DENVER—Responding to concerns about the safety of its funky resin shoes, Crocs Inc. said Monday it is introducing two models aimed at medical professionals that will come without the distinctive holes of its traditional styles.

The new shoes are made with the company’s patented proprietary closed-cell resin and offer a thicker layer of protection for the top of the foot, Crocs said in a statement.

Concerns have been raised that doctors and nurses wearing Crocs could be injured if instruments or needles fell through the holes. Other worries have been raised about whether Crocs generate static electricity that can knock out medical equipment.

Crocs is based in Niwot north of Denver and its shoes are sold in more than 80 countries.

Its shares rose 24 cents to $58.15 a share in Monday morning trading.

ANIMAL testing in Britain has reached a 15-year high and is set to go on rising, the government said yesterday.

The growing use of genetically-modified mice in scientific research last year pushed the total number of animals used in laboratory testing to more than three million for the first time since 1991.

More than two-thirds of all the animals used in scientific testing were mice. Another 406,000 procedures were carried out on rats.

But the use of larger, more controversial species continued. Some 4,200 “non-human primates”, including monkeys and marmosets, were used in British labs. That figure was a 10 per cent fall from 2005.

And among the large mammals used last year were 36,377 sheep, 8,821 horses, 7,402 dogs, 5,334 cattle and 4,675 pigs.

Testing on large animals usually involves medical treatments almost ready for human use.

But more speculative or theoretical work is increasingly carried out using mice or rats that have been genetically modified to allow their bodies to mimic human reactions to substances or conditions.

A total of 2,067,071 mice were used in British experiments last year, and 1,237,563 of them were in some way genetically modified. Of the 406,168 rats used, 37,009 were genetically modified.

Releasing the figures yesterday, Meg Hillier, a Home Office minister, justified the use of genetically-modified animals. “It allows a more precise and often less invasive study of physiological processes and disease mechanisms than was previously possible,” she said.

John Richmond, head of the scientific procedures division of the Home Office, said the use of such animals would only rise. “We know that the infrastructure has been put in place for more and more procedures involving genetically altered animals,” he said.

All animal testing in Britain must be licensed by the Home Office, which also records the severity of the procedures being carried out.

Yesterday’s figures showed that only 2 per cent of all procedures were considered to cause “substantial” suffering, the most traumatic.

Yesterday’s figures stoked the simmering row between animal-rights groups and scientists over the use of animals.

The RSPCA said it was “furious” about the rising figures.

“Scientists and pro-animal use campaigning groups are falling over themselves to persuade the public that everything possible is done to avoid using animals in experiments - but clearly something is not working,” said the group.

Dr Simon Festing, director of the Research Defence Society, which supports the right of scientists to conduct animal experiments, said: “If researchers couldn’t use animals, patients would be the first to lose out. At the same time, we should strike a balance by looking after the animals properly and using them only when necessary.”

THE father of one of Gordon Brown’s closest Cabinet allies is backing a legal challenge against the government over the use of monkeys and other primates in animal experiments.

Professor Michael Balls, a Nottingham University zoologist, is the father of Ed Balls, the schools secretary.

Prof Balls is supporting today’s High Court application for a judicial review by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection. Its lawyers will argue that the government has failed in its duty to ensure animal suffering in UK laboratory tests is kept to a minimum.

All animal-testing labs in Britain must be licensed and regularly inspected by the Home Office, which also monitors the severity of injury inflicted on animals during testing. Figures released yesterday showed 4,200 “non-human primates” were used in UK animal experiments last year.

Prof Balls, who wants the use of primates banned, said:

“Some of the procedures applied to primates, especially involving the insertion of electrodes into the brain, involve discomfort and suffering.

“This is conveniently classified as ‘moderate’ treatment. There is little evidence such work provides any benefit to humans, yet substantial suffering is involved for the primates.”

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Infertile women who supplement their fertility treatment with alternative medicines may be harming their chances of becoming pregnant, according to controversial research by psychologists. A year-long study of 818 women found that those who turned to complementary therapies such as herbal medicines, reflexology and acupuncture while having IVF treatment were at least 30% less likely to become pregnant than women who did not.

A team led by Jacky Boivin, a psychologist at Cardiff University, investigated the effects of alternative therapies because they are increasingly being used by women undergoing fertility treatment. Some herbal treatments are marketed as natural remedies for infertility, while others claim to improve women’s chances of getting pregnant by reducing their stress levels. Dr Boivin said it was unclear what was to blame for the apparent drop in pregnancy rates, but said the effect may be due to herbal medicines interacting with and disrupting drugs and hormones used in fertility treatment.

Of the women followed in the study, 261 tried alternative therapies alongside their standard IVF treatment. Of those women, nearly half took herbal medicines.

Over the 12-month period the women who used alternative medicines had an average of 2.4 cycles of IVF treatment, leading to pregnancies in 45.2% of them. Those who had only conventional fertility treatment had an average of 1.91 IVF cycles over the year, leading to pregnancies in 66.4%, Dr Boivin told a meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Lyon yesterday.

“It looks like complementary therapies might not be as benign as previously thought, at least with regard to fertility treatment,” she said.

The findings were met with caution from some experts. Many women who turn to alternative therapies do so out of desperation, because they have failed to become pregnant by conventional IVF treatment, said Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine at Exeter University. “Those women who are more prone to stress and have more health problems are more likely to try complementary medicine, so complementary medicine could only be a marker, and not the cause, of stress or lower success rates.” Similar results have been found in looking at the use of alternative therapies among cancer patients. Dr Boivin said although she could not rule out confounding factors, the study was designed to take into account any previously failed attempts to become pregnant, and also the women’s socioeconomic status and mental health.

Experts said that while the study did not provide definitive guidance for women thinking of using alternative therapies, it raised an important issue. “We cannot start with the assumption that these therapies do no harm,” said Andrea Braverman, director of psychological and complementary care at Reproductive Medicine Associates in New Jersey.

A separate study yesterday raised concerns that fertility clinics which screen embryos to boost a woman’s chances of a successful pregnancy may inadvertently be damaging their patients’ chances of having a baby. The finding suggests that women who pay up to 2,000 for the procedure may be less likely to give birth afterwards.

Doctors at the Academic Medical Centre at the University of Amsterdam studied 408 women aged 35-41 and found that only 24% of those who received the procedure had babies, compared with 35% of women whose embryos were implanted without being screened. Genetic screening of embryos has become increasingly popular at IVF clinics since 1997, though it is still relatively uncommon in Britain.