Thaindian News

New Delhi, Oct 20 (IANS) The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has urged the Medical Council of India (MCI) to re-evaluate and amend regulations allowing medical colleges to end the use of animals in their curricula and opt for alternatives to animal experimentation.Drawing the attention of MCI, a government body that regulates medical colleges in the country, to the fact that majority of medical schools in the US, Canada and the UK have ended the use of animals in their curricula, PETA said prominent medical associations now encourage medical schools to replace the use of animals with non-animal teaching methods.

In its Oct 15 letter to the MCI president, Dharmesh Solanki, PETA’s Senior Vivisection (the practice of experimenting on live animals) Campaign Coordinator said many colleges have expressed their inability to end the practice because of MCI requirements.

“We respectfully ask your office to re-evaluate the position on this issue and to amend the Graduate Medical Education Regulations 1997, to allow medical colleges to prohibit the use of animals in their curricula,” Solanki said.

He said: “Prominent medical associations now encourage medical schools to replace the use of animals in curricula with non-animal teaching methods.”

“Leading medical professors and researchers in India support ending the use of animals for medical education,” he added.

“Prominent government agencies are now urging a paradigm shift to using cutting-edge, non-animal research methodologies because numerous recent studies have shown that animal experiments often waste lives - both animal and human - and precious resources by trying to infect animals with diseases that they would never normally contract,” Solanki said.

“As the world moves forward with newer and safer technologies, India should take a lead - not lag behind,” he added.