The UK’s Home Office released a report earlier this month noting a slight increase of 2.3 percent in the total number of animals experiments country. But at just 2.85 million laboratory procedures involving animals, the number of procedures requiring animals in 2004 was almost half of what it was in the mid-1970s indicating the success of the effort to replace, reduce and refine the use of animals in medical research.
Research involving genetically modified animals continued to increase. Thirty-two percent of all animal experiments in the UK in 2004 involved genetically modified animals compared to 27 percent in 2003.
The number of research involving non-human primates, however, declined significantly, with only 4,208 experiments involving such animals in 2004 — a 12 percent decline from 2003.
There were a total of 2.78 million laboratory animals used in research in the UK in 2004, a 2.1 percent increase over 2003.
Source:
GM animal tests continue to rise. Paul Rincon, BBC, December 8, 2005.