The Flaky Science Around Animal Testing
Vivisection and animal testing remain central to much of biomedical research, yet serious scientific and ethical problems undermine their claimed reliability. Animals differ physiologically and genetically from humans in ways that make many results poor predictors for human disease, drug safety, and treatment outcomes. Historical disasters such as the infamous TGN1412 trial, where a drug deemed safe in animal tests on monkeys produced catastrophic reactions in humans, demonstrate that negative or positive findings in animals do not guarantee the same human response.
TGN1412 was developed to treat leukaemia and diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. In March 2006, six volunteers received the new drug – but within 90 minutes all experienced life-threatening reactions not seen in any of the clinical trials. Within 12 hours all were in intensive care, where they remained for the next three weeks before a prolonged recovery. Subsequent tests identified a significant difference between the way human and monkey blood cells processed the drug.
The TGN1412 experience is not a one-off – it’s part of a pattern. Systematic reviews across fields such as stroke, sepsis, and neurodegeneration repeatedly show poor translation from animal models to effective human therapies, leaving researchers with countless promising pre-clinical results that fail in clinical trials. The consequences are not only wasted resources, misdirected efforts, and delayed patient benefits, but also the continued practice of obscene levels of animal cruelty, torture, and death. Beyond species differences, experimental design problems also compound the issue. Small sample sizes, lack of randomisation, publication bias toward positive animal results, and selective reporting inflate apparent efficacy in animal studies. These methodological weaknesses mean vivisection regularly offers false reassurance, limiting its scientific value even when animal welfare considerations are set aside. Frequently, outcomes are arrived at to advance further funding.
Whistleblower Testimony and Regulation Concerns in Britain
Whistleblower accounts and regulatory audits have raised concerns about enforcement, transparency and data integrity. Reviews of the Animals in Science Regulation Unit (ASRU) and auditing practices highlight an over-reliance on self-reporting and too few physical audits and unannounced inspections — factors that whistleblowers argue hide systemic problems. Additionally, reports citing whistleblower material and independent audits have criticised how non‑compliance is handled, suggesting letters or advice commonly follow failures rather than stringent sanctions, and note that conflicts of interest in resourcing and oversight are common.
Public investigations and whistleblower disclosures have also identified data‑quality issues in publicly released statistics, prompting official checks, and highlighting how raw data can contain ‘errors’ that muddy public understanding of the realities of animal testing.
Animal Testing in British Universities
Animal experiments remain substantial across UK universities and research establishments. Official Home Office figures show there were around 2,700,000 regulated procedures in Great Britain in 2023. Mice account for roughly two‑thirds of procedures, and fish have been the second most used species since 2007. Worryingly, a significant proportion, around 45 percent of procedures in recent years, relate to the creation and breeding of genetically altered animals, not experimental interventions. This is not the science of medicine and cures but the fraud of building Frankensteins, and in doing so we are manipulating animals to the point where they are no longer their innate selves.
A small number of organisations conduct a large share of animal testing – ten institutions accounted for 54 percent of UK procedures in 2023, meaning millions of experiments are concentrated in a limited group of universities and institutes. Cambridge, Oxford, University College London, Edinburgh, and Manchester are the most prolific universities annually testing on around 850,000 animals between them.
Like the rest of the industry there are several systemic drivers which keep vivisection entrenched in universities. Despite the known flaws of animal testing, regulatory frameworks and international drug‑approval pathways still expect animal safety data for many products. Researchers often perform animal tests to satisfy funders or regulators rather than because they are the best predictive model for humans. Entrenched facilities, trained staff, and procurement systems all create institutional inertia that resists change, even as non‑animal technologies are maturing. In addition, academic incentives, in the form of grants, encourage incremental animal studies that add to the corpus of non‑translatable results rather than investing in human‑relevant methods.
The Silent Suffering at University of Sussex
“When we turn up, particularly on open days, we hand out leaflets that say University of Sussex torture animals, and people ask, ‘what are you talking about?’ Those already at the university tell us we’ve got it wrong. I tell them we filed a Freedom of Information (FIO) request, and it came back confirming the university tests on animals,” said Sarah from Brighton Animal Rights and End Vivisection Experiments.
The University of Sussex (UoS) conducts licensed animal testing, but like many research institutions they are coy about exactly what they do. On their web site they claim they are ‘committed to promoting and upholding the highest quality academic and ethical standards in all its activities.’ And they try to re-assure by telling us they are signatories of the Concordat, a self-styled lobby group that ‘makes sure government, business, international partners and the public can continue to have confidence in UK research and its world-leading researchers.’
“About 17 ,000 animals die every year. That includes fish, mice, rats and frogs” continues Sarah.
The issue with UoS’s reporting is that it lists the number of procedures but not animals – itself a sign of how commodified and incidental the animals involved are. In 2024, there were 17,500 procedures, up 2,500 on the previous year. Industry insiders suggest it is reasonable to assume one procedure per animal. Then they offer a ‘but’ – what is not disclosed is the number of animals bred or purchased but never used in testing. Common practice for these animals is euthanasia, increasing the estimated number of animal deaths at UoS to more than 17,500 for 2024.
Bold, Shy, and Curious
About 75% of the subjects tested on at UoS in 2024 were zebrafish (Danio rerio), who unluckily have a vertebral column, just as humans do, and share about 70% of the same genes with humans. These genetic markers have cursed them with captivity, pain, and suffering.
Anuradha Bhat is a fish ecologist with an interest in zebrafish. Unlike the academics and researchers at UoS, Bhat studies zebrafish in their natural habitat. Despite being the second most popular laboratory animal tested on, Bhat recognised little was known about them.
“I realized that our understanding of zebrafish has been limited to those populations that have been brought into the labs” began Bhat.
“Those lab fish have undergone generations of artificial selection (intentional and otherwise) and their habitats – polycarbonate or glass tanks – differ greatly from those that a zebrafish will experience in the wild. If somebody has been working with the zebrafish from a typical zebrafish lab, they will be surprised to see how different they are from the real wild zebrafish,” said Bhat.
Basing herself in India’s eastern city of Kolkata, Bhat spent her days travelling out to flooded rice paddies and irrigation channels, to streams and inlets, and the flood plains of large rivers, where wild zebrafish live. These diverse habitats have variable flows, substrates, and vegetation, and likely expose the fish to a variety of temperature ranges and water qualities that shift throughout the year as monsoon rains come and go. These assorted habitats make for a range of varied behaviours and personalities amongst zebrafish.
“Zebrafish have demonstrated personality traits such as boldness, shyness, aggression, exploration, and neophilia (a personality type characterised by a strong affinity for novelty). They are spatially aware, and their learning ability and retention of memory differ in males and females, with males showing better learning and females showing better memory,” shared Bhat.
Further observation concluded zebrafish have fluctuations in activity over the day driven by their internal clock – some busy themselves during what was defined as the morning period, others spread their activities over the course of the day. Zebrafish also regulate their social behaviour to increase group cohesion.
Zebrafish are playful, with darting movements and engaging behaviours, they can organize with co-ordinated shoaling and are highly exploratory, always ready to investigate new spaces. And like humans, environmental factors can influence their temperament – they too can have a bad day.
It is estimated a minimum of 13,000 zebrafish were killed at UoS in 2024.
Wild Fish in India – Fredrik Jutfelt https://vimeo.com/200660695
Compassion Visits UoS Campus
On Saturday October 3rd, Sarah and a number of campaigners from Brighton Animal Rights and End Vivisection Experiments co-hosted a protest with Vivisection Exposed at the UoS campus in Falmer, East Sussex.
“We went to the University of Sussex Open Day to educate prospective students and their parents about the animal research that is done there. We handed out many leaflets and wore lab coats with ‘End Animal Testing’ on the back, so everyone knew why we were there,” said Sarah.
“I spoke to several students who were unaware of animals being tortured on campus. I explained it would be more effective to pressure the university from the inside with debates and student union meetings and encouraged them to do that. Hopefully our presence today will plant some seeds,” she continued.
As part of the campaign, Sarah has asked the Vice Chancellor for a meeting to discuss a switch to animal free research.
The Technological Alternatives
The 21st century offers an array of innovative, non-animal research tools with superior predictive power. Advanced cell cultures, organ-on-a-chip systems, computational models, and high-throughput screening can replicate complex human biology without subjecting animals to harm. These technologies often yield faster results, greater reproducibility, and more directly applicable insights into human disease.
For instance, microfluidic chips lined with human cells can mimic organ functions—such as lung breathing motions or vascular flow—providing a realistic environment for testing drugs and toxins. Computational biology harnesses vast datasets to simulate molecular interactions, reducing the need for physical experiments. When researchers adopt these methods, they not only spare animals but also improve the quality and relevance of scientific outcomes.
No More Excuses — It’s Time to End Animal Testing
Vivisection remains scientifically contested, ethically fraught, and institutionally entrenched across UK universities. Official statistics show millions of regulated procedures annually, concentrated within a relatively small group of establishments, including UoS, despite unreliable results.
Vivisection functions as more than a scientific practice – it is an ecosystem with financial, career and institutional incentives that together create powerful resistance to change. It persists not solely because of scientific habit but because it underpins a network of economic, professional, and regulatory incentives. Universities, contract research organisations, equipment suppliers, funding bodies and regulatory systems all benefit directly or indirectly from continued animal abuse.
As for the zebrafish still confined within the UoS’s prison laboratory – we know the more distant or different an animal is from humans in evolutionary terms, the less inclined people are to protect them. We humans don’t share the same aquatic environment, and we find it difficult to interpret their emotional signalling. Fish can’t vocalise distress or make facial expressions familiar to us, so we don’t find it easy to relate to their experiences. Our ignorance is their suffering.
And so, on a windy weekend Brighton Animal Rights and End Vivisection Experiments descended on UoS’s campus to puncture public ambivalence. They spoke to the falsehoods of animal testing and its ethical bankruptcy. Don’t turn away.
— © 2025 Sul Nowroz – Real Media staff writer – Insta: @TheAfghanWriter
