PROFESSOR THE LORD WINSTON MP

TUESDAY 14 MAY 2002

Chairman

  1833. Lord Winston, thank you very much indeed for coming to see us today. Do you wish to make any brief opening submission?

  (Professor the Lord Winston) Having had a little experience of this position in a past incarnation, no, I do not think I will.

  1834. In your collaborative work with scientists in the United States, how does research using animals in the UK compare to similar research in the US in terms of (a) bureaucracy and (b) public acceptability?
  (Professor the Lord Winston) On both counts, quite substantially differently. I have just come back from California. I have been there twice in the last ten days. I have experimental work going on there. I have worked in Texas and California in my time on animals and I have used various animal species, including rodents, lagomorphs, rabbits, larger animals and primates. In order to try and answer this question, I contacted my collaborator in the States last night and I will deposit with you the website of AAALAC. As far as I understand it, and it seems to be true in California where I am currently working, regulation is up to the institution itself. It is self-regulation. The Internal Animal Care and Use Committee in the California Institute of Technology where I am working controls that work. Applications are made by individual researchers and on that committee will be, amongst other people of course, at least one or two lay members in addition to people who have expertise within the general field. The committee will meet monthly. Applications take about a week to process between committees so there is a very prompt action. In addition, with larger animals above rodents—though, like the United Kingdom, the biggest single usage will be rodents inevitably and that is probably increasing—they are subject to inspection by the United States Department of Agriculture.

  1835. In other evidence, we have heard that their inspectors, unlike ours, are not particularly specialised in laboratory animals. They deal with circuses, zoos, farm animals, and there are very few of them relative to the size of the United States.
  (Professor the Lord Winston) I think that is absolutely correct. That is my impression as well. The difference is though that the veterinarians on site have a great deal of expertise. The ones that I have come across both in Texas and more recently in California have been extremely knowledgeable and helpful. There is a different kind of culture, which is geared to assuring speedy outcome of the research and in no way is neglecting the care of the animals. Spot inspections are made. It is my impression that the United States laboratories that I have worked in—and I have been to a few others other than the ones that I am talking about—show the highest standards of care, certainly equal to anything that we have in the good laboratories in England. I work at Imperial College which has good standards as well. There is a substantial difference in bureaucracy. If I may say so, one thing that concerns my close collaborator, Dr Reedhill, and I is that there is one particular experiment that we have been trying to do using pigs for the last ten months which basically involves breeding them. The Home Office have held up this licence on a scientific misunderstanding. Their impression of the science that has been published already is wrong and therefore they think that this experiment is unnecessary. It is not. It is a completely novel experiment that we are being forced to pursue in the United States at hugely increased cost both to my university and to myself because the wear and tear in travelling transatlantic is very considerable, particularly if you are going to do very fine surgery at the end of the travel. With regard to the question of public acceptability, there is also a difference in the United States, though that may be lessening. There is evidence that animal rightist activity is much greater than it used to be, though when I look at the websites the most virulent ones still seem to be in Australia and in Britain. America has an entrepreneurial culture and it is very much geared to what might be of benefit both commercially but also in terms of human health. In our case, I am seeing a very important experiment which involves transgenic work being held up in this country. The increasing challenge to patents which will be of great commercial value both to my university and to our economy; they are large patents because they involve the possibility of xenotransplantation, so they are quite important in terms of the applications for human health given that so many people die on transplant lists while they are waiting. It is deeply upsetting for us to see other researchers in the United States publishing work that we would normally have completed by now.

  1836. Are there experiments on animals which are carried out in the US but would not be permitted in the UK? You have more or less said that is true. If so, should any of them be permitted in the UK?
  (Professor the Lord Winston) I have brought with me my colleague, Dr Morgan, who holds an animal licence and who has worked in my laboratory for the last three years and, before that, at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund. She has written such excellent answers to your questions that I will hand those in after this meeting. She points out that one of the issues is that it is much easier to transfer between different strains of rodent. That can be quite important. For example, at the moment, we are transferring cells into the gonads of different animals but we now want to use a new strain to see if there is an immune problem. I cannot do that in Britain because it would need a reapplication. Even if you changed the dose of drug, or changed the character of the cell in the slightest degree, you need to hold up the entire experiment whilst you are having to reapply. In the United States, it is a very simple matter to say, "I now want to use a different strain of mouse which has different genetics, a different immune basis."

Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior

  1837. You probably are aware that in the United States there are two sets of laws governing animal experimentation, those using federal money that include rats, mice and chickens and the Agriculture Act that now excludes rats, mice and chickens. What are your feelings about that? We did visit the States as you well know and, despite a lot of philosophical argument that we put forward, we could not convince the agricultural authorities that rats, mice and chickens required a certain amount of protection.
  (Professor the Lord Winston) I get the feeling that the situation is changing. Over the last year, particularly in reports in the journal Science and, more recently, from my last visit at Caltech talking to biologists, there seems to be more concern to include rodents in the licensing procedure. It may well be that they will be more restrictive about rodents in the future. Whether they will be about chickens I am not sure.

Chairman

  1838. They have just amended the Act to exclude chickens quite explicitly.
  (Professor the Lord Winston) I am aware of that but I do not know that that is the end of the story. There is still concern that that may not be the final word on the issue in due course. The emendation may not hold up eventually.

  1839. Might that not encourage animal rightists?
  (Professor the Lord Winston) Of course it might do. As Dr Morgan points out in her paper, probably more rats and mice are killed by vermin exterminators than by laboratory animal researchers like myself.