WILL YOUNG CALLS ON THE NATION’S ANIMAL LOVERS
WILL YOUNG
CALLS ON THE NATION’S ANIMAL LOVERS TO SIGN HIS PETITION DEMANDING A BAN ON ANIMAL TESTING
Much loved British pop star, Olivier Award-nominated actor and committed activist Will Young is today calling on the nation’s animal lovers to sign his new petition which demands a stop to any form of testing on animals, most specifically dogs.
Original Pop Idol Will only launched his petition last week, but it has quickly amassed more than 16,000 signatures with an aim to reach over 100,000 signatures which would make it eligible to be considered for debate in Parliament.
Dogs display a range of emotions, and their cognitive abilities are complex and advanced. Dogs in laboratories are forced to endure not only psychological trauma due to their restrictive environment but can also undergo harmful experiments that cause pain and suffering.
In 2022, the number of dogs experimented on in Great Britain was 4,122. Most are used in regulatory procedures for testing the safety of products and devices for human medicine, dentistry and veterinary medicine. An All-Party Parliamentary Group has acknowledged that 92% of drugs fail in human trials despite being tested on animals. Given the low scientific value of these experiments, combined with major advances in non-animal methods (NAMs), we believe testing on dogs should be banned, in the same way as for Great Apes since 1997.
Read and sign Will’s petition now via; https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/645885
Will hosted a panel on animal experiments at the Labour Party’s 2023 Annual Conference on Tuesday 10th October. Renowned not-for-profit British animal rights organisation Animal Aid, which campaigns peacefully against all animal abuse and promotes a cruelty-free lifestyle, was one of the partners of the event. Animal Aid have written a piece about the event here; https://www.animalaid.org.uk/animal-aid-speak-on-panel-about-animal-experiments/
(Will Young with his dog Domino © Will Young 2023)
Read Will Young’s open letter on the issue below;
Hello,
It’s been an amazing week, having finally brought the issue of testing on dogs in the UK to the wider attention of the country.
I first realised dogs were being tested on for science in this country two years ago when I came across a puppy breeding facility in Cambridgeshire called MBR Acres. There, beagles are bred solely for experimentation, sold off to labs around the UK, or bled out on-site for the whole of their lives with no pain relief. I handcuffed myself to the gates of the lab to bring attention.
I then cast the net wider setting up The Coalition Against Animal Testing, a think tank and pressure group. I met Kier Starmer and ended up speaking at the Labour Party conference and launched a petition to ask for the immediate banning of testing on dogs.
It amazes me how few people know this goes on – in fact, I’ve yet to meet anyone who does. We test on over 2700 dogs a year in the UK, yet we have far more advanced non-animal methods which are both cruelty-free and recreate the human biology far more effectively than a horse, chicken, small monkey (yes, you heard right, we still test on small primates on the UK) or dog would.
When I went on Good Morning Britain, host Ed Balls even championed non-animal methods – his father is one of the scientists who spearheaded this innovation 30 years ago.
We also have tests like the forced swim test, dropping toxins into rabbits’ eyes, and LD50 which poisons groups of animals until half die. They still go on in the UK, yet people don’t know this stuff happens and it doesn’t need to. We have much better, cleaner science now.
We are a nation of animal lovers and 23 million of us own dogs and cats. I launched the petition to stop testing on dogs, and in less than 24 hours it had over 10,000 signatures.
I want to let people know what we are doing to these poor dogs and other animals in the name of science. It is now a proven fact we now have far better science that doesn’t involve animal cruelty, torture and death.
Animal tests have a 90% failure rate, non-animal tests a 90% success rate.
Please help me to get the word get out even more – I don’t just want 10,000 or 100,000 signatures, I want over one MILLION signatures and, with your help, we can let our people know what awful torture these dogs are under needlessly. We can get there. People hold the power and the common sense.
Thanks,
Will Young
