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Commission holds conference on the 3Rs
The three Rs - Reduction, Replacement and Refinement - are the basic tenets of EU research and other policies concerning the use of animals in scientific testing and experimentation.
In a one-and-a-half day conference in June organised jointly by DG Research and DG Joint Research Centre, around 70 participants, including researchers, industry, patients, animal rights NGOs, the media, policy makers and regulators examined the following issues:
- The latest scientific advances and their impact on animal experimentation;
- The three Rs in practice; and
- The three Rs in the current European and International regulatory context.
This conference was the first of its kind on this sensitive issue. Many of those attending felt that the Commission had been put under pressure by the Parliament to demonstrate what it was doing to foster alternatives to animal experimentation. The forthcoming new EU Chemicals policy, which will generate the re-testing of about 30,000 substances, including animal testing, meant that the Commission needed to address this issue in a comprehensive manner.
The increase in awareness of the 3Rs at pan-European level has run parallel to the development of the areas in which stakeholders should "pay full regard to animal welfare" under the Protocol to the 1999 Amsterdam Treaty:
- environment (ecotoxicology - environmental risk assessment)
- chemicals (including cosmetics and pharmaceuticals)
- biologicals (such as vaccines and pharmaceuticals)
- research
- agriculture
- single market
- transport
Scientists, representatives from ECVAM, OECD, and industry all addressed the issue. Although all agreed that the ultimate aim was to avoid the use of animals wherever possible, they all had views as to the scale of any possible reduction. Contributions from the "politicians" both from the Commission and from the Parliament were less appreciated by the audience, some of whom criticised the fact that they only stayed for a brief part of the meeting and did not stay to hear what industry, scientists and NGOs had to say.
In a typically pugnacious speech, Michael Balls, formerly head of ECVAM, explained that the timescale between pre-validation and acceptance of an alternative is typically six years, but it can take up to 10 years, which he considered to be excessively slow. He also identified as a current problem the lack of candidate tests being developed.
Andrew Worth from ECVAM said that some alternative methods were available immediately: skin corrosion, phototoxicity, geno-toxicity, acute oral toxicity, skin sensitisation and developmental toxicity.
A consensus appeared on where alternatives would be difficult to find, ie for complex toxicological endpoints such as chronic toxicity. The likelihood of replacing animal tests for carcino-genicity, effect on the unborn foetus and on the reproductive, nervous and immune system is now being tempered by, for example, the reality that it is often difficult to discriminate between normal adaptive responses and true toxic effect. Phil Botham, head of human safety at Syngenta's toxicology laboratory said that, as regards carcinogenicity, a deadline of at least 30 years to develop alternatives to animal testing was more realistic. Michael Balls and others stressed that there was currently great pressure to test for endocrine disruptors, and thus in turn a challenge to develop alternatives to animal testing in this area.
Communication and sharing of information, both across companies and throughout industries, was flagged up as an area where improvements were needed. Participants felt that better communication was needed both between scientists, to avoid publication and maximise research efficiency, but also between scientists and non-scientists, to contribute to a better balance between the interests of the public, who want justification and accountability in animal use, and scientists who want to increase the effectiveness of alternatives.
Training of all life science students in bioethics was the key to ensure the least possible suffering for animals, said Professor Alan Goldberg from the Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives. He underlined how much further forward Europe was in this area than the USA, but said that more public money was still needed to make it a reality.
The main conclusion of the conference was that the Commission should now come up with an overall action plan regarding the development of alternatives. Commission representatives said that they were pleased with the outcome of the conference, and that recommendations would be followed up.