[1] The charity reported that neither the proponents of animal research nor its opponents were able to produce sufficiently sound scientific evidence in support of their opposing cases.
The formation of the charity followed the publication of an Education and Debate paper in the BMJ in 2004 which expressed concerns about the lack of scientific evidence to support the claims made by animal research advocates.
[2] In 2005 a report was published by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics which called for systematic reviews and meta-analyses to be carried out in order to "evaluate more fully the predictability and transferability of animal models".
[3] The report concluded that "At present, there is a relatively limited number of useful systematic reviews and meta-reviews that address the question of the scientific validity of animal experiments and tests."
The authors had found that the Home Office showed a lack of interest in the quality of record-keeping needed for preparing systematic reviews.