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Gill Langley is a British zoologist and writer who specializes in animal rights and animal protection issues in relation to the use of animals in research. She is scientific consultant to the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) and the Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research. She is a former member of the British government's Animal Procedures Committee, a current member of the Replacement Advisory Group of the British National Centre for the Three Rs, founded by Lord Sainsbury, and has worked as a consultant for the European Commission as well as animal protection organizations in Europe and the United States. She is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine.

Langley is the author of Next of Kin (2006), a report on primate experimentation published by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection with a foreword by primatologist Jane Goodall; Vegan Nutrition (1995); and editor of Animal Experimentation: The Consensus Changes (1990), a collection of essays on animal research by leading scientists and philosophers, including Mary Midgley.

Education

Langley studied physiology, cell biology and zoology for her bachelor's degree at Cambridge University's Department of Zoology, then gained her Ph.D in neurochemistry, also from Cambridge. She took up a position as a research fellow at Nottingham University, specializing in neurophysiology in cell culture.

Involvement in animal protection

Template:Alib Described in the book Organ Farms as "not what some would regard as a typical animal rights campaigner," Langley is herself a former animal researcher who decided she could not justify the experiments her employment required her to conduct. She subsequently took up a position as scientific advisor to the BUAV.

She was a member of the Animal Procedures Committee for eight years, which advises the British Home Office on issues related to animal testing, and has acted as an advisor to the government on the introduction of the new European Union Chemicals legislation, REACH. She has served as a specialist consultant for the European Commission and for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). She was called as an expert witness in 2001 by the House of Lords Select Committee on Animals In Scientific Procedures during its inquiry into animal experimentation in the UK.

In April 2006, she was a member of the panel at the Oxford Union that debated whether "This house would not test on animals." Opposing the motion were Laurie Pycroft — who founded Pro-Test, which organized the debate — Sir Colin Blakemore, Professor John Stein and Professor Lord Robert Winston. Supporting the motion, along with Langley, were Dr Andrew Knight, Uri Geller and BUAV campaigns director Alistair Currie. The motion was defeated by 273 to 48.

Position on animal research

Langley told The Guardian that she does not rule out animal testing entirely, but argues that the legislation supposed to protect the 2.7 million animals currently used each year in the UK is inadequate, and that more money should be invested in developing alternatives, such as in-vitro and clinical studies. She told the BBC: "When you know that other animals can feel pain and distress in the same ways that humans do, it is unethical to experiment on them." She argues that because the British government's budget for alternatives is subdivided into different areas, what each area receives is "barely enough to fund one research project."

She is particularly opposed to the use of non-human primates in xenotransplantation, where pig organs are grafted onto the necks of primates to test anti-rejection drugs. She told medical journalists Jenny Bryan and John Clare that the primates used in xenotransplantation research are subjected to a large number of traumatic procedures and their effects, such as major surgery; internal haemorrhages; isolation in small cages; repeated blood sampling; wound infections; nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea because of immunosuppressant drugs; kidney or heart failure; and eventually death. She said: "It's not just the suffering they endure in the laboratories and research establishments. Just getting there can be torture. Studies of primates show them to have complex mental abilities which may increase their capacity to suffer. Supplying the laboratories in the UK imposes huge suffering on the animals. It involves capturing wild individuals, usually in Africa. They're then contained in small, single cages, and transported for very long distances causing deaths, distress and suffering."

Next of Kin

Langley's white paper, Next of Kin (2006), is written in opposition to the recent publication by the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust in favor of primate experimentation. She argues that monkeys suffer the same kind of pain, anxiety and anticipation as human beings would if placed in the same situations. In the press release accompanying the publication David Morton, professor of Biomedical Science & Ethics at the University of Birmingham, calls it a "wake-up call to some scientists to raise their game in their justification and ways they use non-human primates in research."

Langley told New Scientist: "It’s not that they are so much like us they shouldn’t be experimented on. It comes down to pain and suffering. Like humans, they know the pain is coming, they remember pain and are susceptible to non-physical pain, suffering anxiety if they’re isolated socially from other monkeys." Langley says that there is "no halfway house": "We can argue about the science forever, but what I’ve never heard is any clear scientific explanation for moral discrimination." The New Scientist states that her report cites studies suggesting that macaques and other small monkeys are more conscious of themselves and others than was previously believed, giving them a moral status equivalent to that of great apes — currently not used in experiments in the UK.

Publications

• Next of Kin: A Report on the Use of Primates in Experiments Template:PDFlink, British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection and European Coalition to End Animal Experiments (ECEAE), 2006.
• Vegan Nutrition. The Vegan Society, 1995. ISBN 090733718X
• Animal Experimentation: The Consensus Changes. MacMillan, 1989. ISBN 041202411X
• "Plea for a Sensitive Science" in Animal Experimentation: The Consensus Changes. MacMillan, 1989
• "Acute Toxicity Testing Without Animals" Template:PDFlink, ECEAE, 2005.
• "Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals - A Non-animal Testing Approach" Template:PDFlink, Green Party, 2004.
• "Chemical Safety & Animal Testing: A Regulatory Smokescreen?" Template:PDFlink, ECEAE, 2004.
• "The Way Forward: Strategy for a Future Chemicals Policy," Part 1 Template:PDFlink, Part 2 Template:Pdflink, ECEAE, 2004.
• The case against the use of animals in medical experiments in Levinson, Ralph and Reiss , Michael J. (eds.) Key Issues in Bioethics: A Guide for Teachers, pp.167-174. Taylor & Francis Group 2004 ISBN 0-203-47286-1 (e-Book).

See also

• Altruism in animals
• British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection
• Animal testing
• List of animal welfare and animal rights groups
• People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
• Vivisection

Notes

1. ^ Langley, Gill. "Next of Kin: A Report on the Use of Primates in Experiments" Template:PDFlink, British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, June 2006.
2. Levinson, Ralph and Reiss, Michael J. (eds) Key Issues in Bioethics: A Guide for Teachers. RoutledgeFalmer, p. 175.
3. ^ Bryan, Jenny & Clare, John. Organ Farms. Carlton, 2001. excerpt
4. "Examination of Witnesses (Questions 382-399)", Select Committee on Animals In Scientific Procedures, United Kingdom Parliament, retrieved July 15, 2006.
5. Asthana, Anushka. "Pro-Test in support of animal experiments", The Observer, April 30, 2006.
6. Alistair Currie's speech to the Oxford Union, BUAV, retrieved July 15, 2006.
7. Burch, Druin. "The sceptic", The Guardian, March 2, 2006.
8. "Reduce animal testing, Lords urge", BBC News, July 24, 2002.
9. Nature 417, 684-687; 2002.
10. "Primates in Medical Research" Template:PDFlink
11. ^ Coghlan, Andy. "Report claims experiments on monkeys are vital", New Scientist, June 2, 2006.
12. "MP to chair BUAV / Pro-Test debate on primate testing", May 31, 2006.

References

"Pro-Test in support of animal experiments"], The Observer, April 30, 2006.

• Bryan, Jenny & Clare, John. Organ Farms. Carlton, 2001.
• Burch, Druin. "The sceptic", The Guardian, March 2, 2006.
• Coghlan, Andy. "Report claims experiments on monkeys are vital", New Scientist, June 2, 2006.
• Levinson, Ralph & Reiss, Michael J. (eds.) Key Issues in Bioethics: A Guide for Teachers. RoutledgeFalmer. ISBN 0203464532
• "Reduce animal testing, Lords urge, BBC News, July 24, 2002.
• Alistair Currie's speech to the Oxford Union, British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, retrieved July 15, 2006.
• "Examination of Witnesses (Questions 382-399)", Select Committee on Animals In Scientific Procedures, United Kingdom Parliament, retrieved July 15, 2006.
• "MP to chair BUAV / Pro-Test debate on primate testing", BUAV, May 31, 2006.
• "Primate in medical research" Template:PDFlink, Medical Research Council.

Further reading

• British Anti-Vivisection Association
• European Coalition to End Animal Experiments - Campaigns - Key Reports
• British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection
• National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research

Audio

• Interview with Gill Langley, Today, BBC Radio Four, September 7, 2004, retrieved July 16, 2006.

• Animal liberation movement
• Living people