Arguments:

Animals are essential in scientific research, medicines development and safety testing. They are necessary to understand the body in health and disease, and to develop new and improved medical treatments. But their use is not undertaken lightly. Both the potential scientific and medical benefits of the research, and the possible suffering of the animals used, are weighed up carefully before any animal research project can proceed. Animal research is considered a last resort, to be used only when there is no alternative method. In the UK, strict regulations and a licensing system mean that animals must be looked after properly and may not be used if there is any other way of doing a piece of research. Non-animal methods are used for the majority of biomedical research. So animal studies are used alongside these other types of research. Such alternative' methods include the study of cells and tissues grown in the laboratory, computer-modelled systems, and human patients, volunteers or populations.
Animal rights extremists often portray those who experiment on animals as being so cruel as to have forfeited any own moral standing. But the argument is about whether the experiments are morally right or wrong. The general moral character of the experimenter is irrelevant. What is relevant is the ethical approach of the experimenter to each experiment. The harm that will result from not doing the experiment is the result of multiplying three things together: the moral value of a human being the number of human beings who would have benefited the value of the benefit that each human being won't get Scientists say that banning animal experiments would mean either an end to testing new drugs using human beings for all safety tests Omission: If the experiment does not take place the experimenter will not do anything. This may cause harm to human beings because they won't benefit from a cure for their disease because the cure won't be developed. Facts: Proposed EU directive In November 2008 the European Union put forward proposals to revise the directive for the protection of animals used in scientific experiments in line with the three R principle of replacing, reducing and refining the use of animals in experiments. The proposals have three aims: to considerably improve the welfare of animals used in scientific procedures to ensure fair competition for industry to boost research activities in the European Union The proposed directive covers all live non-human vertebrate animals intended for experiments plus certain other species likely to experience pain, and also animals specifically bred so that their organs or tissue can be used in scientific procedures. The main changes proposed are: to make it compulsory to carry out ethical reviews and require that experiments where animals are used be subject to authorisation to widen the scope of the directive to include specific invertebrate species and foetuses in their last trimester of development and also larvae and other animals used in basic research, education and training to set minimum housing and care requirements

 to require that only animals of second or older generations be used, subject to transitional periods, to avoid taking animals from the wild and exhausting wild populations to state that alternatives to testing on animals must be used when available and that the number of animals used in projects be reduced to a minimum to require member states to improve the breeding, accommodation and care measures and methods used in procedures so as to eliminate or reduce to a minimum any possible pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm caused to animals The proposal also introduces a ban on the use of great apes - chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans - in scientific procedures, other than in exceptional circumstances, but there is no proposal to phase out the use of other non-human primates in the immediate foreseeable future. The three Rs The three Rs are a set of principles that scientists are encouraged to follow in order to reduce the impact of research on animals. Reduction: Reducing the number of animals used in experiments by: Improving experimental techniques Improving techniques of data analysis Sharing information with other researchers Refinement: Refining the experiment or the way the animals are cared for so as to reduce their suffering by: Using less invasive techniques Better medical care Better living conditions Replacement: Replacing experiments on animals with alternative techniques such as: Experimenting on cell cultures instead of whole animals Using computer models Studying human volunteers Using epidemiological studies

www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/animals/using/experiments_1.shtml