The Abuse
Each year inside UK laboratories, about 4 million animals are experimented on. Every 8 seconds, an animal dies. These tests take place inside commercial, government and University laboratories. Animals are burnt, poisoned, forced-fed toxic chemicals, gassed, psychologically distressed, deliberately caused brain damage and killed. Regardless of the claims of experimenters, these tests are anything but humane. Indeed, for an experiment to be regulated under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 the experiment must have the potential of ‘causing that animal pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm’.
The Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, which experimenters claim is in place to protect animals in their labs, exists for quite the opposite reason. This legislation in actual fact protects scientists from being prosecuted for animal cruelty. If many of these experiments were carried out anywhere other than a laboratory the person doing them would rightly be jailed.
Although experiments are done on huge numbers of primates, cats, dogs, rabbits and other animals, the majority are done on rats and mice. This is often used by experimenters as an argument in favour of animal testing, as if rats and mice cannot think, feel and suffer like other animals. The scientific reality is very different. Rats and mice are very complex social animals that can feel pain and suffer.
Experimenters have discovered that rats exhibit empathy, something the experimenters themselves appear incapable of! In the video below, an experimenter explains in her own words about the empathy the rat test subject is shown to exhibit. The rat even chooses to share chocolate with his cage mate when he does not have to do so.
The BUAV (British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection) conducted an undercover investigation inside Imperial College London rodent torture labs in 2012. Here is the video of the investigation:
NOAV is opposed to all experimentation on animals, regardless of the perceived ‘cuteness’ or otherwise of the species in the public eye. Rats and mice are suffering just like puppies and kittens in labs and NOAV fights for the rights of them all.
NOAV is a grassroots protest and action based network and that is our main focus. There are many other groups which focus on providing detailed info on animal experiments and we will link to some of them below.