What You Can Do

For students:

• Join your university’s animal rights group; if there isn’t one, find like-minded people and set one up. VERO can help.
• Follow and support the Campus Without Cruelty campaign, organised by Animal Justice Project. This campaign covers vivisection in universities throughout the U.K. It provides guidance and materials for events or campaigns within your own university. For science students, it advises you how to present the case against using live animals in your own studies (although Oxford University’s policy is so far wholly unsympathetic in this matter).
• Keep up to date with developments in animal replacement techniques via organisations such as Animal-Free Research UK. This charity also offers grants and summer studentships for those considering a career in animal-free research.
• Vivisection is not something about which only scientists can make informed judgements. How humans treat animals is a rapidly growing concern in philosophy, theology, literature, law, and art. Research its part in your own subject, and get your tutor and fellow-students to take an interest in it!

For everyone:

• Quiz your MP on this subject. It’s true that the Green Party sets the standard for policies on the protection of animals, but there are supportive MPs in all parties, and every MP needs reminding and pushing in this matter. What’s needed above all is a change in the law governing the use of animals in science, and only politicians can bring that about.
• Support the medical charities which do not fund research on animals; there are plenty of them. You can find out which do and which don’t on the Animal Aid web-site, or you can order their printed list. Alternatively, you can ask the charities themselves. It’s a good idea to ask them anyway; they all want your good opinion.
• Encourage the use of human tissue in research, instead of animals, by donating surplus surgical tissue when having an operation/biopsy or giving birth, and consider leaving your organs or body to medical research after your death. More information is available from the Human Tissue Authority.