DAs part of the 2025 finance law, now pending, several amendments have been presented to the National Assembly and the Senate aimed at establishing a tax for each animal used in research projects. These amendments, coming from parliamentarians from all walks of life, are based on arguments put forward for many years by activist associations, one of which also contributed to their drafting. If they reflect legitimate questions of society, they are not free from bias and falsehood, which distort a debate that we expect to be objective and correctly supported so that it is intelligible and constructive.
This forum is an opportunity to bring into the debate the elements that seem to us to oppose a necessary rationality to passion. In terms of form, we are obviously in favor of the idea of increasing funding French Center for the 3Rs (FC3R),created in 2021 on the initiative of the main players in French research. It is in fact essential to “replace”, “reduce” and “refine”: prefer animal-free methods quickly, reduce the number of animals to the bare minimum and use them in the most dignified and respectful conditions. These three principles, on which the “3R” rule is based, constitute the keystone of the rules that guide the daily practice of researchers.FC3R works with and for research.
In essence,the motivation for these proposals contains falsehoods,which demonstrate either a lack of knowledge of the subject,a declared desire to distort reality or,worse,both. The most symbolic example of the moment is the argument that “90% of treatments successfully tested on animals prove ineffective or dangerous for humans”.
This statement – which is based in particular on a publication published in June in the scientific journal biology PLOS – has been developed for weeks by a certain number of associations, and included in the justification of the parliamentary amendments. However, it ignores a whole part of this publication. While this calls into question the small percentage of drug candidates that will ultimately be marketed to humans, it is indeed in no way a call to end animal testing.