Ethics and the use of laboratory animals

This webpage does not attempt to discuss the ethics of animal research in detail, but it lists specific resources that are relevant to those planning animal experiments.

• Franco (2013): Animal Experiments in Biomedical Research: A Historical Perspective
• Naquet (1993): Ethical and moral considerations in the design of experiments
• Harm-benefit assessment is discussed in a separate section

Implementation of the Three Rs, and assessment of a draft research protocol using the Three S's, help to reduce the potential harms and thereby influence the ethical review of a study.
The PREPARE guidelines contain more resources to aid planning of animal research and testing.

• Thompson-Iritani & Newsome (2025): Animal Research at a Crossroads: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Emerging Threats
• Magee (2024): New Approach Methodologies - Where are we, what opportunities are we currently pursuing and what risks must we avoid?
• Magee (2023): Why do 90% of drugs fail?
• Gaburro (2025): The 95% Drug Failure Rate: What's Really Going Wrong (and It's not What you Think)

Two pioneers within animal ethics must be mentioned:

1) The English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) wrote, in his Introduction to Principles of Morals and Legislation (1780):
'The day may come when the rest of animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny... It may one day come to be recognized that the number of legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month old... The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”

2) The English physician and physiologist Marshall Hall (1790-1857), in his book Principles of Investigation in Physiology (1835), outlined five principles to govern animal experimentation, which are just as valid today:

• An experiment should never be performed if the necessary information could be obtained by observations
• No experiment should be performed without a clearly defined and obtainable, objective
• Scientists should be well-informed about the work of their predecessors and peers in order to avoid unnecessary repetition of an experiment
• Justifiable experiments should be carried out with the least possible infliction of suffering (often through the use of lower, less sentient animals)
• Every experiment should be performed under circumstances that would provide the clearest possible results, thereby diminishing the need for repetition of experiments.

These principles contain many of those embodied in the principle of the three Rs of Russell and Burch which were developed more than 120 years later.

Norecopa also endorses the principles embodied in a Culture of Care and a Culture of Challenge.

What is sentience? Which animals are sentient, and why does this matter? The RSPCA Science and Policy Group has produced a quiz on the subject.

Information sheets and other resources for ethical review of animal experiments (RSPCA)

In the UK, the local animal welfare bodies also undertake ethical review and are called AWERBs (Animal Welfare and Ethical Review Bodies). Several presentations on ethics and ethical review can be downloaded from the website of a forum held in 2017: Putting Ethics into the AWERB
See also:

• Delivering effective ethical review: the AWERB as a 'forum for discussion'
• Ethical oversight..? Time to reflect on the meaning of ethical review on research involving animals (Hawkins & Jennings, RSPCA, 2019)
• Ethics assessment in different countries: United Kingdom (part of the EU SARTORI project, 2015)
• The Animals in Science Department of the RSPCA has a section on Ethical Review and a collection of resources on animal sentience.
• The ethics of research involving animals, a Report issued by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics
• A collection of papers from the Faculty of Health and Medical Science, University of Copenhagen
• Optimising animal studies (University of Edinburgh)

Other resources

• Ethical approval of studies involving humans and other animals (statement from the Editors-in-Chief of Animal Welfare)
• Magee (2024): New study finds that "just 5% of animal-tested drugs" make it to market...and other things we already knew
• Müller (2024): Planning without Banning: Animal Research and the Argument from Avoidable Harms
• Animal Research Success - a brochure from the Foundation for Biomedical Research 
• Ladwig (2023): Do animals have rights?
• Bout et al. (2014): Evaluating the ethical acceptability of animal research 
• Christoffersen (1997): Forsøk med dyr - er det etisk forsvarlig?
• Smith & Jennings (1998): Ethics training for laboratory animal users
• Fiane et al. (2002): Etiske vurderinger ved xenotransplantasjon
• Sengupta & Lo (2003): The Roles and Experiences of Nonaffiliated and Nonscientist Members of Institutional Review Boards
• Festing & Wilkinson (2007) of the Research Defence Society: The ethics of animal research
• Ideland (2009): Different views on ethics: how animal ethics is situated in a committee culture 
• Szücs et al. (2012): Animal Welfare in Different Human Cultures, Traditions and Religious Faiths
• Röcklinsberg et al. (2013): A case for integrity: gains for including more than animal welfare in animal ethics committee deliberations
• Grimm et al. (eds.) (2015): Taking Ethical Considerations into Account? Methods to Carry Out the Harm-Benefit Analysis According to Directive 2010/63/EU
• Franco & Olsson (2016): Killing animals as a necessary evil? The case of animal research. In The end of animal life: the start for ethical debate: Ethical and societal considerations on killing animals (ed. Meijboom & Stassen)
• Svärd (2017): Normative Dilemmas in Sweden's Ethical Review Policy for Animal Experiments
• Byrd et al. (2017): Of Fur, Feather and Fin: Human's Use and Concern for Non-Human Species
• Cheluvappa et al. (2017): Ethics of animal research in human disease remediation, its institutional teaching; and alternatives to animal experimentation
• Garner et al. (2017): Introducing Therioepistemology: the study of how knowledge is gained from animal research 
• Germain et al. (2017): The European politics of animal experimentation: From Victorian Britain to 'Stop Vivisection'
• Ringblom et al. (2017): Assigning ethical weights to clinical signs observed during toxicity testing 
• Sloman et al. (2019): Ethical considerations in fish research
• Eggel & Würbel (2020): Internal consistency and compatability of the 3Rs and 3Vs principles for project evaluation of animal research
• Makowska & Weary (2020): A good life for laboratory rodents?
• Yeo-Teh & Tang, (2020): Research ethics courses as a vaccination against a toxic research environment or culture
• An overview of regulatory requirements for ethical review (RSPCA)
• Webinars about research integrity from UKRIO (special section on animal research ethics)
• World Medical Association (WMA) statement on animal use in biomedical research
• Why do 90% of drugs fail? (Chris Magee, Understanding Animal Research)
• Peter Sandøe, Professor in Bioethics at the University of Copenhagen has written several articles on animal ethics. He is one of the authors of "Animal Ethics Dilemma", an interactive learning tool involving case studies for University and professional training, available free on the Internet, to help the user to obtain a better understanding of his/her own and others' ethical views
• Is animal research ethical? (Understanding Animal Research, February 2022)
• The benefits of animal research to the animals themselves (an article by the EARA)
• History of the Anti-Vivisection Movement by Animal-Free Science Advocacy Australia
• Forty reasons why we need animals in research and Why testing on prisoners is a bad idea (from Understanding Animal Research)
• Predictability and Utility of Animal Models: post by Dale Cooper on Speaking of Research
• Sense about Science
• Why do researchers work with mice? (Jackson Laboratory)
• Animal Ethics Dilemma: An interactive learning tool for university and professional training.
• Teachers resources for sessions about animal research
• AWSELVA (The Animal Welfare, Science, Ethics and Law Association)
• CARE - Caring for Animals in Research and Education
• Animal Research Nexus (AnNex): delivering new thinking, research and engagement to increase understanding of the social relations round animal research
• The Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics has arranged a summer school on The Ethics of Animal Experimentation
• The Society for Veterinary Medical Ethics
• "Forskningsbehov innen dyrevelferd i Norge" (Research needs within animal welfare in Norway). This Norwegian report from 2005 provided an introduction to definitions of animal welfare and an overview of current knowledge. It was financed by the Norwegian Research Council and pointed out research needs in this field.
• Resources on research integrity
• The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity
• Ethics for researchers (EU guidance for the 7th Framework Programme, 2013), replaced by guidance for the Horison 2020 programme, which will be replaced by an updated version for the Horison Europe programme.
• The Norwegian Research Council of Norway and the National Committee for Research Ethics in Science and Technology (NENT) collaborate with guidelines for ethical research. The Committee has produced general guidelines for research ethics in science and technology, which contain sections on the protection of animals used in research. There is more information on the Norwegian-language version of this page.
• The Norwegian Research Council is one of many funding bodies which has endorsed the Joint European funding principles for research involving animals.

Virtual tours of animal research facilities

• 360^o Laboratory Animal Tours (MRC Harwell, The Pirbright Institute, Universities of Bristol, Oxford & Manchester)
• German Primate Center

Books and journals

• Books on animal experimentation from the TextBase database
• Animal Ethics in Animal Research
• Animal Ethics for Veterinarians (Linzey & Linzey, Eds., 2017)
• The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series, including "The Costs and Benefits of Animal Experiments" by Andrew Knight
• The journal Forskningsetikk
• The Journal of Animal Ethics
• The journal Food Ethics had a special issue on Veterinary Medical Ethics in March 2018, parts of which are relevant to laboratory animal science.
• The journal Transgenic Research

Further reading

The majority of the references below have been kindly provided by members of the Comparative Medicine discussion list (CompMed) on the Internet, to whom we am extremely grateful. Please note that many of them are now old and this list will probably be revised heavily in the near future. Errors or suggestions for additions can be sent to adrian.smith@norecopa.no.

• Morton, D.B. & Griffiths, P.H.M. (1985): Guidelines on the recognition of pain, distress and discomfort in experimental animals and a hypothesis for assessment. Veterinary Record 116, 431-436.
• Pluhar E. (1985): On the genetic manipulation of animals. Between the Species 1:13.
• Regan T. (1986): The Case for Human Rights
• Rollin B.E. (1986): The Frankenstein thing: the moral impact of genetic engineering of agricultural animals on society and future science. In: Genetic Engineering of Animals. Basic Life Sciences 37:285.
• Pluhar E. (1986): The moral justifiability of genetic manipulation. Between the Species 2:136.
• Bateson, P. (1986). When to experiment on animals. New Scientist 109(1496): 30-32.
• Fox M. (1986): On the genetic manipulation of animals: a response to pluhar. Betw. Spec. 2:51.
• Jones D.D. (1986): Legal and regulatory aspects of genetically engineered animals. Basic Life Sciences 37:273.
• Fox M. (1988): Genetic engineering biotechnology: animal welfare and environmental concerns. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 20:83-94.
• Raines L.J. (1988): The mouse that roared. Issues in Sci. and Technol. 64.
• Macer D. (1989): Uncertainties about painless animals. Bioethics 3:226.
• Dresser R. (1989). Developing standards in animal research review. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 194(9): 1184-1191.
• Berkowitz D.B. (1990): The food safety of transgenic animals. Bio/Technol. 8:819
• Dresser R. (1990). Review Standards for Animal Research: A Closer Look. ILAR News 32(4): 2-7.
• Hallerman E.M. & Kapuscinski A.R. (1990): Transgenic fish and public policy: regulatory concerns. Fisheries 15:12.
• Hallerman E.M. & Kapuscinski A.R. (1990): Transgenic fish and public policy: anticipating environmental impacts of transgenic fish. Fisheries 15:2.
• Hooper M.L. (1990): Genetically engineered animals: implication for human diseases.  Biofuture January 1990:30.
• Raines L.J. (1990): Public policy aspects of patenting transgenic animals. Theriogenology 33:129.
• Smith J.A. & Boyd K.M. (1991): Lives in the Balance: The Ethics of Using Animals in Biomedical Research. Oxford University Press, Oxford. The Boyd Group has written a discussion paper entitled Genetic engineering: animal welfare and ethics.
• Straughan R. (1991): Social and ethical issues surrounding biotechnological advance. Outlook on Agric. 20:89
• Krypsin-Sorensen I. (1991): The application of transgenic techniques to common domestic animals and fish. Scand. J. Lab. Anim. Sci. 18(3): 81-9.
• Fox M. (1992): Superpigs and Wondercorn: The Brave New World of Biotechnology and Where It All May Lead. New York, Lyons & Burford. ISBN 1-55821-182-9.
• Porter D.G. (1992): Ethical scores for animal experiments. Nature 356:101-102.
• Meyer O. (1993): Implications of animal welfare on toxicity testing. Hum. Exp. Toxicol. 12(6):516-21.
• Boisvert D. P. & Porter D. G. (1993). Ethical Scoring Systems. In: Animal Welfare Conference Proceedings. (ed. N. E. Johnston), pp. 23-27. Clayton, Australia: Monash University.
• Naquet R. (1993): Ethical and moral considerations in the design of experiments. Neuroscience. 57(1): 183-9.
• Thompson P.B. (1993): Genetically modified animals: ethical issues. J. Animal Sci. (71) Suppl 3: 51-6.
• Theune E.P. & de Cock Buning Tj. (1994): A Comparison of Three Models for Ethical Evaluation of Proposed Animal Experiments. Animal Welfare 3:107-128.
• Giraud R. (1994): Ethical considerations in the use of transgenic animals. Between the Species, Winter/Spring 1994:55.
• Lehndahl U. & Törnell J. (1994): Transgena djur - djur med skradddarsydda gener. Den svenska Laekartidningen, 91(17), 1711-1717.
• Pinkert (1994): Transgenic Animal Technology: A Laboratory Handbook. Academic Press, San Diego.
• Andaeng M. & Aehrlund-Richter L. (1995): Embryokloning - accelererad utveckling i djurmodeller aktualiserar den humanetiska debatten. Den svenska Laekartidningen, 92(11): 1078-1086.
• Mepham T.B. (1995): An ethical matrix for animal production. New Farmer & Grower Spring 1995, 14-15.
• Morton, D.B. (1995): Recognition and assessment of adverse effects in animals. In Animals in Science Conference Proceedings: Perspective on their Use, Care and Welfare (ed. N. E. Johnston), pp 131-148. Clayton, Australia: Monash University.
• Moore C.J. & Mepham T.B. (1995): Transgenesis and animal welfare. ATLA 23(3): 380-397.
• Poole T.B. (1995): Welfare considerations with regard to transgenic animals. Animal Welfare 4:81-85.
• Boisvert D. P. & Porter D. G. (1995). Ethical Scoring Systems.  In: The World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences: Education, Research, Testing (ed. A. M. Goldberg & L. F. M. van Zutphen), pp 637-641.  Alternative Methods in Toxicology and the Life Sciences Series  - Vol. 11, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. Publishers, New York.
• Hubrecht R. (1995): Genetically modified animals, welfare and UK legislation.  Animal Welfare 4:163-170.
• Sandøe P., Forsman B. & Kornerup Hansen A. (1997): Transgenic animals: the need for ethical dialogue. In Welfare Aspects of Transgenic Animals.
• Mepham T.B., Combes R.D., Balls M., Barbieri O., Blokhuis H.J., Costa P., Crilly R.E., de Cock Buning T., Delpire V.C., O'Hare M.J., Houdebine L-M., van Kreijl C.F., van der Meer M., Reinhardt C.A., Wolf E. & van Zeller A-M. (1998): The use of transgenic animals in the European Union.   Report and Recommendations of the 28th ECVAM Workshop. ATLA 26: 21-43.
• The Journal ATLA (Alternatives to Laboratory Animals) has published the results of an ECVAM Workshop on The Use of Transgenic Animals in the European Union (Ben Mepham et al., 1998).