Official Statistics

Statistics of scientific procedures on living animals Great Britain 2003

This document contains the following information: Statistics of scientific procedures on living animals Great Britain 2003.

• From: Home Office
• Published: 6 September 2004

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Statistics of scientific procedures on living animals. Great Britain 2003 - Full Text(PDF)

Ref: ISBN 9780101629126, Cm. 6291

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This document contains the following information: This annual publication contains data on animal experimentation carried out during 2003, subject to the provisions of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986.

Under this Act, any scientific procedure carried out on any living vertebrate animal, and one species of octopus, which is likely to cause pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm is a regulated procedure requiring licence authority. The data is structured to comply with EU requirements, although it is far more extensive than required by Europe. In 2003, there were 2.79 million scientific procedures conducted, an increase of 2.2 per cent on the previous year.

Most experiments and tests were conducted on mice, rats and other rodents (85 per cent), with the remainder on birds (four per cent) and fish (six per cent). Dogs, cats, horses and non-human primates (usually macaques and marmosets) combined amounted to less than one per cent of procedures.

Genetically modified animals were used in 27 per cent of cases, an increase of one per cent on 2002 and 19 per cent on 1995). Non-toxicological procedures accounted for 84 per cent of procedures, with the main areas of use being for immunological studies, pharmaceutical research and development, and cancer research.

This paper was laid before Parliament in response to a legislative requirement or as a Return to an Address and was ordered to be printed by the House of Commons.

Published 6 September 2004