PETA Statement on the Concordat on Openness on Animal Research

In light of the Concordat on Openness on Animal Research that is due to be rolled out tomorrow, please find a statement from PETA below:

The concordat is a rather obvious smokescreen, a move that would allow animal experimenters to determine what they will hide from and what they will share with the public: a case of jumping before being pushed by the likely repeal of Section 24 of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, which has, until now, allowed experiments to be conducted behind a veil of secrecy and has led to extraordinary abuses. Experimenters do not want to make public any details of how they have damaged monkeys' brains, force-fed dogs with pesticides, genetically engineered mice to get cancer and paralysed, surgically mutilated, burned or electrocuted and then killed thousands upon thousands animals – but the public has a right to know. Polls consistently show the public calling for more information about what is being done to animals in its name and with its taxes.

Every day, 11,000 animals are subjected to suffering in British laboratories, many in experiments that would be illegal if they took place in any other context, countless in irrelevant tests with no bearing on health but merely for curiosity's sake, and most holding no applicability to the human condition. These animals are petrified and kept without a modicum of comfort in barren steel cages. In the end, all of them are killed. It is only through the repeal of Section 24 and freedom of access to information held by the Home Office that experiments and experimenters' conduct can be examined so as to ensure the best possible outcome for animals and science. As the saying goes, "Sunlight is the best disinfectant", and it's high time that the toxic animal experimentation industry is forced to clean up its act.