AR-News: Financial Times (London) letter arguing against efficacy of animal testing

[Karen Dawn]

Financial Times (London)

July 17, 2003, Thursday London Edition 2

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR; Pg. 16

 Animal tests will add time and expense to EU plan



>From Dr Ray Greek.

Sir, There can be no prospect of any health benefits from the European Union
chemical testing plan (EU chemicals plan 'could save Euros 69bn in health
costs'", July 15) if animal tests are employed to provide the data. Apart
from the time scale and expense involved being prohibitive, the results
would be entirely meaningless and even counter-productive - allowing unsafe
chemicals to be deemed safe, as happens currently.

The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution recommends that slow and
inefficient toxicity tests on animals should be abandoned. Chemicals should
be assessed using new computational technologies, already widely used by the
pharmaceuticals industry. This would enable 90 per cent of the 30,000
chemicals to be screened within three years (rather than three decades) and
would avoid tests on up to 50m animals.

The proposed chemicals policy offers the EU an opportunity to lead the world
in the use of modern, superior non-animal tests. The European Commission
must seize this opportunity for the sake of human health and safety. The
current draft, heavily reliant on animal testing, "appears to adopt a
particularly costly, burdensome, and complex approach, which could prove
unworkable in its implementation", according to the US government in its
submission to the Commission last week.

Ray Greek, Medical Director, Europeans For Medical Advancement, London W13
0YR