Home Page
|
Stop Animal
Exploitation NOW!
Articles and
Reports
Independent veterinary assessment of biomedical research at Charles River Laboratories The federal Animal Welfare Act prohibits subjecting animals to experiments likely to cause more than �momentary or slight pain or distress,� unless written evidence has been provided demonstrating that a detailed search for non-animal alternatives was unsuccessful. In such cases, �appropriate sedatives, analgesics or anesthetics� must be used, unless �withholding such agents is necessary for scientific reasons,� in which case the experiment must not continue for longer than necessary. The USDA is the federal agency responsible for inspecting research centers and ensuring compliance with the Act. The 2005 USDA inspection reports of Charles River Laboratories reveal serious violations of the Act, including:
In total, the USDA cited Charles River Laboratories for 22 violations of the Animal Welfare Act in 2005. Other serious violations related to further inadequate veterinary care and inadequate housing causing a high incidence of feet injuries in dogs. Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUCs) are required under the Act to approve only those experiments in which the expected scientific benefits outweigh the expected animal welfare costs, and in which unnecessary suffering is prevented. The experiments cited by the USDA clearly violate the ethical justifications required for a permissible experiment. Additionally, they raise substantial scientific concerns. Recent comprehensive reviews published in laboratory animal science journals have revealed that even routine laboratory procedures such as handling, blood collection, and gavaging (insertion of a throat tube for the forced administration of a test compound) and standardized laboratory housing cause significant laboratory animal stress, to which animals do not readily habituate. Inadequacies in housing predisposing to injury, accompanied by severe, unrelieved suffering, as occurred in these experiments at Charles River Laboratories, are likely to substantially elevate such stress levels. The results include the distortion of normal physiology, disruption of hormonal regulation, impedance of neuroanatomical development and cognitive ability, behavioral stereotypes, immunosuppression, and, of particular significance with respect to these experiments, increased susceptibility to adverse drug reactions or other pathologies. In short, Charles River Laboratories� treatment of these animals has damaged them as experimental models. The scientific outcomes that resulted are likely to be even further removed from human outcomes than would be achieved by the use of healthy, non-stressed animals, as intended by the Act. Such scientific distortion can only compound the already severe biological and mathematical obstacles inherent in accurate extrapolation of animal test results to predicted human outcomes. Consequently, these experiments not only fail the humane and ethical standards required by the Animal Welfare Act, but also cannot be expected to provide scientifically reliable data. Andrew Knight BSc., BVMS, CertAW, MRCVS 1. Balcombe J, Barnard N, Sandusky C. Laboratory routines cause animal stress. Contemporary Topics in Laboratory Animal Science 2004;43(6):42-51. 2. Balcombe J. Laboratory environments and rodents' behavioural needs: a review. Laboratory Animals 2006;40(3):217-35. 3. Knight A, Bailey J, Balcombe J. Animal carcinogenicity
studies: 2. obstacles to extrapolation of data to humans. Alternatives
to Laboratory Animals 2006;34(1):29-38. See Facility Reports and Information Return to Articles and Reports |
