British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection
Encyclopedia : B : BR : BRI : British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection
The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) is a pressure group based near Highbury Corner in London, United Kingdom. Its object is the complete abolition of all animal experiments. BUAV engages in education, research, investigations, including undercover work in laboratories, political lobbying, and legal cases that further the cause of the anti-vivisection movement. The BUAV also promotes non-animal alternatives, and is widely regarded as one of the most respected and effective animal-rights or animal-welfare organisations in the world. The BUAV is the chairing organisation of the European coalition to End Animal Experiments.
BUAV was founded in 1898 by Frances Power Cobbe, campaigning at first against the use of dogs in vivisection, and came close to achieving success with the 1919 Dogs (Protection) Bill, which almost became law. In recent years, it successfully lobbied the British government into abolishing the oral LD50 test in the 1990s. The BUAV was also closely involved in the lobbying which led to the adoption in the European Union of the 7th Amendment to the Cosmetics Directive, which will effectively ban both the testing of cosmetics products and their ingredients on animals and also the sale of products which have been animal-tested anywhere in the world.
In recent years the BUAV has focused its attention in a number of new areas, including the promotion of non-animal tested products, the European Union's REACH proposal to test tens of thousands of chemicals on millions of animals and the use of non-human primates in experimentation. At the same time, it has retained its consistent opposition to medical research on animals.
The BUAV helps consumers to identify and purchase products which have not been tested on animals through its Humane Cosmetics Standard and Humane Household Product Standard. These are audited accreditation schemes for retail companies which confirm that neither their products or their ingredients are tested on animals. These Standards are also run in a number of European countries and in the United States of America.
Among the BUAV's many undercover investigations, the most recent have been into the University of Cambridge and Covance's contract testing laboratory in Germany . The BUAV is at present pursuing a judicial review against the Home Office as a result of its findings in the Cambridge investigation.
In recent years, the BUAV has taken an increasingly firm stand against animal rights extremism.
External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.