1.1 The Green Party oppose animal experimentation on scientific and ethical grounds. Our policy on vivisection is to ban all animal experiments within a 5 year phase out period, with an immediate ban on all experiments involving primates, dogs and cats. The 5 year phase out is intended to take account of the logistical problem of licences already granted for thousands of experiments on rodents, rabbits etc and the sheer number of animals involved.

1.2 Instead of investing in new animal testing facilities the Green Party wants much greater investment in non-animal research.

1.3 The Green Party does not condone violence of any kind and believes the vast majority of animal rights campaigners are not aggressive.

2.1 One of the most important questions to be answered as regards animal testing, is whether or not the research being carried out is of any benefit to humans. At a new research centre in Oxford, scientists claim that research "will focus on understanding the biological mechanisms that give rise to different diseases." Unfortunately for patients, tax payers and animals the "biological mechanisms" will be those of mice, rats, monkeys, cats etc. Researchers will then be faced with the impossible task of attempting to extrapolate their findings to human beings. Even the so-called "transgenic mice" (whose genes have been manipulated so that they behave as closely as possible to humans) will not react in the same way as humans, and their cancers will develop in a totally different way.

2.2 Dr. Richard Klausner, former director of the National Cancer Institute believes we have lost cures for cancer because they were not effective in mice - "we have cured mice of cancer for decades - and it simply doesn't work in humans".

2.3 There is an overwhelming body of evidence to suggest that animal research is at best unreliable, and at worst potentially dangerous to humans. Indeed, an estimated 70,000 people are injured or killed by adverse reactions from their animal tested medications every year in England alone. The British Medical Journal have recently released a report stating that at least 10,000 people are actually killed by prescription medicines in the UK each year. The US figure is over 100,000 - side effects from drugs are now the fourth biggest killer in the western world.

2.4 There is a growing number of scientists, researchers and doctors questioning the scientific validity of animal experimentation. Today's 21st century technology supersedes out-dated animal research. Researchers today are studying disease on the cellular and molecular level - it is on this level that great differences between animals and humans occur. These differences make extrapolation of results from one species to another impossible.