Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) wishes to express our opposition against the proposed three animal-experimentation laboratories to be set up in Rembia, Alor Gajah in Malacca.
The exploitation of animals in painful and often largely pointless research for optional human purposes is totally deplored by SAM.
SAM is concerned over the animal welfare, or actual suffering that non-human primates and laboratory animals might undergo as a result of their use in scientific procedures and research.
There is no way that animals used for laboratory purposes can truthfully adhere to the 'Five Freedoms' if animals are going to be incarcerated in cages and subjected to research or toxicity tests.
- Freedom from hunger and thirst;
- Freedom from discomfort;
- Freedom from pain, injury or disease;
- Freedom to express normal behaviour and
- Freedom from fear and distress
Monkeys are wild animals and conditions under which they are kept in the laboratory are seldom adequate to meet even their most basic physiological and ethological needs. They are subjected to stress and fear at all times.
Furthermore, the acquisition of some macaques may involve capture from the wild to supplement captive breeding colonies. Capturing them causes a great deal of distress due to the trapping process, transport to holding and or breeding centre, quarantine and adjustment to new social and environmental problems.
On the other hand, the import of beagles from Holland has raised concerns of the conditions in which animals are kept in breeding and supplying establishments for subsequent use in laboratory.
In France, for instance the French National Association against Trafficking in Pets (Antac) reported about 60,000 dogs disappear annually, half of them stolen for use by research laboratories.
Unscrupulous dealers will then target animal shelters as sources to meet the demands for drug and pharmaceutical testing. According to a report in the Advocates for Animals Annual Review 1992, the Spanish Animal Defence Association stated that more than 2,500 stray dogs and cats are taken each year from Spanish animal shelters to laboratories in Germany and Switzerland.
The demand for beagles will certainly give rise to a disturbing trade in stray and stolen dogs for research laboratories.
Another concern is the absence of legislation governing the use of animals in research and experimentation. Currently there are no provisions under the Protection of Wildlife Act 1976, and the Animal Act (2006) to ensure humane care, treatment and handling of animals used for research.
Moreover, the absence of access to laboratories and the veil of secrecy surrounding the use of animals in research make it very difficult to monitor what is being done to animals inside these animal research establishments.
The writer is president, Sahabat Alam Malaysia.
Note: The above letter was printed in Malaysiakini last Friday.
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