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Proposed changes raise debate in Sweden
Swedish laws on the use of laboratory animals are being amended, raising concerns in the research community
Sweden already has stringent animal welfare legislation, which includes research animals. However, says Karin Forsberg Nilsson, Deputy Secretary General at the Scientific Council for Medicine, if the proposed changes are accepted, the regulations are at risk of becoming less distinct and more complicated. Also, the changes mean more administrative work for researchers and for the ethical committees that review animal experiments.
The Swedish Animal Welfare Agency was assigned by the Government to review the Swedish animal welfare law. There are concerns about the way in which research is exempted from the legal ban on the use of “hormones and similar substances in animals for purposes other than to prevent, confirm, cure, and mitigate disease”. The ban is actually aimed at animals in the agricultural and slaughtering sectors, and an exception to it is necessary to evaluate new drugs in animal experiments. The proposal for how the exception should be regulated have left researchers concerned. Referring to several points in the proposal, Karin Forsberg Nilsson says that the Agency has not addressed the concerns that she presented on behalf of the Swedish medical faculties.
Another controversial issue not addressed in the proposals from the Animal Welfare Agency concerns exceptions to a ban on breeding animals that might be subjected to pain or discomfort. The exception is necessary for the breeding of genetically modified animals, which is a key issue in biomedical research. Rather then have a clear proposal on how this would work in time for the revision of the law, the Animal Protection Agency has deferred a decision until the results of two research projects aimed at determining, the level of suffering of genetically modified animals.
Karin Forsberg Nilsson notes, however, that time is short. A new Animal Welfare Ordinance is supposed to come into force on March 15, 2006. Major problems will face biomedical research, she says, if the investigation is unfinished, but has resulted in final regulations concerning exceptions in breeding genetically modified animals.
The decision to review the legislation is based on a political agreement from March 2005 between the Swedish Government and its coalition parties. One part of the agreement involved starting a special investigation to determine if animal welfare organizations and the public should have the right to appeal decisions in the ethical committees. In Sweden, there are seven such committees responsible for approving all animal experiments in universities, colleges, and industry. Today, only the researchers themselves can appeal decisions of the ethical committees.
When this article went to press, the investigation had not yet been commissioned, but the research community is very concerned that allowing animal protection groups to appeal the ethical committee decisions could give them a method of holding up the licences for research.
This is a summary of an article by Carl-Magnus Hake in Forskning and Medicin.