Questions

Your questions about animals used for scientific research

We want to answer your questions and concerns about animal testing in Europe and below are some of the most common concerns. If you don’t find your answer here, please email your question and we will respond as soon as possible.

Why are animals used for testing?

Tests on animals can provide much information – for instance they can help to advance scientific knowledge, understanding of diseases, and to investigate the development of new medicines. Non-animal alternative methods are used to gain this information whenever possible.

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What is animal testing exactly?

Tests performed on animals help advance scientific research and medicines development.
Animal research takes several forms.

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What are the key issues?

Animal welfare view

Animal rights groups on the whole object to all animal testing and many advocate that the results of the testing are unreliable, and that all experiments could be replaced with non-animal testing methods.

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Are there any non-animal testing alternatives?

Yes there are many non-animal methods approved and used today. Animals are replaced, either by methods that don’t involve animals at all or by those that use only the cells or tissues of animals. Many replacement alternatives involve these in vitro (“in glass”) techniques, where the studies are done with cells or tissues in culture. Other alternatives include silico methods replicating animals’ reactions through a computer program.

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