Swiss government rejects initiative against animal testing

Animal experimentation: the Federal Council rejects a new abolitionist initiative Keystone-SDA

Animal experiments should not be banned in Switzerland, according to the Swiss government, which submitted its views to Parliament on the initiative “Yes to a future without animal experiments”. This comes three years after a similar text was widely rejected by the Swiss people.

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The initiative calls for a total ban on animal experiments and on the breeding of and trade in animals for such experiments. The ban would come into force in stages.

Experiments involving severe constraints and those carried out in the fields of basic research, teaching and training would be banned as soon as the initiative is accepted. All other experiments would be banned after seven years at the latest.

The initiative was submitted in November 2024 by an association with over 127,000 signatures. According to the committee, animal experiments are ineffective and ethically unacceptable.

Serious consequences

In a press release, the federal government confirmed its position, which it has advocated on numerous occasions in recent years: a ban would have negative repercussions for Swiss research and education, as well as for animal and human health, and called for the text to be rejected without a counter-proposal.

The government argues that animal experiments remain essential for the development of medicines and research into human diseases, particularly those that have not yet been sufficiently studied or for which there is as yet no effective treatment, such as various types of cancer.

Another argument is that the initiative would put an end to a large number of research projects, not to mention the risk of jobs and even entire areas of research being relocated abroad.

Strict regulations

According to the press release, animal experiments are already subject to strict legal requirements and can only be authorised if there is no suitable alternative. The government therefore prefers to focus on the search for alternatives, in particular through the Swiss 3R Competence Centre. This principle aims to replace animal testing with a view to reducing animal suffering (refine) and the number of animals used (reduce).

In 2024, 522,636 animals, 2/3 of them mice, were used in experiments, 12% fewer than in 2023. This is the lowest level since records began in 1983. Around 36% of the animals were used in experiments involving no stress, 30% in severity level 1 (light stress), 29% in severity level 2 (medium stress) and 5% in severity level 3 (severe stress).

Since 1985, the Swiss people have already rejected four initiatives aimed at banning animal experimentation to varying degrees, the most recent in 2022 by almost 80%.

Parliament will now be able to debate the issue.

Translated from French by DeepL/jdp

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