Two charts about animal use in research
Prompted by Siouxsie Wiles’s report of talking to an anti-vivisectionist demonstrator, here are two charts from the annual report of the National Animal Ethics Advisory Committee. These are the people who monitor the use of animals in research, testing, and teaching in New Zealand.
The first chart shows what types of animals are used and what happens to them afterwards
More than half are sheep and cattle, mostly cattle, and mostly subjected to things like breeding or eating different types of feed. There are quite a lot of mice used in biological research, though the numbers are decreasing (down 24% last year) partly because they are being replaced by zebrafish. None are monkeys.
About half of the research is commercial, with about a quarter at universities
Some people will still be opposed to livestock research because they’re opposed to livestock farming. Some people still disapprove of the use of mice in biomedical research. But anyone who wants to campaign on those issues should be clear that those are the issues.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »