Minister Norman Baker wants end to UK animal tests

[Northerner]

The minister in charge of regulating animal experiments in the UK has said he wants to see an end to all testing.

Lib Dem MP Norman Baker - a longstanding anti-vivisection campaigner - said a ban on animal testing "would not happen tomorrow".

But he claimed the government was moving in the right direction.

The coalition is committed to reducing the number of live animal experiments - but animal rights campaigners say they have broken that promise.

Mr Baker, who as crime prevention minister at the Home Office has responsibility for regulating the use of animals in science, said he was trying to persuade the industry to accept the economic case for ending tests.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28580792

 

[bill hopkinson]

That is good politics, not good science

 

[trophywench]

This really annoys me!

I abhor CRUELTY to animals myself - it depends what you are doing to them whether it's cruel or not, doesn't it? One Xmas morning I met a guest at my friend's drinks party, who worked at a University, who wasn't drinking alcohol because she had to go into work later, to clean out and feed the lab animals.

We were all quite surprised really, but there again - we'd never had to consider that, the effort that workers have to put in.

And anyway I can't EVER knock proper medical testing on animals because I would have been dead in 1972 if it wasn't for someone doing it - and so it would be completely hypocritical of me.

I'm not going to volunteer to test drugs unless they have proved safe in animals - who is?

THALIDOMIDE.

I rest my case.

 

[Northerner]

..And anyway I can't EVER knock proper medical testing on animals because I would have been dead in 1972 if it wasn't for someone doing it - and so it would be completely hypocritical of me....

Do you remember the 'Causalty' episode where a girl had lost her 'special' insulin at the bottom of a lake and wouldn't let them give her 'common' insulin because she refused to have anything tested on animals? Erm...

Of course, it turned out that her special insulin could only be got from a chemist's in Cornwall (pretty small market!)...

Now, there’s Novo and Aventis and Eli Lilley too,
All pharmaceutical giants that take care of me and you,
But have you heard of Jacob’s? The Chemist of Penzance?
He’s the only known supplier of a remarkable advance!

For, once we all thought insulin was porcine or bovine,
But Jacob’s stocks a product that is utterly divine!
If you’re allergic to synthetic, and against the animal kind,
Then there’s only one type you can use, though it may not spring to mind!

Cornish clotted insulin! An ice cream-based solution!
In the field of diabetes treatment it’s a total revolution!
In seconds it will bring you round from ketoacidosis,
So ask for Cornish insulin at your Type 1 diagnosis!

It’s only stocked at Jacob’s, it’s the only place on Earth –
An insulin monopoly, goodness knows what it is worth!
But Jacob’s secret recipe, handed down throughout the ages
Keeps the people of Penzance employed on very decent wages!

Now Jacob has some other plans, still on a dairy theme,
For a fudge-based sulphonylurea that involves some clotted cream,
And a Cornish pastie statin to keep cholesterol low,
And a pilchard source of omega-3, caught fresh in Polperro!