By STEVE BOGGAN

Millions of animals are subjected to painful tests every year

Thought animal testing was banned? Think again. And it's all thanks to Brussels...

After a recent review by an expert panel determined that testing chemicals on animals in laboratories produced 'few real benefits' to medicine, but should continue regardless, STEVE BOGGAN goes behind the scenes at a testing facility to find out what still goes on behind closed doors... and examines the European policies that still allow it to happen.


Trapped: Dozens of bunnies are test at simultaneously in tests BUAV say are cruel and archaic


Clad in her customary white coat, the scientist carefully pulls the latex gloves up over her wrists and walks slowly towards the cage. Reaching in, she seizes one of the rabbits, cowering near the back and clamps it into a testing harness.

Taking it over to a sanitised laboratory bench, Dr Tamsin Decker supervises as solution is squirted into the defenceless animal’s eyes. She has done this many times before — and will watch as it’s done again until the rabbit shows some side-effects: pain, irritation, bleeding perhaps, and eventually, possibly, blindness.


Caged: The scared rabbits find their metal cages very distressing with some continually pacing and biting the bars


For what cause must the animal endure such a wretched, tortured existence? Once upon a time, Dr Decker would have imagined it was to find a cure for cancer, or, at the very least, to test a compound which would relieve suffering.

But now the young woman knows that she is verifying the safety of a chemical contained in toothpaste — a well-established brand leader that she had used to brush her teeth that very morning.


source: dailymail