ANIMAL rights campaigners have attacked Preston's University of Central Lancashire for its research on rats.

The National Anti-Vivisection Society claims experiments were carried out into the impact of hormones on digestive juices using normal and artificially 'diabetic' rats.

The animals were killed for their organs, usually by a blow to the head followed by breaking their neck.

The National Anti-Vivisection Society say the tests were licensed by the Home Office despite the fact that the experiments were "wasteful" because --

The experiments repeated previous animal tests.

The differences between rats and other species were already known.

It was not necessary to use rat tissue for this work -- human tissue is available and use of human tissue would avoid the problem of species differences.

The inducement of diabetes in the rats was achieved by the injection of a drug called streptozotocin. Inducing a disease in this manner, in laboratory conditions, cannot hope to replicate a disease that can take years to develop in humans. Jan Creamer, director of NAVS, said: "This pointless research could have easily been stopped if we had wider scientific scrutiny of the licences granted to test on animals.

"Looking at previous research on this subject would have shown the Home Office that this study is totally unnecessary and a terrible waste of animals' lives.

"Lab animals are suffering -- we think that the public should know why."

According to a University spokesperson, only six experiments took place under Home Office licence as part of a research programme aimed at understanding the process of diabetes.

These experiments have now ceased.

Doctor John Brown at the University added: "There would be no advantage to any researcher to repeat experiments that had already been carried out as there would be no possibility of publishing the results."

Funding was provided by a variety of organisations including the Welcome Trust, the British Council and United Arab Emirates University.