Animal experiments have increased in number for the second successive year in the UK, prompting condemnation from the country’s vocal antivivisectionist lobby.The latest rise of 2.2% was revealed on 7 September by the UK’s Home Office. Two days earlier, militant antivivisectionists held a summer training “camp” at which they vowed to escalate “direct action” to intimidate researchers. But scientists say the increase is just a blip in the otherwise steady downward trend in experimentation over the past two decades, a trend mirrored elsewhere in the world. “We need to get these latest figures in perspective,” says Chris Higgins, director of the Medical Research Council’s Clinical Science Centre in London. “Animals used in medical research have gone down by more than 50% in the past 20 years.” The latest figures reveal there were 2.8 million procedures on live animals in 2003, up 2.2% on 2002.
