Rarely can elected politicians have been so out-of-step with public opinion, and rarely can they have claimed they are doing one thing while doing the opposite, as with the European Parliament vote on the new animal experiments law.

Public opinion is clear. A recent YouGov poll in six representative EU countries – the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Italy – showed huge majorities in favour of banning painful experiments on monkeys, cats and dogs, experiments causing severe suffering (on all species) and all experiments which are not for life-threatening or serious human illnesses. The public wants all information about animal experiments to be available unless it is confidential or would identify individuals.

So what did MEPs do? While mouthing platitudes about animal welfare and the need for openness, they have passed amendments which would allow suffering which is both severe and prolonged – surely an obscenity in a civilised society – and the repeated use of the same animal in painful experiments. Cats and dogs would continue to be used, as would most species of monkey for just about any purpose. Experiments will continue to take place for trivial reasons which have nothing to do with human illnesses – such as testing for paints and washing-up liquid and weapons research.

Little meaningful information would have to be made public and there would not even have to be a review of an animal research project when it's finished, to learn scientific and animal welfare lessons. MEPs have also voted to allow, effectively, researchers to decide whether they need to get permission from governments for their project.

This is not good enough. We do not elect politicians naively to soak up the scaremongering and misleading propaganda of the multibillion pound animal research industry but to bring their independent judgement to bear on issues which are of crucial importance to human health as well as to animal welfare.

Fortunately, this is not the end of the story. The proposed legislation now goes to national governments and then back to the European Parliament. Elections for MEPs take place on June 4. Readers can contact candidates for their views and use their vote appropriately.

Michelle Thew

Chief executive, British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection