Today (13 July 2023) the UK Home Office has published ‘Statistics of scientific procedures on living animals, Great Britain: 2022’. There has been a 10% decrease in the total number of procedures carried out in 2022, compared to 2021.
97% of all procedures were carried out in mice, fish, rats, and birds, whereas cats, dogs, and primates accounted for 0.2% of all procedures in 2022.
Understanding Animal Research (UAR) has an analysis of the statistics on its website:
You can also download the report directly from the Government website:
LASA Council Member Prof Clare Stanford, Emeritus Professor of Translational Neuropharmacology, UCL, and Chair of the Royal Society of Biology’s Animals Sciences Group, said:
“Both the numbers of animals used for experimental purposes and the total number of procedures that were carried out are lower than the year before. Whereas this pattern is consistent with a commitment to the 3Rs, especially ‘reduction’, it is important to ensure that these changes do not reflect a decline in research outputs that are beneficial to humans and other animals, which would undermine UK’s status as a world leader in biomedical research.”
As part of its work to support openness in animal research communications, UAR has also published a list of the ten organisations that carried out the most procedures in 2022. These ten organisations accounted for 52% of all animal research in Great Britain in 2022. You can read more here: https://www.understandinganimalresearch.org.uk/news/ten-organisations-account-for-half-of-all-animal-research-in-great-britain-in-2022
