today

The judge ruled that the home secretary acted unlawfully when he licensed brain experiments as causing "moderate" rather than "substantial" suffering. Some of the experiments involved removing the tops of the animals' heads to induce strokes.

"It is actually a really significant point that goes to the heart of animal experiments into the UK," said Michelle Threw, chief executive of BUAV.

According to the semiprofessional trade journal (always interesting news in these) "Drug Researcher , the UK government has been ordered to review the assessment system it uses to classify and grant permission for animal experiments following a court ruling handed down last week

IMO: A lot of these experiments would appear to be of little real use. Furthermore those concerned often have little knowledge or understanding of their own subject. I would know, as I have recently attended two major conferences on consciousness studies and had to read a lot of sheer bilge. And sometimes there is little or no use of pain killers to these innocent animals. Covance and Huntingdon Life Sciences, "the usual suspects", are of course carpeted again but it is suspected that little will actually be done.