§ 11.4 pm
§ Mr. Tony BanksHere we have two for the price of one. I present the second petition on behalf of over 15,000 citizens. It asks for the abolition of vivisection on scientific and moral grounds. Approximately 3.2 million animals were experimented on in British laboratories during 1990. This means 8,000 per day or 60,000 per week. The number of experiments that did not involve any anaesthetic at any stage rose from 63 per cent. in 1989 to 68 per cent. in 1990. In one statement, Ceiba Geigy estimated that 95 per cent. of drugs passed safe after animal tests were rejected after human clinical trials. Vivisection includes: suffocation, burning, scalding, drowning, mutilation, poisoning, surgery, irradiation, sleep-deprivation, sight deprivation, electro-shocking, freezing, injection of disease and genetic manipulation—and we think that we have it bad in this place. Cosmetic testing and many other procedures, such as the LG50 test, have been widely discredited. The world will be a better place when all vivisection is abolished, in terms of both human health and animal welfare.
I present the petition on behalf of the signatories.
§ To lie upon the table.