Welcome to SABRE Research UK. We are a charity calling for systematic reviews of animal studies. The aim of the charity is to improve medical research and promote the health and safety of patients and research volunteers by raising awareness and understanding of the need for systematic reviews of animal studies. Animal studies are the results of animal experiments that are published in scientific and medical journals. Research has shown that the current methods used to assess and translate the medical value of animal research need to be improved. Systematic reviews are considered to be the most rigorous method of evaluating research. They are published scientific review articles that identify bias, appraise the quality and summarise the results of research. They also provide transparency and accountability of research and an evidence-base from which decisions can be made. Systematic reviews are essential when evaluating the results of animal experiments for their relevance to human health.

N.B. The charity is independent from political parties, animal research advocacy groups, the pharmaceutical industry, animal rights groups and other vested interests.
___________________________________________________________________________

WHAT SABRE is calling for:
• Systematic reviews of animal studies
• Improvements in the research methods used to conduct and assess animal research
• The same standards of clinical research to be applied to pre-clinical animal research
WHY :
• To improve the efficacy and safety of medical research
• To protect patients and research volunteers from unsound research
• To determine the value of animal research to human medicine
HOW :
• We explain the scientific reasons for why systematic reviews of animal studies are important
• We encourage public understanding of research methodology and scientific publishing
• We submit written responses to public consultations on animal research
• We offer a platform to systematic reviewers to explain their work
• We raise funding for systematic reviews of animal studies

__________________________________________________________________________

2010 A paper published in PLoS Biology announced new guidelines for the reporting of animal research.

2008 The charity petitioned the Prime Minister for a programme of systematic reviews of animal studies so that more could be learnt about the safety, predictive value (relevance), efficacy and cost-effectiveness of animal research where it is used to provide data (information) for human health and medicine.

2007 A study published in the BMJ identified 'a gap in knowledge about the usefulness of the volume of animal studies that look at biological mechanisms of disease and that more systematic reviews are needed for a quantitative appraisal of the concordance between animal and clinical trials'.

2005 The Nuffield Council on Bioethics called for systematic reviews of animal studies in their report 'The ethics or research involoving animals.'

2004 A discussion paper published in the BMJ called for a large scale programme of systematic reviews of animal studies. - 'Ideally, new animal studies should not be conducted until the best use has been made of existing animal studies and until their validity and generalisability to clinical medicine has been assessed.'

2002 The issue of systematic reviews of animal studies was first raised in a commentary in the Lancet.

Free Medical Journals website

 Over the next years, the most important medical journals will be available online, free and in full-text. The unrestricted access to scientific knowledge - the new standard in medical publishing - will have a major impact on medical practice.