The
Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 (A(SP)A 86) is an
ActAn act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament....
of the
Parliament of the United KingdomThe Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom and British overseas territories. It alone has parliamentary sovereignty, conferring upon it ultimate power over all other political bodies in the UK and its territories...
(1986 c. 14) passed in 1986, which regulates the use of laboratory animals in the UK. The Act permits
experimentsAnimal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research, and in vivo testing, is the use of non-human animals in experiments. It is estimated that 50 to 100 million vertebrate animals worldwide — from zebrafish to non-human primates — are used annually...
to be carried out on animals, including procedures involving
vivisectionFrom Latin vivus + sectio , Vivisection is surgery conducted upon a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to directly view living internal structure for purposes other than the health of the subject....
, if certain criteria are met. The 1986 Act is the UK implementation of the European Directive EC 86/609, which is in the process of being revised.
The
British Union for the Abolition of VivisectionThe British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection is a British animal protection group based in London, UK which campaigns for the complete abolition of all animal experiments. BUAV engages in education, research, lobbying, investigations, including undercover work in laboratories, and legal...
argues that the Act is designed to protect researchers from prosecution for
crueltyCruelty to animals sometimes refers to the infliction of suffering or harm to animals, other than humans, as an end in and of itself. Others broaden its use to include harm for specific gain such as killing animals for food or fur use. Opposing viewpoints are held by jurisdictions throughout the...
, rather than to protect the animals themselves.
The
Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 (A(SP)A 86) is an
ActAn act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament....
of the
Parliament of the United KingdomThe Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom and British overseas territories. It alone has parliamentary sovereignty, conferring upon it ultimate power over all other political bodies in the UK and its territories...
(1986 c. 14) passed in 1986, which regulates the use of laboratory animals in the UK. The Act permits
experimentsAnimal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research, and in vivo testing, is the use of non-human animals in experiments. It is estimated that 50 to 100 million vertebrate animals worldwide — from zebrafish to non-human primates — are used annually...
to be carried out on animals, including procedures involving
vivisectionFrom Latin vivus + sectio , Vivisection is surgery conducted upon a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to directly view living internal structure for purposes other than the health of the subject....
, if certain criteria are met. The 1986 Act is the UK implementation of the European Directive EC 86/609, which is in the process of being revised.
The
British Union for the Abolition of VivisectionThe British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection is a British animal protection group based in London, UK which campaigns for the complete abolition of all animal experiments. BUAV engages in education, research, lobbying, investigations, including undercover work in laboratories, and legal...
argues that the Act is designed to protect researchers from prosecution for
crueltyCruelty to animals sometimes refers to the infliction of suffering or harm to animals, other than humans, as an end in and of itself. Others broaden its use to include harm for specific gain such as killing animals for food or fur use. Opposing viewpoints are held by jurisdictions throughout the...
, rather than to protect the animals themselves. However, a select committee inquiry described the Act as the "tightest system of regulation in the world."
Background
Prior to A(SP)A 86, the use of animals in the UK was regulated by the
Cruelty to Animals Act 1876The Cruelty to Animals Act 1876 was an Act passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom which set limits on the practice of, and instituted a licensing system for animal experimentation, amending the Cruelty to Animals Act 1849...
, which enforced a licensing and inspection system for
vivisectionFrom Latin vivus + sectio , Vivisection is surgery conducted upon a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to directly view living internal structure for purposes other than the health of the subject....
. Animal cruelty was previously regulated by the 1911 Protection of Animals Act (now largely repealed) and more recently by the 2006 Animal Welfare Act, both of which outlaw the causing of "unnecessary suffering". Specific exemptions apply to experiments licensed under the 1986 Act.
Scope
The 1986 Act defines
regulated procedures as animal experiments that could potentially cause "pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm", to
protected animals, which encompass all living
vertebrateVertebrates are members of the subphylum Vertebrata, chordates with backbones or spinal columns. About 58,000 species of vertebrates have been described. Vertebrata is the largest subphylum of chordates, and contains many familiar groups of large land animals. Vertebrates comprise cyclostomes, bony...
s other than humans. A 1993
amendmentLaw is a system of rules, usually enforced through a set of institutions. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a primary social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus ticket to trading on derivatives markets...
added a single invertebrate species,
Octopus vulgarisThe Common Octopus is the most studied of all octopus species. Its natural range extends from the Mediterranean Sea and the southern coast of England to at least Senegal in Africa. It also occurs off the Azores, Canary Islands, and Cape Verde Islands.O. vulgaris grows to 25 cm in mantle length...
, as a protected animal. The Act applies only to protected animals from halfway through their
gestationGestation is the carrying of an embryo or fetus inside a female viviparous animal. Mammals duringpregnancy can have one or more gestations at the same time ....
or incubation periods (for mammals, birds and reptiles) or from when they become capable of independent feeding (for fish, amphibians and, latterly, octopuses).
PrimateA primate is a member of the biological order Primates , the group that contains lemurs, lorisids, galagos, tarsiers, monkeys, and apes, with the last category including great apes. With the exception of humans, who inhabit every continent on Earth, most primates live in tropical or subtropical...
s,
catThe cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felines and felids, is a small carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...
s,
dogThe dog is a domesticated form of the Gray Wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The domestic dog has been one of the most widely kept working and companion animals in human history...
s and
horseThe horse is a hoofed mammal, a subspecies of one of seven extant species of the family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
s have additional protection over other vertebrates under the Act.
Licences & Certificates
A(SP)A 86 involves three levels of regulation — person, project, and place. The 'person' level is achieved by the granting of a "personal licence" (PIL) to a researcher wishing to carry out regulated procedures on a protected animal. Having undergone a defined sequence of training, a researcher can apply for a PIL permitting specified techniques to be carried out on named species of animals. The 'project' level of regulation is governed by the granting of a "project licence" (PPL) to a suitably qualified senior researcher. The PPL will detail the scope of the work to be carried out, the likely benefits that may be realised by the work, and the costs involved in terms of the numbers and types of animals to be used. Typically a large and detailed document, the PPL precisely defines which techniques may be applied to particular animals and for what purpose. Finally the place where regulated procedures are carried out is controlled by the granting of a "certificate of designation" (PCD) to a senior authority figure at the establishment, such as the Registrar of a University or the CEO of a commercial company. The PCD details which rooms in the establishment are permitted to be used for certain techniques and species.
It is an offence under the 1986 Act to carry out regulated procedures on a protected animal unless authorised by a personal licence, a project licence, and a certificate of designation.
Opinion
The
British Union for the Abolition of VivisectionThe British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection is a British animal protection group based in London, UK which campaigns for the complete abolition of all animal experiments. BUAV engages in education, research, lobbying, investigations, including undercover work in laboratories, and legal...
has criticized the Act, arguing that its main function is not to protect animals, but to protect researchers by permitting them to carry out acts that would be illegal outside a laboratory setting. BUAV writes that, "Under the 1986 Act, it is still perfectly legal for an animal in a laboratory to be unnaturally caged for its entire life; poisoned; deprived of food, water or sleep; applied with skin and eye irritants; subjected to psychological stress; deliberately infected with diseases such as cancer and AIDS; brain damaged; paralysed; surgically mutilated; irradiated; burned; gassed; force fed, electrocuted and killed."
A report by
Animal AidAnimal Aid, founded in 1977, is a British animal rights organisation. The group campaigns peacefully against all forms of animal abuse and promotes a cruelty-free lifestyle. It also investigates and exposes animal cruelty....
calls the Act a "vivisectors' charter", alleging that it allows researchers to do as they please and makes them practically immune from prosecution. The report says that licences to perform experiments are obtained on the basis of a "nod of approval" from the Home Office Inspectorate, and that the Home Office relies on the researchers' own cost-benefit analysis of the value of the experiment versus the suffering caused.
A 2002
House of LordsThe House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is also commonly referred to as "the Lords". Parliament comprises the Sovereign, the House of Commons , and the Lords...
select committee inquiry compared the Act to legislation from France, the U.S., and Japan. The report concluded that "virtually all witnesses agreed that the UK has the tightest system of regulation in the world" and that it is "the only country to require an explicit cost/benefit assessment of every application to conduct animal research." Note that costs are explicitly in terms of animal adverse effects, not the financial cost to the experimenters.
In 2005,
Patricia HewittPatricia Hope Hewitt is a British politician. She is the Labour Member of Parliament for Leicester West and the former Secretary of State for Health.- Background :...
, then British
Secretary of State for Trade and IndustryThe Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills is a cabinet position in the United Kingdom government. Its secondary title is the President of the Board of Trade...
, called the Act "[among] the strongest laws in the world to protect animals which are being used for medical research."
Further reading