IF YOU LOST YOUR PET THEY COULD END UP WITH THIS HAPPENING TO THEM!!!!! The Home Office last week released a statement on its plans to bring in a new EU law on animal experiments. The plans, such as maintaining larger minimum cage sizes than strictly necessary, have been heralded by some as good news. The overall picture is very different. The Home Office proposes for the first time to allow stray pets to be caught and used for experiments, for "environmental" or scientific reasons. This was despite unanimous submissions by animal welfare groups supported by many research establishments that the change was both unnecessary and unwelcome. NO PROPOSALS ARE MADE FOR ENSURING THAT AN ATTEMPT BE MADE TO REHOME LOST PETS RATHER THAN SUBJECT THEM TO LABORATORY TESTING. For example, the new EU law specifically contemplates that animals in laboratories can be given electric shocks they cannot escape from, to induce "learned helplessness". Organ transplantation where organ rejection is "likely to lead to severe distress or impairment of the general condition of the animals" is allowed, as are all manner of poisoning tests and surgery leading to severe pain or distress and "forced swim or exercise tests with exhaustion ...".

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