AR-News: OECD accept non-animal experiments

[Masako Miyaji]

http://www.bfr.bund.de/

BfR Press release of 2004-05-25

Around the world animals will now have to suffer less
in the name of safety for humans!

For the first time OECD has accepted four
toxicological test methods involving no animal
experiments.

In May 2004 the International Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) accepted
the first four toxicological test methods involving no
animal experiments into the OECD Test Guidelines
Programme. The BfR Centre for Documentation and
Evaluation of Alternatives to Animal Experiments
(ZEBET) played a major role in the development and
validation of these methods. According to Professor
Horst Spielmann, Director of ZEBET;BfR has made an
important contribution to replacing the officially
prescribed animal experiments with methods that do not
require the use of animals.

Two of the new alternatives to animal experiments
determine whether and, if so, to what degree a
substance has a corrosive effect on the skin. The two
other methods determine the uptake of foreign
substances through the skin and the phototoxic 
properties of substances. Instead of rabbits
biotechnologically manufactured human skin models are
used to test for corrosive properties. The uptake of
substances by the skin is tested using human skin
samples and skin samples from slaughter animals or
using biotechnologically manufactured human skin
models. In the phototoxicity test cell cultures are
used instead of experimental animals.

The tests have now been prescribed on the
international level by state authorities for the
purposes of safety at work and consumer protection in
conjunction with the use of new chemical substances.
The alternative methods replace stressful animal
experiments for the testing of industrial chemicals,
cosmetic ingredients, plant protection products and
medicinal products.

BfR has financed comprehensive biostatistical
analyses, the results of which were an important
contributory factor to securing international
acceptance (cf. inter alia bgvv Press release
36/2001). In 2001 two OECD expert meetings were held
in Berlin. A staff member of BfR had been seconded to
Paris and during this time he was able to overcome the
scientific reservations in the organs of the OECD
Member States about these new methods. Today, the
methods are officially recognised by the regulatory
authorities in all OECD Member States. This
recognition is the precondition for success in terms
of animal welfare of a new safety toxicological test
method involving no animal experiments. It has now
been met by the above four methods.

 


	
		
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Friends.  Fun.  Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
http://messenger.yahoo.com/