The Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA) and the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) will jointly organize a three-day international conference on 'Alternatives to Use of Animals in Research and Education' here from February 18, 2003. The conference is planned in the backdrop of rapidly growing use of animals for experiments and rising concern about the insensitivity towards such animals, it is learnt.

A large body of scientists and experts is to review the implementation of guidelines and laboratory practices for such experimentation. The first of its kind in the country, the Conference will be inaugurated by the Environment and Forests Minister, T.R.Baalu and will be attended by the well known animal welfare activist Maneka Gandhi, besides more than 300 scientists from India and abroad.

The Conference will take stock of Rs 3 i.e. reduction in number of animals being used for experiments, refinement in laboratory practices to mitigate the severity of pain to the animals and to finally replace the use of animals with other materials like tissues, cells, blood cells etc. Maneka Gandhi will chair the technical session on use of animals in education with the other sessions being on alternatives in biomedical research and regulatory research. At a preparatory meeting last week, Baalu emphasised the need to inculcate right attitudes among the children towards animals and to ensure adoption of humane practices towards experimental animals. Experts and scientists from USA, United Kingdom and Netherlands besides from governmental organizations and private sector like Ranbaxy, Cadilla Pharmaceuticals, Nicholas Piramal, Rallis India, Lupin Laboratories, Dr. Reddy's Foundation etc. will be participating in the deliberations. CBSE and ICSE will also participate.

Though CPCSEA was set up in 1964 under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, this is the first time such a conference is being organised to review the implementation of Good Laboratory Practices Manual and the Guidelines issued by Indian National Science Academy and Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. While CPCSEA monitors experiments on animal at the apex level, it is being done by Institutional Animal Ethics Committees in the field. Central Board of Secondary Education and the Indian Council of Secondary Education have already banned dissection of animals in the schools and introduced alternatives to provide the requisite knowledge to medical students. Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab and Tripura have already implemented these decisions while others are in the process of doing so.

Experimentation on animals is carried out in various fields like physiology, pharmacology, biology, manufacture of sera, vaccines and drugs, nutritional studies and medico legal fields. Horses are used for the manufacture of anti-venom and anti-tetanus serum, sheep for anti-sera vaccines and rabbits and calves for testing the potency and safety of vaccines. Polio vaccines are subjected to biological tests on mice and monkeys. Under the Drugs Control Act, injectible preparations are subjected to tests on rabbits while toxicity tests are carried out on mice before marketing. Use of animals for experiments was introduced in the country in 1898-99 when a Commission was set up to investigate into the causes of the outbreak of plague in India and since then there has been a phenomenal expansion.