SOUTH AFRICAN “ETHICS COMMITTEES”: RUBBER STAMPING VIVISECTION

(Extract from The Environmental Movement in South Africa. A Research Report by Michele Pickover)



South Africans have no idea about the vivisection industry in South Africa because policy makers and legislators are totally silent on this issue and seem to be protecting the industry from what should be normal transparent and accountable practices in a democratic country. This has to be seen within the context of a general lack of delivery and implementation by the current government. Our governance and leadership framework is increasing the lack of moral standards and ethics and is pushing for short-term benefits outside of any ethical structure and within a neo-liberal agenda. Consequently South Africa has not truly transformed the moral fibre of our nation or transcended its past. What is needed is truly ethical leadership and the need for morally inspired attitudes and solutions.

There are also several examples of government being intransigent and dismissive for example: In 2000 Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said she would not institute a judicial inquiry into animal experimentation practices in South Africa. She was replying to a question in the National Assembly from Errol Moorcroft (DP). “Animals had always played a very important role in the testing of drug toxicity, as well as drug development. This benefits both animals and humans alike since some drugs are used in humans and animals," she said. (Source: Daily Dispatch, 9 June 2000)

Indeed, policy makers have not encouraged animal research institutions to move in the direction of accountability, let alone imposed legislative changes upon the research community that achieve that end. This means that the research community is not accountable for their actions and that the public is not being provided with the information they are rightfully entitled to by virtue of tax-based funding of research. The interests of research animals can be protected through public debate and enhanced awareness, including bringing about an end to animal experimentation by exposing its reality to a largely ignorant public.

On the 12 May 1998 the National Department of Agriculture held a Workshop - entitled ‘Animal Welfare in a Diverse Society - ’ on animal welfare to supposedly enable stakeholders in animal welfare matters to contribute to a more holistic approach to the welfare of our wild and domesticated animals. One of the issues to be includes was animal experimentation. In a document entitled, A Call for Transparency and Accountability in the Vivisection Industry, South Africans for the Abolition of Vivisection (SAAV) tabled its vision in respect of the way forward regarding the issue of animal experimentation. In terms of this submission, SAAV put forward four specific proposals: Accountability and democratic practice in the vivisection industry; The rejection of local ethics committees; The rejection of the proposed National Code of practice.; The establishment of a National Monitoring Mechanism (NMC) to monitor breeding units, holding stations, and transportation, and laboratories. Their proposal was that the NMC: be a public-interest body that acts as ombudsman and an auditor, and should sit in judgment; establish a publicly accessible and accountable inspectorate; be independent from the institutions that conduct animal research and be constituted through a formal, public interview and documented (transparent) process and the profiles of the candidates must be published.

The outcome of this workshop was that the National Department of Agriculture (NDA) would establish an Animal Welfare Committee to advise the NDA with a view to drawing up new animal welfare laws. The Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) also drew government’s attention to the issue of transparency and accountability in its August 1998: “Submission on the Open Democracy Bill” (which became the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA). This too was ignored.

Instead, in 2002 (four years later), the NDA opted to merely review existing codes and guidelines regarding the welfare of animals used in research as well as in other animal use industries. These guidelines will then be incorporated either as regulations supporting the Animal Protection Act 71 of 1962 (APA) or act as the basis for the revision of the APA. In 2002 the NSPCA was the main mover, together with the vivisection industry, to begin a process to draft a revised “code of ethics”. The NSPCA then submitted a request to the SABS to create new South African standards for animal experiments.

Despite an outcry and letters of concern sent to the Minister of Agriculture from animal protection organisations (such as SAAV, Earthlife and BWC), instead of overhauling the APA, in 2003, DALA sanctioned, various "codes" began to be developed through the SABS, such as translocation of wild animals and animal experimentation. By doing this a proper consultation process was replaced with a closed process.

Several animal protection and rights organisations expressed grave concerns with this strategy because for them any meaningful change can only take place if the entire monitoring system is totally changed and is in line with a commitment to investigate and implement non-animal methods is in committed to phasing out animal experiments within a timeline. They argued that negotiations with the relevant stakeholders, and more specifically the vivisection industry itself, need to be at a completely different level to the one being suggested by the NSPCA and the SABS. They also rejected the suggestion that the SABS be involved in any process around new legislation because the SABS has a vested interest in animal experiments as it conducts them itself and because the existing legislation needs to be changed and new legislation adopted - only a government Ministry can take responsibility for this. They also urged the NSPCA to rather work at ensuring that the South African government facilitate a democratic process that involves all stakeholders.

Not surprisingly the vivisection community was totally behind the drafting of a ‘code’ and according to the South African Association of Laboratory Animal Scientists (SAALAS), “SAALAS trusts that this document when completed will not only bring South Africa more in line with the rest of the world - or foster a better relationship between research and animal welfare, but that above all it will serve both man and animal in the best possible and humane way.”

What resulted is The Welfare and Use of Animals in Laboratories, Document Number SC5140.38D SANS 10386/3 which is an attempt (seemingly endorsed by the Department of Agriculture) to bypass legislative initiatives. How this was done was to establish a very flexible system for regulating the use of animals for the purposes of research and testing which is largely based on industry self-regulation. In reality this code offers poor protection to laboratory animals as for most species there is little detail, and the code can be ignored with apparent impunity. Investigations of the use of animals in laboratories in other countries have concluded that for most species these codes of practice offer very little in terms of detailed requirements for animal comfort or environmental enrichment, and for those where there is some detail (such as dogs and primates), this is routinely ignored. This, and the secrecy that surrounds the vivisection industry, has reinforced a system that has become an internal, administrative process that does not provide any real independent regulation, and certainly does not provide any protection for the animals.

Consequently the SABS code reinforces the lack of external monitoring; ensures that the model of enforced self-regulation is relatively weak; and has intentionally provided only very broad guidelines to institutions. This enables each research institution to write their own rules and codes of conduct. Institutions are responsible not only for setting their own rules but also ensuring that those rules are complied with. There are also issues with the interest group representatives on AECs and this minimises any effectiveness of the external members, for example: The animal welfare organisations do not oppose vivisection, are generally untrained, outnumbered by those involved in the research, and virtually powerless to act; and veterinarians, often have a potential conflict of interest. Veterinarians may be involved in vivisection, and have clients in the vivisection industry. As such, they may run the risk of offending these clients if they oppose particular experiments and therefore may not take a fully objective view of proposed experiments using animals.

The upshot of all is that South Africans have no idea about animal experimentation in South Africa because all the meetings of the Animal Ethics Committees (AECs) which approve experiments are conducted in secret: their meetings are not advertised, and members of the public cannot even obtain copies of the agendas or minutes of their meetings - much less the details of the experiments they approve, or the reasons for the research and experimentation. The public cannot even find out who are members of Animal Ethics Committees. The AEC system has consistently been presented as one of the pillars of enhanced dialogue between the research community and the public. Yet the extent to which AECs facilitate the wider community’s timely and detailed understanding of animal research practices is very questionable. Indeed, the link between AECs and any supposed enhanced transparency is hugely problematic and the ability for interested parties (including animal protection organisations) to learn about the detail of animal research remains highly restricted.

In 1990 the first National Code for Animal Use in Research, Education, Diagnosis and Testing of Drugs and Related Substances was drawn up. It mandated that 'Animal Ethics Committees' control the use and care of experimental animals in research institutions. AECs in South Africa are a case of the proverbial fox guarding the chicken coup. They are structurally deficient and deprive the public of any meaningful participation in a process, which is largely funded at public expense. Experience (both locally and abroad) has shown that AECs sidestep the central issues of the debate - democratic practice, transparency and accountability. They are generally chaired by an animal user and animal-users constitute the majority of members, and therefore provide inadequate protection for animals and fail to critically review research hypotheses or methodologies. Instead of a vigorous assessment of the use of animals in research, AECs appear mainly concerned with helping animal experimenters to deflect criticism and allay public fears about the decision-making process and use of animals.

Problematically, the AEC system requires that the cost to the animal be weighed against the research’s anticipated benefit. So, although the AEC system requires researchers and AECs to consider the benefits and harms of an experiment, it does not provide a standard set of procedures or guidelines for weighing up whether the ‘benefits’ derived from an experiment will outweigh the pain and suffering to the animal. It seems that individual AECs and researchers can make this up as they go along. There is very little evidence that researchers are questioned or pushed to explore the possibilities of the reduction, replacement or refinement of animals in experiments. It seems that researchers can just tick a box or make a short statement to say they have considered the alternatives.

For the majority of people, who are not part of this closely guarded and gate kept regulatory system, there is no mechanism to allow the public to form a clear picture as to whether decisions reached by AECs were reasonable or not. The public knows that new drugs come onto the market. They may also know animals are used in research. But under the current system there is no way of putting the pieces of the puzzle together. AEC meetings are not public forums and the detail of what is decided, and why a particular decision is reached, is not publicly available.

Of even greater concern to the current discussion is the unreasonably high level of secrecy imposed on participants. All AEC members are also subject to institutional confidentiality. What this means is that if an issue of concern does arise, only a handful of people in South Africa are privy to the detail of that problem: and they are not allowed to disclose this information. It can therefore be strongly argued that participation in the animal research regulatory system and in AECs by so-called animal protection organisations cannot be viewed as a sensible way to protect animals.