Transparency and public accountability on the use of non-human primates as laboratory animals needs actions, as well as words

摘要

The number of non-human primates (NHPs) used as laboratory animals is relatively small, compared with the numbers of other species — 2,186 in Great Britain in 2012, compared with 273,046 rats and 3,049,956 mice.1 Nevertheless, it is vital that such use is kept under close scrutiny, in terms of both scientific justification and ethical acceptability, for two main reasons. First, their cognitive abilities and complex behavioural and social demands approach those of humans, so there is great concern about the application to them of procedures which would be considered unethical if applied to humans. A second, and related, reason is that, if we can't get it right for NHPs, other types of laboratory animals stand no chance at all.Over the years, many and wide-ranging opinions have been expressed, on the use of NHPs in laboratories, and there have been a plethora of reports from many kinds of organisations. There have been many calls for greater transparency on why and how NHPs are used and for the progressive phasing out of such use, but there continues to be insistence that their use is essential in fundamental research and safety testing — indeed, there was a 22% increase in the number of procedures involving NHPs in British laboratories in 2012.This issue of ATLA contains what some will see as yet another report, but this one, by Sauer, Phillips, Reed, Schmit and Jennings,2 is outstanding, original and important, since it deals with the ethical review of projects involving NHPs, funded by the European Commission (Commission) in Framework Programme (FP) 7, as Directive 2010/ 63/EU was about to take over from Directive 86/ 609/EEC.