Expert: Robin Flynn - 5/2/2007

Question
what laws are in animal testing

Answer
Hi Ed,

I have provided 2 answers to your question. Animal Aid addresses UK regulations and The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine provides information regarding US law.

Animal Aid
In the UK, vivisection is controlled by the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, which states that experiments can take place only if the expected benefits to humans outweigh the animals’ suffering. In practice, though, it allows experiments for almost any reason, such as testing food additives, weapons, tobacco material and alcohol. And, in reality, no animal experiments help people because the information obtained is unreliable. Scientists like to keep their experiments secret and the Act encourages that - in fact, someone working in a lab can be imprisoned for two years simply for exposing what takes place! In contrast, no animal researcher has ever been prosecuted under the 1986 Act, despite undercover investigations showing, for instance, dogs being punched violently and data being fabricated, brain-damaged monkeys left unmonitored overnight following surgery, and researchers laughing as they smashed live mice against bench tops to kill them.

http://www.animalaid.org.uk/h/n/CAMPAIGNS/experiments

PCRM
No law in the United States prohibits any experiment. The only federal law that applies to animals used for research—the Animal Welfare Act—is, for all intents and purposes, a husbandry statute that regulates the size of cages, cleanliness standards, provision of food and water, etc., for only a small fraction of the animals used in research. Animals in laboratories are routinely subjected to painful procedures and are usually killed afterward. Routine caging, isolation, handling, and even the laboratory environment itself are extremely stressful to animals.  
The Animal Welfare Act, the primary federal legislation "protecting" animals, does not apply to mice, rats, and birds. These animals are used in 80 to 90 percent of all experiments, yet they are given no protection.5 Even for animals to whom the Animal Welfare Act applies, the regulations in place are sorely deficient. Indeed, federal regulations do not prevent any experimental procedure, regardless of how painful it may be. While the Animal Welfare Act encourages the use of pain killers, experimenters can omit their use if they so choose.
Additionally, enforcement of laws that do exist is often inadequate. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), which is responsible for enforcing the AWA, reports that nearly half of all facilities are in violation of one or more provisions of the law.6 With only 73 inspectors for approximately 10,000 sites, inspections are rare and do not provide a real picture of a facility's animal use programs. Ron DeHaven, APHIS Animal Care Acting Deputy Administrator, admits that the agency's "intent is not to punish" facilities that violate animal protection laws, but rather to "work with them."

http://www.pcrm.org/resch/anexp/

For the animals,
Robin