A ban would be a setback
If the federal popular initiative for a blanket ban on animal testing succeeds, drug development in Switzerland would become virtually impossible, ETH Vice President Detlef Günther believes.
ETH researchers never take the decision to use an animal in a laboratory lightly. Every single animal experiment requires authorisation from the Cantonal Veterinary Office and the Cantonal Commission for Animal Experiments. All scientists involved must explain in detail how the anticipated results justify the use of an animal. Switzerland’s animal welfare laws are among the strictest in the world. These high standards are important and admirable, and researchers at the ETH, the University Hospital and the University of Zurich are trained to comply with them. We are committed to animal welfare and the careful preparation of experiments. And we value the fact that these trials are always evaluated by independent authorities.
As the ETH Vice President for Research, it is my experience that all our researchers who work with animals take their responsibility very seriously. They conduct their work carefully and conscientiously and get professional expert support.
Many breakthroughs would have been hampered
The initiators of the campaign for a blanket ban on animal testing deny that such experiments have any benefit at all. They go as far as claiming that animal testing impedes scientific progress. This view ignores the many successes of medical drug developments. The latter are possible because humans and certain animals are quite similar. It is important to understand that experiments conducted on animals often facilitate, or even replace, human trials.
The resulting advances in the development of pharmaceuticals benefit every person in Switzerland. Without laboratory experiments on animals, insulin and antibiotics would not have been discovered and various cancer treatments would never have been developed. A research team of ETH Zurich and the Zurich Children’s Hospital recently used the Crispr/Cas method to develop a tool that can correct genetic mutations. The scientists healed mice suffering from a hereditary metabolic condition that also affects humans.
The quest for alternatives
At ETH, we are committed to developing alternatives to animal testing. Our university is a member of the Swiss 3R Competence Center1. We invest considerable sums in the principles of replace, reduce and refine and carry out pioneering research in this field. This means that, wherever there are alternatives, we replace animal experiments, reduce the number of animals used and do our best to minimise the stress on the animals. To this end, ETH researchers have developed a cell culture technology platform for examining the interaction of substances with various three-dimensional tissue samples. The platform allows them to investigate complex biomedical issues that previously required animal experiments. In 2016, the research team involved in the project won the internationally renowned “Global 3Rs Award/Europe” for their work.
"We firmly believe that carefully planned, thoroughly evaluated animal experiments will continue to be necessary in order to save human lives and reduce suffering."Detlef Günther
The campaign submitted today calls for a blanket ban. This is the wrong path for Switzerland to take. It would bring the globally renowned biomedical research that is taking place in Switzerland to a grinding halt. Our country would lose research expertise, become unable to contribute to the development of new and innovative drugs and risk an exodus of highly qualified researchers.
A constructive debate
We may reject the prohibition initiative, but it supports us in one thing: We want to give the general public access to important, transparent information about the reasons behind animal testing and initiate a fact-based discussion. All institutions that endorse the competitive position of Swiss research are invited to take a stand and participate in the debate. Therefore, it is important and I am glad that Swissuniversities, the Rectors' Conference of the Swiss Universities, also clearly refuses this initiative2.
A large volume of successful research supports the position of ETH Zurich. We firmly believe that carefully planned, thoroughly evaluated animal experiments will continue to be necessary in order to save human lives and reduce suffering. For this reason, yielding to the demands of the campaign would have extremely negative, inestimable consequences for innovation in the healthcare sector and the economy as a whole.