Guidelines for animal experiments: what do we have and what is missing?
David B. Morton
Centre for Biomedical Ethics and BMSU, University of Birmingham, UK
Formal guidelines on the conduct of animal experiments seem to concentrate on the strict application of the Three Rs. While Russell and Burch appreciated that the humanity of experiments rested on avoidable and unavoidable suffering they were writing at a time when the psychological wellbeing of animals was not appreciated as an important factor both scientifically as well as from the viewpoint of animal welfare. Moreover, the impact on an animal of adverse husbandry practices apart from their immediate environment e.g. early weaning practices, regrouping, social isolation, is only just being questioned. These practices are not just restricted to laboratory animals and encompass many areas of animal use and exploitation by society. That is why some years ago I re-defined Refinement as '...methods which aim to alleviate or minimise the potential pain, distress or other adverse effects suffered by the animals involved, or which enhance their wellbeing.' My talk will concentrate on those areas in which animal suffering can be reduced or markedly improved at little or no cost to the science. I shall also propose that when there is a cost to the science, it may be a price we ought to be prepared to pay on occasions. The OECD has recently published a seminal monograph on the implementation of humane endpoints and I shall be addressing those endpoints as well as other areas where we can avoid causing animal suffering. This then leaves us with that suffering that is absolutely necessary to achieve the scientific objective, and it is this which we have to balance against the potential benefit arising from an experiment before deciding whether it can go ahead.
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