Not them

The use of animals in laboratories is still widespread in Canada. According to the most recent report of the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC), published in 2024, more than 3.4 million animals were used for research, teaching, or toxicological testing that year. All types of animals are likely to be used, including mice, fish, rats, birds, cows, amphibians, rabbits, dogs, and cats. More than one million of these animals were subjected to procedures causing moderate to severe pain or distress.

Universities and public research centers use animals in research. Pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and chemical companies use them to test the safety or effectiveness of new drugs and products. There are also many private contract laboratories that perform regulatory testing on behalf of other companies.

The handling, restraint, and invasive procedures to which laboratory animals are regularly subjected cause them considerable physical, psychological, and emotional suffering: pain, fear, distress, deprivation, immobilization and death.

Some of the most invasive practices include:

• Procedures that severely, persistently, or irreversibly disrupt the sensory and motor systems;
• The administration of drugs or chemicals in concentrations that significantly disrupt physiological systems and cause death, severe pain, or extreme distress;
• Environmental deprivation that can seriously compromise the animal’s well-being;
• The use of muscle relaxants or paralyzing drugs without anesthesia;
• Burns or trauma inflicted on an unanesthetized animal, as well as any procedure causing pain at a tolerance level that cannot be relieved by analgesics;
• Tooth extractions without analgesia;
• Toxicity tests and experimentally induced infectious diseases resulting in death.

Beyond the procedures themselves, the animals’ living conditions do not ensure their welfare. Animals are typically kept in cages their entire lives, in impoverished environments. While the freedom to express natural behaviours and the chance to have positive experiences are recognized as essential to animal welfare, laboratory animals are generally deprived of these opportunities due to their living conditions.

The use of wild animals in research also poses particular problems. These animals are not adapted to interacting with humans, and being used in research and kept in captivity inevitably severely compromises their welfare.

The current legal framework is largely insufficient to ensure the welfare of animals used in research and toxicological testing. First, there is no federal law regulating how these animals can be treated in laboratories.

Second, at the provincial level, wild animals used in research, such as primates, are excluded from the main protections set forth in the Regulation Respecting Animals in Captivity, as long as their conditions of care and use have been approved by an institution that holds a “certificate of good practice” from the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC). However, the CCAC’s certification of good animal practices consists of a peer review process in which facility visits are conducted every three years, with advance notice, to ensure compliance with guidelines. Furthermore, there are no punitive measures for non-compliance by privately funded institutions that voluntarily participate in the certification program.

With regard to companion animals, such as cats, dogs, and rabbits, provincial regulations make CCAC guidelines mandatory when they are used in research, but these standards are far from sufficient to ensure animal welfare. In fact, even though the CCAC guidelines encourage compliance with minimum standards, they are primarily intended to ensure a certain level of administrative compliance rather than to prohibit certain painful or highly invasive practices.

The main alternative and ethical methods to animal testing are so-called “non-animal” methods, such as organs-on-a-chip, 3D bioprinted tissues, and computer modeling.

These methods accurately reproduce human biology because they use real human cells and tissues rather than those of animals, whose physiology often differs from ours. Organs-on-a-chip, for example, recreate the micro-physiological conditions (blood circulation, respiration, cellular interactions) of a human organ, allowing reactions similar to those in the human body to be observed.

3D bioprinted tissues, on the other hand, consist of human tissues that are manufactured by depositing layer upon layer of a mixture of living cells and biomaterials, called “bio-ink.” These tissues reproduce the structure and functions of human organs, such as skin or blood vessels, and can be used to test drugs or chemicals. These technologies therefore offer accurate results that can be transposed to human health, while avoiding animal suffering.

Yes, it is possible to opt for alternatives to animal testing without hindering scientific progress. Animal testing methods are often costly and variably reliable, as results obtained in animals do not always translate accurately to humans due to significant genetic, metabolic, and physiological differences between species. Many therapeutic approaches tested on animals have failed to predict actual effects or risks to human health, raising questions about the effectiveness and safety of these practices. Thalidomide, for example, caused severe birth defects in thousands of children before it was withdrawn from the market. Yet tests conducted on rats, rabbits, dogs, hamsters, primates, cats, armadillos, guinea pigs, pigs, and ferrets had revealed no significant teratogenic effects. These limitations reinforce the need to invest in more relevant research methods that are directly applicable to human health. It is certainly possible to reduce the current use of animals in research. Ultimately, the use of animals will have to be considered a last resort, justified only when serious and debilitating medical conditions are at stake and no alternative methods exist.

Modern alternative methods, such as organs-on-a chip, computer models and research using human cells, provide more relevant and accurate data. In addition to being more ethical, these approaches can accelerate scientific discovery. They therefore represent a way to advance science while sparing animals.

Even though modern, ethical technologies exist, unfortunately, large numbers of animals continue to be used in science and toxicology because the system is still largely structured around protocols and funding that are geared to animal testing. Furthermore, despite the existence of cutting-edge alternative methods, the adoption of these methods remains hampered by a lack of targeted funding, institutional habits and the slow regulatory validation of such approaches. Finally, decision-makers may continue to use animals because the infrastructure and standards that favour their use are already in place, making change slower than actual technological advances would allow.