7. A legal mandate for animal studies

7.1 The safety and efficacy testing of vaccines, medicines, medical appliances and materials, agricultural remedies, vaccines, nutritional supplements, pesticides and other consumer products is mandated by various Statutes in South African law. These laws are intended to promote the concept of preventative medicine which requires such substances to be tested for safety and efficacy before they may be approved and registered for public use.

7.2 This mandate for animal studies is, however, not absolute, since progress is constantly being made in the development of methods for replac-ing animals in the safety testing of consumer products and medicines.

7.3 Any proposed use of animals for product safety testing must be preceded by a rigorous search for a validated animal replacement method. If such a method does not exist, then the proposal must be supported by a specific statement explaining why an animal experiment is necessary.