Ann Widdecombe writes in the Guardian about the urgent need for reform to Section 24 of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, which is open for consultation at the moment as EU legislation is accounted for.

The current legislation makes any disclosure of the details of animal experiments a criminal offence. Whilst it should be made clear that the UK has some of the most stringent regulations surrounding the use of animals in research in the world, I agree that this blanket of secrecy is excessive and hampers public understanding of the need for the judicious use of animals in research. This has been recognised by some of the major funding bodies, research institutes and companies who have signed a Concordat on Openness on Animal Research to improve openness and increase scrutiny.

The government proposes instead to make malicious disclosure of people, places of intellectual property a criminal offence, meaning all other details can be disclosed and full details could be disclosed with the applicant's consent.

To me, this seems a sensible and proportionate response, that opens up this area to more scrutiny and informed debate whilst, crucially, protecting researchers and research institutions, if they so wish.

This is not enough for both Ann and animal rights organisations such as NAVS, who are calling instead for the complete repeal of this Act. This is because they believe in essence that all animal experiments are redundant, and indeed the NAVS website has many examples of cases where animal testing failed to detect an adverse reaction. I am confident that for very example they present, there are far more cases where animal testing has been extremely useful, both in driving our understanding of biology and pathology as well as detecting toxicity prior to human trials.

The fact is that nobody likes the idea of testing in animals. As NAVS correctly points out, the data from animal testing are often highly variable, difficult to interpret and hard to translate to humans. These difficulties of course explain why there is some much repetition of animal experiments – it is necessary to confirm observations. The cost of such experiments also contributes to a large proportion of the total cost of drug discovery (some $0.5-5 billion per drug launched, depending on which numbers you care to believe).

Given this cost, and the drive for efficiency savings that are plaguing the pharmaceutical companies, the question I would like answered by those in favour of abolishing animal testing completely is: If there are suitable, cheaper and more effective replacements for animal testing, why are pharmaceutical companies continuing to save money by sacking scientists instead of abandoning animal tests?

The answer is, of course, that there are yet NO SUITABLE REPLACEMENTS FOR ANIMAL TESTING that covers the diverse requirements of safety and efficacy required by the regulators of the pharmaceutical industry. These regulations are designed to protect clinical trial participants from undue risk and are of paramount concern. The fact that there has been a decrease in the number of procedures for toxiciology shows that we are taking steps in the right direction, but we are not even close to avoiding the need for any animal testing.

We must continue to reduce, replace and refine our use of animals, and update our regulation accordingly, if the abolition of animal testing in drug discovery is to become a reality. Until then, it it only right that researcher's rights to privacy are fully protected.