Involvement in animal protection
Langley was trained as an animal researcher but after reading Peter Singer's Animal Liberation she became a vegan and an animal rights activist, and campaigned professionally against animal experiments. [4] She was a member of the Animal Procedures Committee for eight years, which advises the British Home Office on issues related to animal testing, and has acted as an advisor to the government on the introduction of the new European Union chemicals legislation, REACH. She has served as a specialist consultant for the European Commission and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). [5] She was called as an expert witness in 2001 by the House of Lords Select Committee on Animals in Scientific Procedures during its inquiry into animal experimentation in the UK. [6]
In April 2006, she was a member of the panel at the Oxford Union that debated whether "This house would not test on animals." Opposing the motion were Laurie Pycroft—who founded Pro-Test, which organised the debate—Sir Colin Blakemore, Professor John Stein, and Professor Lord Robert Winston. [7] Supporting the motion, along with Langley, were Dr Andrew Knight, Uri Geller and BUAV campaigns director Alistair Currie. [8] The motion was defeated by 273 to 48.
Position on animal research
Langley is an anti-vivisectionist and vegan. She told The Guardian that she "would never claim that all animal experiments are without scientific value. " [9] She argues that the ethical case against animal research is absolute and that medical progress will benefit from 21st-century, human-relevant tools being used in place of animal experiments. This transition urgently requires funding and policy changes. She told the BBC: "When you know that other animals can feel pain and distress in the same ways that humans do, it is unethical to experiment on them." [10]
She has campaigned against the use of non-human primates in xenotransplantation, where pig organs were grafted onto the necks of primates to test anti-rejection drugs. She told medical journalists Jenny Bryan and John Clare that the primates used in xenotransplantation research are subjected to major surgery; internal haemorrhages; isolation in small cages; repeated blood sampling; wound infections; nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea because of immunosuppressant drugs; kidney or heart failure, and eventually death. She said:
"It's not just the suffering they endure in the laboratories and research establishments. Just getting there can be torture. Studies of primates show them to have complex mental abilities which may increase their capacity to suffer. Supplying the laboratories in the UK imposes huge suffering on the animals... They're then contained in small, single cages, and transported for very long distances causing deaths, distress and suffering." [4]
Next of Kin
Langley's report against primate experimentation, Next of Kin (2006), [5] was published simultaneously with the publication by the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust in favor of primate experimentation. The New Scientist wrote that her report cited studies suggesting that macaques and other small monkeys are more conscious of themselves and others than was previously believed, giving them a moral status equivalent to that of great apes, who are currently not used in experiments in the UK. [11] David Morton, professor of Biomedical Science & Ethics at the University of Birmingham, said the report was "a wake-up call to scientists to raise their game in their justification and ways they use non-human primates in research." [12]
Animal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research, and in vivo testing, is the use of non-human animals, such as model organisms, in experiments that seek to control the variables that affect the behavior or biological system under study. This approach can be contrasted with field studies in which animals are observed in their natural environments or habitats. Experimental research with animals is usually conducted in universities, medical schools, pharmaceutical companies, defense establishments, and commercial facilities that provide animal-testing services to the industry. The focus of animal testing varies on a continuum from pure research, focusing on developing fundamental knowledge of an organism, to applied research, which may focus on answering some questions of great practical importance, such as finding a cure for a disease. Examples of applied research include testing disease treatments, breeding, defense research, and toxicology, including cosmetics testing. In education, animal testing is sometimes a component of biology or psychology courses.
Vivisection is surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure. The word is, more broadly, used as a pejorative catch-all term for experimentation on live animals by organizations opposed to animal experimentation, but the term is rarely used by practising scientists. Human vivisection, such as live organ harvesting, has been perpetrated as a form of torture.
In the animal rights movement, cruelty-free is a label for products or activities that do not harm or kill animals anywhere in the world. Products tested on animals or made from animals are not considered cruelty-free, since these tests are often painful and cause the suffering and death of millions of animals every year.
Cruelty Free International is a British animal protection and advocacy group that campaigns for the abolition of all animal experiments. They organise certification of cruelty-free products which are marked with the symbol of a leaping bunny.
Animal Free Research UK (AFRUK), formerly the Dr Hadwen Trust, is a UK medical research charity that funds and promotes non-animal techniques to replace animal experiments. Established in 1970, the work undertaken by Animal Free Research UK develops reliable science whilst avoiding animal testing.
Shamrock Farm was the United Kingdom's only non-human primate importation and quarantine centre, located in Small Dole, near Henfield in West Sussex. The centre, owned by Bausch and Lomb and run by Charles River Laboratories, Inc. for Shamrock (GB) Ltd, provided animals to various laboratories and universities for use in animal testing. It was Europe's largest supplier of primates to laboratories, and held up to 350 monkeys at a time.
Muriel Dowding, Baroness Dowding was an English humanitarian and animal rights activist known for championing anti-vivisection, vegetarianism and the improvement of animal welfare. Like her second husband Lord Dowding, 1st Baron Dowding she was a vegetarian, an anti-vivisectionist, spiritualist and theosophist. She coined the term cruelty-free and was a pioneer of the cruelty-free movement.
Cambridge University primate experiments came to public attention in 2002 after the publication that year of material from a ten-month undercover investigation in 1998 by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV). The experiments were being conducted on marmosets, and included the removal of parts of their brains intended to simulate the symptoms of stroke or Parkinson's disease. Some of the research was theoretical, aimed at advancing knowledge of the brain, while some of it was applied.
The international trade in primates sees 32,000 wild non-human primates (NHPs) trapped and sold on the international market every year. They are sold mostly for use in animal testing, but also for food, for exhibition in zoos and circuses, and for private use as companion animals.
The National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS) is an international not-for-profit animal protection group, based in London, working to end animal testing, and focused on the replacement of animals in research with advanced, scientific techniques. Since 2006, the NAVS has operated its international campaigns under the working name Animal Defenders International (ADI), and the two groups now work together under the ADI name.
The Foundation for Biomedical Research (FBR) is an American nonprofit organization, 501(c)(3), located in Washington, DC. Established in 1981, the organization is dedicated to informing the news media, teachers, and other groups about the need for lab animals in medical and scientific research. The organization, together with its partner, the National Association for Biomedical Research (NABR), argues that promoting animal research leads to improved health for both humans and animals.
The history of animal testing goes back to the writings of the Ancient Greeks in the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE, with Aristotle and Erasistratus one of the first documented to perform experiments on nonhuman animals. Galen, a physician in 2nd-century Rome, dissected pigs and goats, and is known as the "Father of Vivisection." Avenzoar, an Arabic physician in 12th-century Moorish Spain who also practiced dissection, introduced animal testing as an experimental method of testing surgical procedures before applying them to human patients. Although the exact purpose of the procedure was unclear, a Neolithic surgeon performed trepanation on a cow in 3400-3000 BCE. This is the earliest known surgery to have been performed on an animal, and it is possible that the procedure was done on a dead cow in order for the surgeon to practice their skills.
Experiments involving non-human primates (NHPs) include toxicity testing for medical and non-medical substances; studies of infectious disease, such as HIV and hepatitis; neurological studies; behavior and cognition; reproduction; genetics; and xenotransplantation. Around 65,000 NHPs are used every year in the United States, and around 7,000 across the European Union. Most are purpose-bred, while some are caught in the wild.
Alternatives to animal testing are the development and implementation of test methods that avoid the use of live animals. There is widespread agreement that a reduction in the number of animals used and the refinement of testing to reduce suffering should be important goals for the industries involved. Two major alternatives to in vivo animal testing are in vitro cell culture techniques and in silico computer simulation; however, some claim they are not true alternatives because simulations use data from prior animal experiments and cell cultures often require animal derived products, such as serum or cells. Others say that they cannot replace animals completely as they are unlikely to ever provide enough information about the complex interactions of living systems.
The Boyd Group is a Britain-based, independent think tank considering issues relating to animal testing.
Nafovanny in Vietnam is the largest captive-breeding primate facility in the world, supplying long-tailed macaques to animal testing laboratories, including Huntingdon Life Sciences in the UK and Covance in Germany.
Uncaged Campaigns is a Sheffield, UK, based anti-vivisection, not-for-profit organization that advocates for animal rights.
Daniel Louis Lyons is the chief executive officer of the Centre for Animals and Social Justice, a British animal protection charity. He is an honorary research fellow at the University of Sheffield and the author of The Politics of Animal Experimentation (2013).
Harlan Sprague Dawley Inc. was a supplier of animals and other services to laboratories for the purpose of animal testing. It provided pre-clinical research tools and services for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agrochemicals, industrial chemical, and food industries.
Rise for Animals is a national, registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit animal rights organization which aims to end nonhuman animal experimentation. It has been described as "one of the oldest and wealthiest anti-vivisection organizations in the United States".
