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Fellow Challenges Researchers on Animal Testing

26th September 2011

Centre Fellow Dr Andrew Knight

Centre Fellow Dr Andrew Knight has challenged the utility of animal testing at three international conferences on laboratory animal science.

Dr Knight, who is a veterinarian and a bioethicist, called upon the research community to more accurately weigh the likely human benefits against the costs to animals enrolled in invasive research programmes. “Too often”, he asserted, “studies following animal research have demonstrated that assumptions of medical benefits were unrealistic. An accurate weighing of the likely costs and benefits of such research is expected by society, required by legislation, and is morally imperative.”

Dr Knight lectured at the Third East Mediterranean International Council for Laboratory Animal Science Symposium in Istanbul in June (see here), the Eighth World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences in Montreal in August (see here), and the 49th Annual Meeting of the Society for Laboratory Animal Science in Dresden, in September (see here). The latter is Europe’s largest annual laboratory animal science conference.

Dr Knight’s presentations summarised key evidence about the human clinical utility of invasive animal research, and its animal welfare costs, contained within his book The Costs and Benefits of Animal Experiments (see here).

The latter was recently published as part of the Centre’s Series on Animal Ethics, in conjunction with Palgrave Macmillan.

Dr Knight is available for further presentations. His website is here.