THE LORD Dowding Fund for Humane Research has written to all MPs about its proposals to the House of Lords Select Committee on Animals in Scientific Procedures. It wants a national centre which will coordinate the development of ways of replacing animals in research and testing. The Lords gave the idea their blessing in general terms.
The fund does not envisage a central laboratory as such, but rather a body that can coordinate scientific work done at institutions nationwide. The aim would be to stimulate new research and to disseminate information on research methods that do not require the use of animals. Such a centre would encourage the development of sophisticated, high-quality research techniques, as well as helping to end the use of animals in research鈥攁n issue of wide public concern.
Together with the Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research, the Lord Dowding Fund has drawn up a detailed proposal for a coordinating 鈥渉ub and spokes鈥� structure, in which a small central office would coordinate and fund projects, with finance from government, industry and grant-giving bodies such as itself. A copy of the detailed proposal is available from info@ldf.org.uk.
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Many MPs are likely to find the proposal attractive. Most will have been lobbied at some time or other, perhaps violently, certainly vehemently, on the use of animals in research and testing. Some may even admit to having given rash undertakings on this issue at the hustings. Personally I look forward to the reactions of the Research Defence Society, which I anticipate to be that the Dowding proposal is an unrealistic soft option that is likely to do more harm than good to serious medical advance.
SLEEPING SICKNESS, or trypanosomiasis, is still a scourge of many tropical African countries, for the tsetse fly that transmits it continues to thrive. The Animal Health Research Programme of the Department for International Development (DFID) recently hosted a major meeting in Edinburgh on the problems of reducing, and ultimately eliminating, tsetse-transmitted trypanosomiasis in humans and animals. This is a matter of great significance for human health and well-being, and for sustainable agriculture and rural development.
Clare Short, the international development secretary, says the DFID is not convinced that the scientific and economic theories on which the original proposals of the World Health Organization鈥檚 campaign for the eradication of tsetse flies from Africa (PATTEC) were founded have been proved. The department believes that efforts in the foreseeable future should focus on the control of tsetse and trypanosomiasis rather than eradication. This was also the consensus of the DFID meeting and more recent statements by PATTEC and the Programme Against African Trypanosomiasis (PAAT) set up jointly by a number of international agencies.
I was surprised to learn that many researchers have misgivings about the sustainability of any eradication scheme for tsetse. But the problem is that tsetse can fly considerable distances, and artificial barriers have seldom proved fly-proof. The one scheme that has achieved eradication is that on the island of Zanzibar, where the sea proved an effective barrier to recolonisation by tsetse. Nevertheless, British researchers are working on a range of tools 鈥� attractants, traps and insecticides 鈥� to control the tsetse and trypanosomiasis without it costing billions of dollars.
