The emotive issue of using animals in medical research, like many other scientific issues we face today, highlights the importance of maintaining a robust regulatory system, gaining public trust in science and conducting an open and informed debate between scientists, politicians, the public and the media. In my career both as a scientist and a politician, this is the agenda I have continually promoted. Without such principles, and active efforts to realise them, scientific progress will be paralysed by scandal, mistrust and, in the case of animal rights activism, violence.

The first point that needs to be pressed home, is that when it comes to science, we have one of the most robust regulatory systems in place and have often taken the lead, as in human embryology, in making sure that ethical concerns are dealt with thoroughly. When it comes to using animals for medical research, it is not only useful to illustrate how it has already benefited and promises to benefit human health, but to stress that this is an area that has come under increasing regulation and scrutiny. It is not something scientists are able to do purely on a whim. In 1986, the government tightened up the rules for obtaining licences, so that scientists would have to make a cost-benefit case for their work and prove that there were no alternatives to the use of animals. In 1998 the use of animals in cosmetic testing was banned. In 1999, a second tier of regulation was introduced, creating ethical review committees to oversee animal experiments.

As a result of these regulations, the number of animals used in commercial research has almost halved since 1987 and, as a whole, the number of scientific procedures using animals has halved since the 1970s. This downward trend is welcome and efforts are continually being made to take it further through a commitment to the so-called three Rs: reduction, refinement and replacement. The UK is a world leader in developing alternatives, from cell-cultures to computer models to human volunteers. The Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments (FRAME) has done excellent work in this area. In May this year, the government launched the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research to be based, initially, at the Medical Research Council with funding of £660,000 and a promise of more money in the future. The UK’s largest pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline, has found a way to combine kidney dialysis machines and human cells to create artificial organs. But the alternatives cannot yet replace all animal work. Computer simulation cannot reproduce complex interactions within the human body. You cannot study a beating heart in a test tube.

This brings us to the question of why we need to use animals. Many of those who oppose the practice claim that animals are too different from humans to provide reliable results, which suggest that all the scientists involved, a lot of them the brightest we have, are either severely misguided or incredibly stupid. The truth is that, although we have to use caution in interpreting the results of animal experiments, we can still gain useful knowledge by studying the effect of a drug on the whole organism and there is no other way that this knowledge could be gained. Someone testing a drug on cells in a tissue culture cannot predict whether this substance will be broken down into something else that may affect the body, whether for good or bad. The whole organism is a very complex mechanism, with immune responses and a functioning brain, and this is something that has to be taken into account when we treat a person with a drug. Animal experimentation is also about finding successful surgical approaches and not just developing drugs. And it is a fact that we are remarkably similar to animals – humans and flies share 60 per cent of their genes and humans and mice share 90 per cent.

If we argue that no one animal is perfect for experiments, then we ignore the very essence of science and experimentation that operates on the principle that our knowledge can never be perfect. While building up a knowledge base, we also constantly work to test and improve on it. Every experiment contributes to our understanding. Claiming that animal trials are invalid also implies that human trials are invalid because they too do not pick up on every side-effect. The biggest clinical trial only uses a few hundred patients, so not all side effects can be seen and harm to humans can be caused when doctors prescribe drugs to groups that they have not been tested on, such as children or the elderly.

In short, the overwhelming weight of scientific opinion is that animals remain vital for medical research. Organisations supporting medical research involving animals (where no valid alternative exists) include medical research charities, patient groups, academic and scientific societies, universities, medical schools, research institutes, veterinary associations and medical associations. It is worth noting that, in this country at least, charities are the biggest source of external funding for animal experiments. Two independent committees, the House of Lords select committee on science and technology and the animal procedures committee, have both looked at the validity of animal experimentation in recent years and both have concluded that it is a proven valuable research approach.

Opinion polls have shown that as long as experiments are tightly regulated and suffering is kept to a minimum, research involving animals has overwhelming public support. While nobody can oppose measures to reduce the practice to an essential minimum I am sure that few could argue that exciting and truly promising advances in cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, stroke, genetic disorders and heart disease, to name a few, should be sacrificed to the tyranny of an anti-progressive and violent minority. The government’s recent stand against such activists is long overdue and necessary for science to proceed in a climate of regulation, openness and trust, rather than fear, misinformation and terror.