approved by an ethical committee. In addition, the researchers and the institutions doing the research are licensed. No one can perform experiments with laboratory animals without obtaining the correct certificates (course including ethics and principles on handling laboratory animals).
Finally, animal welfare is underpinned by the 3Rs – there is a legal requirement to replace animals with alternatives, refine experimental techniques and reduce the numbers of animals used in research. In other words animal research can only be carried out when there is no suitable non-animal alternative.

Hopefully, we can all agree that animal experiments when performed correct and humane, do advance science...