Huge 800 percent rise in number of animals used for medical experiments in Ireland

Unfortunately, most of the animals experimented on without anaesthetic in Ireland during 2010 had it withheld because it was 'incompatible with the purposes of the experiment' rather than because it would add to the severity of the experiment. That's because in acute toxicology tests like LD50, the protocol calls for observation of the poisoning effects such as body tremors, vomiting, paralysis and coma (and then the animal dies) which aneasthetic could interfere with. The massive increase is probably due to the recent activities of Botox manufacturers in Ireland, though I'm not sure how that affects the acceptability of causing severe and prolonged pain in so many animals. In fact, many of the animals will have suffered to batch test Cosmetic Botox, exploiting a loophole in EU and Irish law which is supposed to ban animal testing for cosmetics purposes. So, if anything, the particular context here intensifies the ethical issues.

Nora!! How the hell is this anti-irish?

Better on animals than us !!!

hi, in your articles,if you could give us a e-mail address so we could confront the people or organization be hind these things.i just sent an e-mail to urban outfitters about --irish yoga trukers hat.you once said there was an organization that was an irish-defamation.you should keep that number available in your posting so we can fight any anti-irish things.there are plenty of us but we need a central focus.

Clare, would you like to try out for the next batch of MS meds or would you offer your child up for the next batch of leukaemia drug trials? I thought not. What about AIDS meds? Would you agree to be infected with HIV/AIDS just so they can test anti retroviral meds on you?

I think it's horrific that in this day and age, outmoded and unnecessarily cruel testing is still being done on animals anywhere in the world, and by people who are licensed as doctors. Deliberately causing pain and suffering to helpless creatures who weren't given the option to decline the treatment is more than inhumane, it's criminal. Except for cancer treatment, we have all the medicines and drugs we need. The big pharmaceutical and medical supply companies are just trying to make even greater profits for themselves, and we all know that the cost of medicine is too high already. Stop the experimentation....or do it on humans who agreed to it.....

George, please take your own advice and boycott Ireland and refuse to holiday here! Please! PLEASE! I hate the idea of animal testing and I always have. I always felt it was completely unnecessary until I ended up working in a histopathology lab. If any of you have ever had blood tests or cancer tests or an immunological test, every single one of the reagents used in each of these tests has been tested on animals first. Most antibodies wer use in the detection of cancers have been extracted from the blood of animals injected with other antibodies.

So Georgie you're an animal lover too?.Do you think everybody here wants to know about your sex life?

That number isn't right ,cause they counted the politicians they used in there!

A couple of points. First of all many procedures performed on lab animals do not require anaesthesia. Any doctor can tell you that anaesthesia carries risks of its own, and any vet will tell you that anaesthesia itself can be distressing to an animal, so of course scientists are only going to use it when it is necessary. Why use anaesthesia if it's going to cause more distress than the procedure you are anaesthetising for? Secondly, what is the wider context for the increase in animals used in toxicity testing? Have new research companies been established in Ireland in recent years? Has the contract research research sector expanded recently? Of course animal studies are only a part of what these companies do, a lot of which uses in vitro and in silico techniques, but given the low base from which animal research numbers started in Ireland (reflecting the historically small medical research sector) I wouldn't be surprised if just a few companies being founded or moving to Ireland accounted for most of the increase. To put it in perspective the number of animals used in animal research in Ireland was about 1/15th the 4 million used in the UK in the same year. And how do these numbers compare to the number of animals slaughtered in the Irish livestock industry in 2010? Still, why not do down the only sector in the Irish economy which seems to have a future!

There are MORE than enough rapists and murderers living off the hard earned money of taxpayers. THIS could be, and SHOULD be, their way of "giving back," and paying for, their vicious, inhumane acts of violence. No innocent animal should ever be made to suffer in such horrible ways. Of course, this is a very unpopular view because EVERYONE knows we're the "superior species," and "God's own," and we were "given dominion (reads "responsibility" in some biblical translations.) over all the earth and creatures," (of course, subject to MAN'S interpretation of what was said/written originally!) Take the 2 legged monsters, those born naturally evil and without the requisite "soul" and use THEM in experiments instead of animals who have done NOTHING....except fall into the hands of man. After all, they're God's creations, too, if we're going to follow the biblical explanations of why everything exists.