A poll has revealed increased public support for animal experiments.

According to a MORI survey for the Coalition for Medical Progress, a new alliance formed to state the case for vivisection, 90 per cent of people give conditional backing for vivisection in science, compared with 84 per cent in 1999.

Forum Response: British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection

Wendy Higgins, campaigns director of BUAV, said: "This Coalition for Medical Progress conveniently blames an alleged downturn in support on animal rights activists but that simply doesn't reflect our experience on the ground. We certainly haven't witnessed any decrease in public disgust at laboratory animal suffering.

"The poll's questions contain highly leading provisos. For example, there appears to be higher support for animal experiments if no unnecessary suffering was involved, and yet this premise is a nonsense as the severe level of suffering lab animals endure is all but hidden from public view and under the legislation lab animals can be subjected to a catalogue of horrendous cruelties.

"This is just so much spin by a coalition of animal researchers. The suggestion that public support for animal campaigners has waned just isn't substantiated by our everyday experience.

"If the public is presented with a false scenario where they believe it is possible to experiment on animals without causing suffering, then of course you could expect a higher figure. But when they see the horrific evidence of animal suffering for themselves rather than the sanitised version delivered by the animal researchers, they are revolted by it."

Forum Response: National Anti-Vivisection Society

Jan Creamer, chief executive of NAVS, said: "This is the opposite of our experience with the public. People have deep-seated misgivings about animal experiments and want to see them replaced with non-animal methods.

"Our supporter numbers continue to rise, and we receive more requests for information now than ever before. The key word used in this claim is 'conditional' - we would want to examine careful what questions were asked in order to produce such very strange findings."