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SCMP Reporter

THOUSANDS of mice, rats, hamsters and rabbits are being force-fed, injected with drugs, killed by toxic substances or made to suffer human diseases in Hong Kong laboratories.

  The animals are being used for research into human illnesses and biological systems. Most of the experiments are being conducted at Hong Kong and Chinese Universities, which breed animals for their own and other institutions' use.

  However, Vivisection Action Group member and Earthcare vice-chairman Dr John Wedderburn said his group feared many animals were being used in unlicensed experiments.

   And although experiments have to be registered with the Department of Health, licensing officer Dr Mak Kwok-hang admitted there were shortcomings in monitoring procedures.

   Under the ordinance, researchers must apply for a licence detailing the reasons for the work and whether animals will be anaesthetised. Dr Mak said the ordinance also had requirements to ensure animals did not suffer needlessly.

    An inspector in each of the department's four regions processed applications, typically about 100 a year. Licences lasted for the duration of the experiment.

  Licensees who did not properly account for their animals at the end of the year faced a fine of up to $500 and three months' imprisonment.

  However, although three licensees in the past three years had failed to send in their audit figures, no action had been taken, Dr Mak admitted. But he added: 'We have sent them reminders.'   One application was turned down last year because 'the applicant did not conduct the animal experiment for research, teaching or other purposes as stipulated in the . . . ordinance'. Dr Mak refused to say what the applicant, from Chinese University, wanted to do.

   Institutions licensed in the last three years were: Chinese University, Hong Kong University (HKU), the University of Science and Technology, Baptist University, Hong Kong Polytechnic, the Government Virus Unit and the Institute of Pathology of the Department of Health, Tuen Mun and United Christian Hospitals.

  The two hospitals and a private laboratory had not provided returns of animals used, and the lab had not even performed the planned experiment, Dr Mak said.

   A Tuen Mun Hospital representative said it only held about 100 mice, which were for use in an experiment co-ordinated by Queen Elizabeth Hospital. United Christian Hospital said it had no knowledge of animal work and would look into the licence.

   At HKU, animal experiment director Dr Lo King-shun, and his colleague, professor of physiology and head of the research ethics committee, David Kwan Chiu-yin, said the work was needed to understand how animal systems similar to those of humans worked.

  Since June last year, HKU has used 9,993 mice, 8,450 rats, 1,376 hamsters, 554 guinea-pigs, 221 rabbits, 2,976 chickens and fertilised eggs and 15 dogs. Chinese University declined to give figures.

   About 40 applications were made each year at HKU to the in-house ethics committee, said Dr Lo.

   An anaesthetic was used in work involving surgery, but 'more than half' the experiments were conducted without it.

  Chinese University animal research ethics committee chairman Dr Julian Critchley declined to answer repeated telephone calls.

  However, he issued a statement saying the committee comprised an outside vet as well as in-house experimenters and it had turned down proposals 'from time to time'.

UNDER THE MICROSCOPE  PREGNANT rats at Chinese University are fed 60 milligrams of cocaine per kilogram of their weight each day between the seventh and 21st day of pregnancy.

  The offspring are killed at birth, after four weeks, three months and six months and the effect of the drug on chemicals in their brains observed, in the hope of finding a link chemicals of the brain and behaviour.

  Opponents say it was obvious that offspring would be affected by cocaine addiction in their mother.

   FISH at Baptist University are made to swim in different amounts of sewage sludge until half their number die to gain a toxicity rating of the sewage. This is compared with toxicity studies on cells to correlate the two.

   Head of biology Professor Wong Ming-hung said: 'By doing these experiments you can save some animals. [The scientist] is trying to save fish in the future.'   Opponents say the study would prove that 'fish die in sewage and that it's a bad thing to have much sewage'.

   MICE at Queen Elizabeth Hospital are bred to have no immunity to cancer and then have samples of nose tumours taken from humans implanted in their stomachs. The mice are killed to remove the tumour when it is big enough for study, at about two centimetres in diameter.

   Research scientist Dr Poon said whole tumours could not be removed from patients, who were treated by radiotherapy. The mice did not suffer.

   MICE at the Government Virus Unit, Queen Mary Hospital, are injected with parts of the brains of stray dogs that have bitten people, to see if they have rabies. After 21 days, the mouse is killed and its brain examined to see if the virus is present.

  The last positive case was in 1988, when a mouse developed tremors after being injected with saliva from a traveller from China.

  Scientists at the unit and Institute of Pathology diagnose other viruses afflicting Hong Kong people using blood taken from guinea pigs, poultry and rabbits. The animals usually give their blood about three times. When it becomes of too low quality to be any use, they are killed with an overdose of ether.

   PIGS are used by trainee surgeons at the Prince of Wales and Queen Mary hospitals, linked to the medical schools, to practise microsurgery. Endoscopes are passed through the specially-bred mini-pigs' stomachs to test procedures and try out heart/lung transplant techniques before being used on humans.



Fears of unlicensed animal experiments