London

More than 100 leading UK medical researchers have written to British science minister David Sainsbury to ask for an end to what they claim are excessive delays and red tape involved in regulating animal experimentation.

The researchers, who include five winners of the Nobel Prize for Medicine and 38 Fellows of the Royal Society, say they are worried that Britain could lose its leading position in biomedical science.

“It can now take six months or longer to obtain approval for a research project using animals in the UK, whilst in other countries it can take weeks or even days,” the authors of the letter write. They emphasize that animal studies are likely to increase in importance once the human genome sequence is completed.

They also report that some researchers are now taking their work abroad in response to the British situation. One researcher says that he now does some of his work in the United States because of the “tardiness of the Home Office in issuing appropriate licenses”.

One of the signatories to the letter is Nancy Rothwell, professor of physiology at the University of Manchester. She is also a member of the UK Life Sciences Committee (UKLSC), which promotes the interests of a number of scientific societies. Rothwell says that the UKLSC is keen to start a dialogue with the Home Office to see how the current situation might be improved. But there will be no simple answer, she says.

Bob Combes, scientific director of the Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments, says: “If there is good science being done and it has to be done with animals then sooner done the better. We fully support the removal of unnecessary bureaucracy, but the question is: what is [unnecessary]?”

Combes says that many scientists see the checks and balances in the current regulations as bureaucratic. “But we see them as necessary. Unfortunately, not all scientists appreciate that animal welfare should be inextricably linked to best scientific practice.”

Many of the UKLSC's member societies feel that the UK government has done little to listen to their worries over the regulations. But Sainsbury said this week that he would look into the scientists' concerns, and has agreed to meet with a representative delegation of the letter's signatories.