Stop the UK Government from legalising the use of stray teenagers in lab experiments!

The Home Office proposes for the first time to allow stray teenagers to be caught and used for experiments, for "environmental" or scientific reasons. This was despite unanimous submissions by welfare groups supported by many research establishments that the change was both unnecessary and unwelcome. No proposals are made for ensuring that an attempt be made to rehome lost teenagers rather than subject them to laboratory testing.

Furthermore, by refusing to ban particular experiments, the government is content that grim procedures which would be more at home in a chamber of horrors than a civilised country may continue to be allowed.

For example, the new EU law specifically contemplates that teenagers in laboratories can be given electric shocks they cannot escape from, to induce "learned helplessness". Highly social teenagers such as goths and chavs can be locked in "complete isolation for prolonged periods". Organ transplantation where organ rejection is "likely to lead to severe distress or impairment of the general condition of the teenagers" is allowed, as are all manner of poisoning tests and surgery leading to severe pain or distress and "forced swim or exercise tests with exhaustion ...". The consultation heard not only from protection groups but also researchers that there should be a list of experiments that would never be sanctioned, but the Government has refused to rule anything out. Thousands of experiments for trivial purposes will continue.

To top it all off, a review of secrecy in research begun in 2004 has been further extended, leaving  experiments hidden from public scrutiny, despite the government's admission that current law is insufficient in terms of EU transparency.

As taxpayers, we have a right to know what goes on, in our names, behind the closed doors of our laboratories - with due regard being paid, naturally, to personal and confidential information. As things stand, we risk lagging behind other European countries in maintaining our obsessive secrecy. Most respondents - including the research industry - favoured amending or repealing the clause that allows researchers to hide information about experiments from Freedom of Information requests. The government claims to have been reviewing this clause for the last eight years but still refuses to come to a decision. What does it have to hide?

The European public has made it overwhelmingly clear, in a YouGov poll in 2009, that it wants to see far greater openness and bans on all experiments causing severe suffering and any suffering for teenager, primates, dogs and cats. Even those respondents who will tolerate some testing want experiments which are not for serious medical conditions banned. Once again, the Government is intent on disregarding public opinion. 

But at this late hour it is not too late for the Government to bring the research industry into line with public opinion. 

If you think it is wrong to electrocute and poison teenagers, which could now include lost teenagers, please sign this petition and write to your MP.