I’ve recently had a number of challenging conversations with scientists in the animal research sector. They report a strong feeling of ‘replacement fatigue’ within their circles, noting a sense that the replacement agenda is moving unrealistically quickly and being driven by ideology rather than scientific merit. They are concerned that the UK will lose its position as a leader in scientific research if animal use is further restricted, that medical discoveries and treatments will be set back, and that animal use will move to other countries to the detriment of both the UK economy and animal welfare.  

Everyone is very, very tired – and a little bit scared

They report increasing levels of verbal abuse and threatening behaviour from animal advocates, and a weariness with ill-informed statements such as “it can all be done with AI now”. They also noted a resentment that efforts that have been made towards Replacement in part of a protocol or an element of their research programme are not being acknowledged, as it’s not full Replacement. 

These conversations have given me considerable pause for thought and give rise to very mixed feelings. On the one hand, there is a part of me that’s delighted that replacement is now being so widely discussed. When I started this job just over 5 years ago, it was barely being addressed at all.  

It is possible that this is part of the change cycle. It is natural that there will be resistance to change, and it could be dismissed as such – ‘the old guard reluctant to let go’ trope.  

However, I cannot ignore that these are highly intelligent, respected and dedicated scientists with valid concerns, so I’ll give you my take on some of these below. 

Animal research needs to be visible

At this time, which I believe to be a tipping point, there is a real risk that we will slide back into the two tribes mentality of fear and distrust that was prevalent in the 1990’s and early 2000, with animal research becoming invisible (we’ve spoken before about how important transparency is for change) and researchers reluctant to engage with replacement organisations. I believe that any activity which makes researchers less likely to share and discuss their work is detrimental to our overall goal. Let’s dial down the rhetoric and proceed like adults. 

Similarly, taking a national perspective, pushing animal research overseas, where regulations may be less stringent and animal welfare standards possibly lower, is a real risk of the phase-out strategy. We have not seen the strategy yet, but it is my hope that the government will have considered this and will seek to put measures in place to avoid this outcome. It will, however, be extremely challenging to do so without harming international collaboration.  

Replacement isn’t black and white

The point about mixed models is well made and extremely important. Replacement is not, and never has been, all or nothing. The ultimate goal is the end of animal use, but the path to get there is messy, involving time, trial and error, and innovative thinking. We are seeing an increasing number of researchers using both in vitro and in vivo methods (I was particularly struck by this at our training school in Dublin this year), and it is often the case that they can go so far to answer a question without using animals, but cannot complete the entire piece of work without moving to a whole organism.  This raises multiple questions we would like to ask: 

• Firstly, are you sure? Does the research really need doing? Is it important? If so, the Replacement Checklist can help to identify whether there are any alternatives that have been missed that might enable the whole programme to be animal-free. 

• Assuming this is not possible, then how do we capture information about the points at which alternatives are no longer feasible? This is critical information in order to be able to direct funding to address these blockers. Often, the reason given is “We need a whole organism”, but this type of answer doesn’t tell us why.  

• Lastly, how do we acknowledge steps on this Replacement pathway? There is the stick that 3Rs compliance is required under our legislation, but scientists are people too, and there needs to be some incentive to really push Replacement as far as possible. Here I would put the onus on funders to do more, as well as institutional support and leadership, which is a theme I’ll come back to in a future blog.  

Ending the use of animals is everyone’s goal

The last point I want to address (of the many points I could pick up out of these discussions) is that the ‘Replacement agenda’ is being ideologically rather than scientifically driven.  

The goal to work towards the end of animal use in testing and research is one that is shared by many countries, and reinforced to varying degrees by numerous surveys of public opinion. We can argue about the extent to which all science is political and all politics ideological, but frankly, there isn’t time. This is simply the context in which science is being done today, so it behoves us all to just get on with it.  

In the most part, I think this is a disagreement about the pace of change rather than the overall goal. There are worries we will go ‘too far’ and create a bias towards animal-free approaches. But the main point to note here is that there should be a bias towards non-animal methods. If two procedures are equally valid for answering a question, the law says you must choose the animal-free one.  

So, my final question i,s why continue to swim against the tide when we and others want to work with you to map the route and avoid the rocks? If you’d like to pick up the conversation, then please do get in touch!