CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
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The commercial supplying of cats and dogs and their use in laboratories inevitably cause pain and suffering – to animals who have been loyal companions to humans for millennia. These experiments are morally indefensible and, when the results are intended to apply to humans, are scientifically dubious.
One Voice is campaigning against the use of cats and dogs in research and testing – to end the double standards which permit our companions to suffer and die in laboratories, when in fact we owe them a duty of care and protection.

As part of its campaign One Voice has produced this Report, exposing the suffering of cats and dogs and setting out the powerful arguments against experiments on them.
One Voice now calls on the government to end these experiments.
As interim measures, until this goal is achieved, we require the following government action:

* To implement, co-ordinate and fund an effective national initiative to develop non-animal methods of research and testing, as a matter of urgency.

* To educate scientists and funding bodies of the vital need to implement the Three Rs principles at all times.

* To ban immediately the use of cats and dogs in fundamental (curiosity-driven) research and for educational and training purposes.

* To impose stringent controls to ensure that cats and dogs who have known the companionship of caring humans do not end their days, betrayed, in a laboratory.

* To ban the import of dogs or cats from non-EU, non-Council of Europe countries to prevent the suffering caused by transport.

* To increase the number of veterinary inspectors to properly enforce the best possible care and welfare of animals, including cats and dogs, in breeding, supplying and user establishments.

* To introduce mandatory institutional ethics committees, to include animal welfare and Three Rs experts, ethicists and lay members as well as researchers, to assess experiments in advance and keep them under review, to minimise the number of animals used and the levels of suffering.
Bodies which fund experiments on cats and dogs (and other animals) also have responsibilities.
Until experiments on cats and dogs are ended, One Voice calls on research-funding bodies to:

* Divert resources from animal experiments to the development and implementation of non-animal methods.

* Specifically ask scientists who peer-review grant applications to comment on measures taken by the applicants to implement the Three Rs principles.

* Refuse research grants to scientists who use excessive numbers of animals or who fail to show in their grant applications how they are implementing the Three Rs principles.

* Refuse research grants to scientists who do not describe, in their published papers, where they obtained their cats and dogs; and full details of numbers used, as well as analgesics and anaesthetics provided (where appropriate).