According to Dr Jarrod Bailey, scientific director of Europeans for Medical Progress, 82% of GPs believe that animal experiments produce medically misleading results. Europeans for Medical Progress is an independent organisation of scientists and medical professionals that has prepared a petition calling for an independent investigation into the scientific merits of animal-based medical research.

"As someone who has spent years looking for a scientific justification behind animal experimentation, I think 'fraud' is the right word," Dr Bailey announced. He stated that although animal research has been "involved" in every major medical advance (as the pharmaceutical industry claims), its involvement has been incidental at best - and often a serious setback to scientific advances.

"All progress on AIDS has been despite animal experiments, which have produced misleading results," he said. He also said that research into cancer, stroke, multiple sclerosis, parkinson's disease and other serious illnesses has been distracted and delayed by scientifically invalid and ultimately misleading results from research using animals to model human responses. Even the notoriously conservative US Food and Drug Administration describes animal experimentation as "using 20th century technology for 21st century problems".

Dr Bailey said that using animal experimentation causes deaths through the release of drugs incorrectly found to be safe in animal trials. Adverse drug reactions is the fourth largest single cause of death in the UK.