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Vidya Deshpande
Even as the Committee for the Purpose of Controlling and Supervising Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA) is yet to finalise the rules on animal testing, controversy has begun to dog it. First, animal activists created an uproar over the import of 50 Beagles by the pharmaceutical company, Ranbaxy. Now, scientists led by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) director-general, Nirmal Ganguli, are up in arms against the regulations on the use of animals in experiments.
But the government is keen on seeing that some sort of regulatory mechanism to check the indiscriminate use of animals is put in place soon. The sub-committee on the draft rules has already taken into consideration the objections and suggestions made by over 200 representatives of the pharmaceutical industry, research organisations, scientists and other educational institutions.
``We will be soon be placing the final rules before the full committee for approval before formalising the rules,'' says a member of the sub-committee, who is alsoan official in the Ministry of Environment.
The CPCSEA was set up in 1996 under the Ministry of Environment, but was transferred to the Welfare Ministry after Ms Maneka Gandhi became its minister. The committee is now headed by A K Singh of the Welfare Ministry.
So far there have been no rules regarding the use of animals in experiments and animals activists have been calling for regulated use, better housing facilities, ethical committees to monitor the use and ban on use in some areas. The scientists, on the other hand, have been keen on seeing no regulations and prefer the ethical committees to be in-house.
According to statistics from the Welfare Ministry, in India, over 50 lakh rats, mice, hamsters, snakes , frogs, rabbits, cats, dogs, monkeys, birds, sheep, horses and buffaloes are used in 5,000 laboratories. Of these, very few are sophisticated with controlled temperature and humidity for animals, while most were dirty, without proper water and feed for these animals. The statistics show that anannual budget of Rs 4.35 crore is sanctioned by UGC, DST, CSIR, ICMR and some private organisations, which are mainly pharmaceutical companies.
``As far back as 1987, the Indian Science Congress had framed some rules to be used as a self-regulatory mechanism by scientists using animals, but it has never been put into practice,'' says Iqbal Malik, director of Vatavaran, an NGO that has made an independent report for the CPCSEA on the conditions of laboratory animals in 21 private and government institutes.
The analysis of the report from the 21 institutes shows that only six out of the 21 institutes surveyed had satisfactory housing for the animals. Ethics committees were absent in eight labs, which included two pharmaceutical companies, one veterinary college, one educational instiute and four research institutes. Of the remaining, 13 institutes had ethics committees, but only two had non-staff members on their committees.
The number of animals used was not fixed in 18 of the 21 and only one lab(Ranbaxy) did 70 per cent of its research using the in-vitro method.
Based on this survey, the CPCSEA is actively looking at forming sub-committees that will approve applications for the use of animals in experiments. ``We are working on ways to reduce the red tape so that research is not held up unnecessarily. But at the same time, the committee will regulate and reduce the use of animals in experiments,'' says the official.
The CPCSEA has already notified that dissections in schools up to the secondary level is not mandatory and is optional. ``We may consider excluding dissections in all courses up to the secondary level in schools,'' he says. In fact, according to reports, only 14 per cent of the students who do dissections in schools go into further studies that require the knowledge of dissection.
The CPCSEA and Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) have also notified that testing on animals for cosmetics is optional. Earlier, as per the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, testing for toxic effects of cosmeticswas mandatory for every batch. ``Many of the experiments used by the cosmetic industry are outdated. One of the experiments is using rabbit eyes to test shampoo toxicity levels,'' says Malik. According to her, it has been proved that the pain threshold of rabbits is much higher than humans. Moreover, rabbits have a nictitating membrane (third eyelid) that humans don't and rabbits react differently to chemicals than humans do.
Scientists are against the need to make an application to the CPCSEA before any animal experiment is conducted. ``I don't think we have applied our minds. The government has neither the time nor the expertise to examine each research proposal,'' Ganguli said, while addressing a seminar on `Animals in Bio-Medical Research' at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, held early last week. Rule 5 (a) makes it mandatory for every institute to send an application stating the nature of research to the CPCSEA for permission to use animals.
``Once every institute is registered, we willhave an idea of how many animals are being used, where they are procured from and what research is being done. This will cut down on unnecessary experimentation on animals and will also wipe out duplicate research,'' says the Ministry of Environment official.
The full bench of the CPCSEA will be meeting some time next week to discuss the final draft of the rules for experiments using animals and the result will be notified by the end of the year. Till then, the scientists and the activists will battle it out to get their views across to the committee.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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