Switzerland rejects animal testing ban: Understanding the practice and laws protecting animals around world
Switzerland on Sunday rejected a proposal that would have banned medical and scientific experiments on animals. If the referendum had passed, Switzerland would have become the first country in the world to do so.
Switzerland on Sunday rejected a proposal that would have banned medical and scientific experiments on animals. If the referendum had passed, Switzerland would have become the first country in the world to do so.
About 80 animal rights organisations had called for the ban on tests, terming them unethical and unnecessary. However, the referendum was met with strong opposition from the country’s powerful pharmaceuticals lobby, which warned of the economic damage such a ban could cause.
According to Reuters, only 21 per cent of voters were in favour of the animal experiment ban, while 79 per cent were against the ban in the nationwide referendum held under the Swiss tradition of direct democracy.
The initiative aimed to ban all experiments on humans and animals along with the import of new products developed using such methods.
This was the fourth time that the Swiss voters rejected a call for ban on animal testing. It was previously called for vote in 1985, 1992 and 1993.
Let’s examine animal testing, how important it is for drug production and research and why people are seeking a ban on it:
What is animal testing? How many animals are tested?
As the name suggests, use of animals to conduct medical and scientific experiments is termed animal testing. Evidence of animal testing can be found in Greek writings from 2nd and 4th centuries BC.
Animals, dead and alive, have been used for biomedical purposes throughout history.
According to Switzerland’s Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office, approximately 556,000 animals were used for experimental purposes in the country last year. The vast majority were mice (346,000), birds (66,000) and rats (52,000). The total figure represented a decrease of 18 per cent compared with 2015, when the downhill trend started.
However, the number of experiments conducted on animals in Switzerland have steadily declined in recent years. From nearly two million in the early 1980s, the number has now plunged to an average of 600,000 every year.
Most experiments in the country are carried out by businesses and universities.
According to animal rights organisation, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), more than 100 million animals, including mice, rats, frogs, dogs, monkeys, and birds are killed in US laboratories for biology lessons, medical training, curiosity-driven experimentation, and chemical, drug, food, and cosmetics testing.
The organisation said that as part of the testing process animals are forced to “inhale toxic fumes, others are immobilised in restraint devices for hours, some have holes drilled into their skulls, and others have their skin burned off or their spinal cords crushed”.
According to swissinfo, in 2020, over 60 per cent of all the procedures on animals were performed during basic biology research.
Laws in favours of animals
As per a Pew Research Center poll 52 per cent of US adults oppose the use of animals in scientific research, and other surveys suggest that the shrinking group that does accept animal experimentation does so only because it believes it to be necessary for medical progress.
Due to continued opposition from animal rights groups, a federal law on protection of animals was passed in 2008 in Switzerland.
Touted as “one of the strictest and most comprehensive” laws in the world, it requires authorisation for every laboratory experiment, and for any confinement of animals.
Under the law, researchers have to prove that benefits to society outweigh the suffering inflicted.
In the US, at least three states have passed laws to ban testing cosmetics on animals. In 2002, California became the first state to prohibit testing cosmetics and personal care items on animals, when an alternative test is available.
In 2013, India became the first south Asian country to ban animal testing for the manufacture of cosmetics.
According to a report by Down to Earth, India banned several tests on animals in 2012, including acute oral toxicity limit test and oral mucosal irritation test as these tests “can easily be replaced by computer simulations and tests on human or animal cells”.
In 2010, Israel too enacted a law to ban the import and marketing of cosmetics tested on animals. In 2013, a similar ban came into effect in 27 European Union countries that prohibited marketing of cosmetic products tested on animals.
With inputs from agencies
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