§ Mr. Hendersonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will seek to amend the Medicines Act 1968 to prohibit the use of animals for the LD50 test.
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§ Mr. Geoffrey FinsbergNo. the results of LD50 tests are invaluable to the assessment of the safety of medicinal products required by the Medicines Act. An independent report in 1979 by the advisory committee on the administration of the Cruelty to Animals Act recommended that such tests should be allowed to continue. The Committee said that
at the present time for the proper safety evaluation of new substances some acute and chronic toxicity tests must be carried out on whole live animals".Further legislation to prohibit the test would be inconsistent with European Community pharmaceutical directives 65/65 and 75/318 which set out data requirements and specify that the LD50 value should be determined where possible. Finally LD50 results are required by drug regulatory authorities in countries to which we export, contributing to a net favourable balance of trade in pharmaceuticals of over £500 million.