Current effort:

17th June 2025

The government has until then to respond to my Freedom of Information request.

What:

I have submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Home Office, asking for 3 things:

The 2014 ‘Response to Consultation’ document, i.e. the report,
The submitted responses from the public,
The draft report that was mentioned in Parliament 2015.

Why This Matters:

Due to the restrictive nature of the current law, we know very little about these experiments involving living animals.

Are they necessary? Are there better alternatives? What do the animals go through?

The government publishes annual summary statistics but they don’t paint a good enough picture.

Background:

Section 24 of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 is known as the “Secrecy Clause”. It makes it a criminal offense for anyone to disclose information about scientific experiments.

In 2014, the government did a Consultation called “Consultation on the review of Section 24 of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986”.

In this Consultation paper, the government:

Acknowledged that Section 24 is too restrictive,
Outlined 4 options in how to change the law,
Gave their preferred option,
Asked the public for their input.

11 years on, there’s no report, no law change, no explanation.

What can you do:

Follow my daily updates on tiktok @ricebowltalk where I cover the history of this law, the data of animal testing, and more!

Want to participate? Get ready to take action on the 17th June.

Years ago, a family member asked,

‘There are laws to make sure animals are treated right, aren’t there?’

I started digging.

What I found wasn’t black and white: loopholes, exemptions, and practices many would call inhumane—if they knew.

But most people aren’t aware.

That’s why I do this: to find the facts, connect the dots, and hand them to you.

Because change starts when we look.

I’m Melody, a curiosity-driven data nerd on a mission.

No lab coat or fancy title—just a determination to unpack how we use animals through data, documents and relentless questions.

60%

of mammals on Earth are

livestock.

Source: Hannah Ritchie (2022) - “Wild mammals make up only a few percent of the world’s mammals” Published online at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/wild-mammals-birds-biomass' [Online Resource]