Members of Parliament debate banning dogs in medical research

On Monday 28th April, in Westminster Hall, Members of Parliament debated a petition relating to the use of dogs in scientific and regulatory procedures. 

Irene Campbell MP and Isobel Martin

Chaired by Irene Campbell MP, the Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Phasing Out Animal Experiments in Medical Research, which we provide Secretariat support for, Members of Parliament from across the political divide unanimously joined forces to call for the end of the use of dogs in medical research. We believe this is an important first step towards the wider transition to non-animal methods and implementation of Herbie’s Law.   

According to the latest available statistics, 3,749 ‘procedures’ were carried out on dogs in 2023 – which is just a 9 per cent decrease on the previous year. The vast majority of experimental procedures carried out on dogs in 2023 were for regulatory purposes (mainly testing the safety of products and devices for human medicine, dentistry and veterinary medicine). Despite this, comprehensive analysis has found that dogs are highly inconsistent predictors of toxic responses in humans and that the predictions they can provide are little better than those that could be obtained by chance or tossing a coin. This is hardly surprising as we all know that foods such as grapes and chocolate are poisonous to dogs and drugs that are safe for humans, such as ibuprofen, are highly toxic to dogs, even in small doses. Human-specific technologies, such as organs-on-chips and AI, offer the best chance for progress as they are based directly on human biology, and don’t need to be translated from one species to another. 

We were delighted to hear so many Members of Parliament in the debate speak so passionately about the need to end the use of dogs in medical research. MPs highlighted the current use of dogs in medical research for regulatory and toxicity testing and the huge failure rate of drugs, which showed promise in animal testing, to reach the clinic and benefit patients. Parliamentarians called for the UK to follow in the footsteps of other countries such as the USA, who have recently published a roadmap with the aim of making animal testing the exception rather than the norm for pre-clinical safety/toxicity testing over the next 3-5 years. MPs singled out the inspirational work of Animal Free Research UK’s funded scientist, Professor Lorna Harries, for praise in using revolutionary animal-free methods to reduce cell ageing and called for the Government to adopt Herbie’s Law.  

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Feryal Clark MP, responded to the debate on behalf of His Majesty’s Government and stated that the Government would “publish a strategy to support the development, validation and uptake of alternative methods.” The strategy will “set out how we can build on our support by creating a research and innovation system that replaces animal testing with alternative methods wherever possible.” Whilst it is disappointing the Minister did not back calls from Parliamentarians for an immediate ban on dog experiments, we will continue to push for the Government to make the alternatives strategy as ambitious as possible to lay the groundwork, and to introduce Herbie’s Law to enable a phase-out of animal testing in medical research over the next decade.  

A big thank you to all the Members of Parliament who attended and spoke in the debate: 

Irene Campbell, Dan Carden, Alice Macdonald, Peter Swallow, Alex Mayer, James Naish, John Milne, Steve Race, Seamus Logan, Will Stone, Dr Danny Chambers, Sarah Dyke, Tom Hayes, Richard Foord, Ruth Jones, Steve Darling, Douglas McAllister, Alison Taylor, Michelle Scogham, Tony Vaughan, Jamie Stone, Ben Obese-Jecty  

We are now busy digesting what was said in the debate, and we will be following up with all those who attended and spoke in favour of implementing Herbie’s Law. You can read through the debate in full on Hansard here.  And you can read through our discussion of the Government response here.

Here is a clip of Seamus Logan, for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East:

Here is a clip of Steve Race, MP for Exeter.