A legislator urged stricter regulations yesterday over animal experiments.
Christine Loh Kung-wai of the Citizens Party said she had found a big discrepancy between the figure for the number of animals used in experiments at two local universities and the official figure reported to the Department of Health.
Under the Animals (Control of Experiments) Ordinance, researchers who want to perform experiments on live vertebrate animals must apply for a permit from the Department of Health.
Figures Ms Loh obtained from sources at the Chinese University and the University of Hong Kong showed that more than 80,000 animals were used in experiments in the 1997-98 academic year. These included rats, mice and rabbits.
But Department of Health figures show that last year 583 permits were issued covering about 26,000 animals.
Ms Loh wrote to Secretary for Health and Welfare Katherine Fok Lo Shiu-ching yesterday to question the accuracy of the Government's figures.
She said although the two sets of figures were collected over slightly different periods, the discrepancy was large enough to raise concerns.