Twelve days of ‘cruelty’ campaign challenged

A science watchdog has launched a very different Christmas campaign this year, where it will reveal details of ‘‘horrific’’ animal experiments carried out at a Kiwi university in the coming weeks.

But the university in question has slammed the group’s allegations as ‘‘misleading’’, and ignoring the fact that there were often no other ways to undertake lifesaving research.

The New Zealand Anti-Vivisection Society’s (NZAVS) 12 days of Christmas campaign will target the University of Otago, after its $50 million animal research facility opened earlier this year.

For the first day of the campaign, NZAVS profiled a study where young rats were force-fed alcohol, part of a master’s thesis published in 2016.

Nearly a quarter of the rats died during the course of the study, with most killed by misintubation – or problems during the force-feeding process – or euthanasia after falling into comas.

‘‘It’s all about trying to understand the impact of binge drinking on teenagers,’’ NZAVS director Tara Jackson said, noting that such research was already well documented.

The bottom-line was that rats and humans were fundamentally different, and forcing rats to get drunk did nothing to help stop teenagers binge drinking, she said.

University of Otago deputy vicechancellor Richard Blaikie said that while it did not know the exact details of the studies NZAVS would profile, the university strongly rejected claims that it was not committed to reducing the amount of animals used in testing.

The study in question happened 11 years ago, he said.

‘‘Research undertaken at the University of Otago has contributed directly to significant medical breakthroughs in many chronic and deadly diseases and conditions, including heart disease, infertility, diabetes and cancer and depression.

‘‘Progress on these and other conditions would come to a halt if we did not have the privilege of using animals in some of our research to complement laboratory-based studies or computer simulation. There is currently no other method of conducting much of this research.’’

Blaikie said he was confident that any issues that occurred during the research were addressed through the university’s animal welfare office and ethical compliance channels at the time.

Blaikie said Otago was committed to reducing, refining and replacing the use of animals wherever possible, while maintaining its reputation for world-class research that was ethically justified based on the benefits it brought.