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Five decades, one mission: End Animal Testing

For almost fifty years Animal Aid and our supporters have been at the forefront of campaigning to end the use of animals in research. Progress has been painfully slow for animals, but looking back it’s clear we have come so very far. In the coming weeks, the government will announce its plan to ‘phase out animal testing’; For animals, science and human health, we hope this plan will be ambitious, progressive and urgent.

Our first ever supporter newsletter, sent in 1978, documented the horrors of toxicity testing conducted on rats and dogs. One of our earliest campaigns was to ban the archaic lethal dose 50% (LD50) test, with powerful images and strong messaging, public awareness and horror grew. Through the 80’s and 90’s Animal Aid organised many protest marches and weeks of action, also researching in-depth campaign briefings into the use of animals in experiments. In 1986 we produced the first ever guide to cruelty free cosmetics to enable people to make compassionate purchases. While always evolving, our work to raise awareness continues today and in 2024 we won the Lush Public Awareness Prize for our campaign to end the LD50.  

Change from within is vital, we must engage the next generation of scientists – they will be the ones delivering human-relevant science.  In the 90’s, building upon our amazing education outreach, we launched the Degree of Compassion and then the Ethical Scientist campaign to support science students to make compassionate choices. For the last four years Animal Aid has hosted the Future of Science student conference, introducing young science students, to the incredible world of modern non-animal research and the inspirational scientists leading in these areas. 

An initiative way ahead of its time, in 1991 Animal Aid launched the Humane Research Donor Card – if scientists could use donated human tissue or organs in their work, millions of animals could be saved and safer human-relevant results achieved. We also funded an eye tissue bank in the University of East Anglia, again to support research without using animals. Most recently, in 2022 we funded XCellR8 to develop a non-animal replacement to the oral LD50 known as AcutoX. This test is now in commercial use by multi-national companies and provides yet more weight to our call for an immediate end to the LD50. 

Alongside the public awareness, education, and support for non-animal methods, we’ve continually collaborated with other groups to drive political change, and thankfully together have achieved a ban on animal testing for cosmetics, first in the UK then across the EU. But from our founding days, we have always been committed to the abolition of ALL animal experimentation and so prior to the 2024 general election, Animal Aid worked hard to secure Labour’s manifesto commitment to phase out all animal testing.

With the most significant commitment ever from government, in late 2024 Animal Aid produced our roadmap to end animal testing required by law. We sent the roadmap to all relevant Government Ministers and met with the government, parliamentarians and those tasked with producing their strategy, making the strongest case for the sake of both animals and human-relevant science. Earlier this week we hosted a roundtable discussion with MPs to further push the case to end animal testing. 

Read more about the roundtable

And now we wait.  But in stark contrast to our early days, where we were on opposite sides to ‘industry’ and scientists, they too are now also calling for many of the changes we want to see, all frustrated that regulators and the policymakers are so far behind.   

Progress is so much slower than any animal campaigner would like, but we know the work that Animal Aid and our supporters around the country have done over the last five decades to raise awareness of and push for change has made a huge difference.  

We hope that the imminent Government strategy will show real ambition and provide a progressive and urgent plan to end the use of all animals in laboratories, with an immediate ban on the LD50 and similar tests. Â