EXPERIMENTS ON MICE AND RATS

That this House notes that the National Anti-Vivisection Society has evidence of overbreeding of laboratory rats and mice, and that all surplus animals are bred simply to be gassed, in particular that at Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School, breeding records show that of a total of 52,435 rodents over a one year period, just 15,198 (29 per cent) were used for experiments, 7 per cent. died before being weaned, and 68 per cent, (33,348 animals) were killed, usually gassed; further notes that massive overbreeding has been found in other London laboratories, and that the National Anti-Vivisection Society has suggested that the suffering could be reduced if the London medical schools were made to share their animal supplies; notes that whilst Home Office statistics show 2.3 million rats and mice were used in experiments in 1994, the breeding records from Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School and, previously, St.Mary's Medical School, indicate the real figure of rodents killed in laboratories is closer to 4.7 million per annum and that there is no doubt these animals suffer greatly from factory farming methods used to produce them in bare plastic boxes with nothing of interest to occupy them, and death by suffocation with CO2 gas; and calls on the Home Office to respond in light of these new figures.