A group of experts today declared that there was a strong scientific case for continuing to allow monkeys to be used in experiments.

The Weatherall Report said that experiments on non-human primates were justified when this was the only way of finding ways to cure or alleviate human suffering.

The experts also accepted that there were some cases where the availability of other approaches weakened the argument in favour of using monkeys in research.

These caveats did nothing to deter anti-vivisectionists from their campaign for a Europe-wide ban on the use of monkeys in experiments.

The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) described the report as a whitewash and claimed it was based on outdated research.

Michelle Thew, the BUAV's chief executive, said: "Sadly, as expected this report has turned out to be yet another whitewash over the important scientific and ethical issues involved in experimenting on non-human primates.

"Although we welcome the report’s commitments to investment in alternatives, it simply fails to properly address the welfare needs and moral case for subjecting these sensitive, intelligent creatures to a lifetime of suffering in UK labs.

"I would also question the scientific basis the report uses to justify continued use of primates – this outdated research is just not delivering the cures we so desperately need. For example, we recently showed in a review that 25 years of HIV vaccine research using primates had delivered over 30 cures for the primate version of HIV, but has failed to find a vaccine for the human virus."

She said the committee had been misled on Government regulation. The BUAV is currently taking the Home Office to court over its "fundamental failure" to enforce current regulations at one of the country’s leading primate research institutions – Cambridge University, said Ms Thew.

However many leading scientists welcomed the report and emphasised that the need for tightly-controlled experiments on monkeys to help make scientific advances. The development of the breast cancer drug Herceptin was among the cases cited as a valuable use of primate testing.

Each year around 3,300 monkeys are involved in scientific or medical research in the UK - about 0.1 per cent of all the animals used in the laboratory.

Three-quarters of these animals are used for testing the safety of new medicines.

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