I was wondering what to write about this week when I had a knock on the door and the postman delivered a surprise parcel. Turns out my lovely team had sent me a gift to celebrate having been at the charity for 5 years.

Which made me start to reflect on what has changed to replace or end testing and research on animals in the past five years… It turns out quite a lot, so here is a not–at–all–comprehensive and entirely subjective round-up of things that struck me as important. 

Global policy changes

The fact that animal testing of cosmetics and their ingredients continues in various countries around the world angers me beyond measure, however since 2020 Australia, Canada, and Colombia have enacted bans on animal testing of cosmetics, with Canada and Colombia also banning the sale of products tested on animals. Mexico has legislation in process. In 2021 it was also great to see China closing the loophole requiring cosmetic imports to the country to be tested on animals, meaning that some major Western brands with large market share in China can now officially consider themselves to be cruelty-free. Although China has retained exemptions for certain categories of products such as hair dye, which continue to require testing, this is a major step forward. 

In biomedical science, the FDA Modernisation Act in the US in 2022 changed the mandatory requirement for preclinical testing of drugs on animals, allowing an opening for consideration of safety data from non-animal methods to be used for the first time. There is still a long way to go for non-animal methods to be the first choice but the importance of having legislation which doesn’t mandate methods cannot be overstated. 

UK and EU commitments

In the UK, there has been steady progress behind the scenes to promote non-animal methods via initiatives such as the Alliance for Human Relevant Science, which ran an All Party Parliamentary Group on Human Relevant Science to provide information for MPs and raise further debate about the methods used (and funded by the taxpayer) in biomedical research. In 2023, the Rawle report, an independent review of the regulation and implementation of the 3Rs, was influential in highlighting how poorly replacement was addressed by researchers, establishments and within our regulatory structures. In 2024, a new government was elected with a manifesto pledge to phase out the use of animals, and I’m looking forward to seeing more detail on the plans for that later this year. I’m trying not to get too excited!   

Technology

The past five years have also seen dramatic changes in various new technologies with the potential to replace animal use. In addition to increased uptake of in vitro methods, there have also been substantial advances in organ-on-a-chip and AI/mathematical models. The potential for these methods to predict human responses more accurately than animals makes them particularly exciting. Funding in this field has also been growing with significant, targeted funding streams from the EU Horizon program and the National Institute of Health in the US.

Education and academia

In addition to the publication of our Replacement Checklist, and the positive responses and quick uptake, we are also heavily involved in international work on a shared life sciences curriculum for different age groups from secondary upward being conducted by the Global Education Hub led by Utrecht University; the RSPCA’s Replacement in Academia project which is challenging the academic cultures that support the status quo of animal usage in university research; and a European project to develop replacement training for animal users. And at conferences and events, I now hear “animal methods bias” being referred to as a real thing (indeed, it was recently mentioned in Nature!) thanks to the hard work of the COLAAB group. Five years ago, these were all issues people knew about but were considered secondary to science. The shift in attitudes and approaches to creating change has been huge and hugely gratifying, given it’s what we’ve been saying for a long time.

What hasn’t changed

Sadly, the use of animals in science is still extremely widespread and entrenched, and this is reflected in the statistics. In 2020, there were 2.88 million scientific procedures on animals reported in the UK Home Office annual statistics. Due to the statistics being recorded and reported in arrears the most recent figure for comparison is 2023, when that had dropped to 2.68 million. That is still far too high. 2.68 million too high to be exact.

And so our mission and our commitment hasn’t changed either – to ensure scientists are using non-animal methods in biomedical research and testing, paving the way to a world where no animal suffers for science.

What have I missed? What were your standout moments of the past 5 years? I’d love to hear your comments.