Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 experiments licensed under the 1986 Act. The 1986 Act defined "regulated procedures" as animal experiments that could potentially cause "pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm", to "protected animals", which encompassed all living vertebrates other than humans, under the responsibility of humans. A 1993 amendment added a single invertebrate species, the common octopus ("Octopus vulgaris"), as a protected animal. The Act applied only to protected animals from halfway through their gestation or incubation periods (for mammals, birds and reptiles) or from when they became capable of independent feeding (for fish, amphibians and, the common octopuses). Primates, cats, dogs and horses had
Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 used for medical research." Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 The Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, sometimes referred to as ASPA, is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (1986 c. 14) passed in 1986, which regulates the use of animals used for research in the UK. The Act permits studies to be conducted using animals for procedures such as breeding genetically modified animals, medical and veterinary advances, education, environmental toxicology and includes procedures requiring vivisection, if certain criteria are met. Revised legislation came into force on January 1, 2013. The original act related to the 1986 EU Directive