BfRshort forGerman Federal Institute for Risk Assessment Stakeholder Forum on 15 December 15th 2023: Unused laboratory animals - surplus or necessity?

Since 2022, the German Center for the Protection of Laboratory Animals (Bf3R) is publishing the numbers for the previous years of laboratory animals that were originally bred for scientific purposes but were never used for such purposes. According to this, in 2021 an additional 2.55 million experimental animals were not used for experiments in Germany and were subsequently killed. This means that the proportion of this group is even larger than the proportion of animals that were actually used in experiments.

What exactly is behind these numbers? What are the reasons that laboratory animals are not used in experiments? Why is a large proportion of these animals killed? Are they necessary for scientific operation or are they produced in "surplus"? 

These questions were discussed at the stakeholder forum of the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfRshort forGerman Federal Institute for Risk Assessment) and the Bf3R with the various German stakeholders from science, science communication, ethics and animal welfare associations.

External Link:Link to the livestream recording and individual presentations on YouTube