Animal Research in a Global Environment Meeting the Challenges: Proceedings of the November 2008 International Workshop (2011) / Chapter Skim
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INTERNATIONAL APPROACHES AND PRINCIPLES FOR HUMANE ENDPOINTS
INTERNATIONAL APPROACHES AND PRINCIPLES FOR HUMANE ENDPOINTS
Pages 153-184
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From page 153... ...
The objective of using live animals in cancer research is to develop rapid diagnosis, better treatments for existing cancers, and an improved prognosis for patients. With this in mind, scientists engaged in experimental cancer research follow four main areas of investigation, some of which use laboratory animals.
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From page 154... ...
They are used as experimental models in cancer research studies only where there is a justified need and only if absolutely necessary. The Institute of Cancer Research does not use animals for research if nonanimal alternatives are available, and endeavors to set humane endpoints for all research involving laboratory animals.
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From page 155... ...
Staff development of skills is an evolving process, and a clear program of training and mentoring enhances animal welfare and staff morale. Biomedical research encompasses all types of research including research into cancer.
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From page 156... ...
The animal welfare regulations require that procedures involving animals avoid or minimize discomfort, distress, and pain to the animals. The Public Health Service Policy states that animals undergoing chronic pain or distress should be euthanized as soon as feasible and appropriate, which leads to a discussion of humane endpoints.
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Ebola Zaire is uniformly lethal and has a shorter time course than Ebola Reston, which is also lethal but with a prolonged time course. Finally, it is important to consider human safety when dealing with infectious diseases.
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From page 158... ...
Promoting animal welfare by increased monitoring of animals after exposure can jeopardize human safety. Therefore, investigators and the IACUC should be encouraged to look for other, less intrusive and safer methods of monitoring the animals, such as telemetry and in-room cameras.
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From page 159... ...
Everyone has a score sheet, and every investigator is encouraged to define criteria or do a pilot study within that protocol so that future score sheets may be developed based on these criteria. In summary, it must be the goal of all infectious disease researchers using animals and of the IACUCs that provide oversight for these animals to develop humane early endpoints.
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From page 160... ...
I will provide an overview of the animal welfare issues presented in the application of GM technologies and discuss the opportunities and challenges to applying humane endpoints when GM animal models are developed. Introduction The development of technologies that permit the targeted manipulation of genetic material -- be that by transgenesis or targeted mutagenesis -- has created opportunities to explore the organization, regulation, and function of molecular processes in both normal and pathological states in ways previously not possible.
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This is an iterative process that underpins informed decision making and validates the ongoing refinement of experimental procedures. Although the same processes apply to establish humane endpoints with GM animal models, as highlighted by Dennis (2000)
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Thus this report sets out current standards of good practice and provides a process to benchmark animal welfare outcomes in the context of the needs and justification for current methods. With both these technologies, donor animals undergo various, and sometimes multiple, procedures with the risk of associated pain or distress.
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From page 163... ...
Wells and colleagues (2006) observed that in only a minority of GM animals are animal welfare problems evident and that, with transgenic animals where most often the purpose is to study the function of a DNA segment, adverse effects are uncommon and that for GM models developed using targeted mutagenesis (knock-in or knockout)
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From page 164... ...
, these processes can and should be complementary and there are important benefits in establishing effective humane endpoints when this occurs. A detailed phenotypic description, including animal welfare measures, will provide both a more accurate picture of the time course and characteristics of a phenotype and identify relevant indicators of negative effects on the animal's welfare.
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From page 165... ...
At weaning, mice are assessed by appearance, coat condition, posture, gait, activity, clinical signs, and relative size; in addition, preweaning mortalities, evidence of aggression or stereotypies, and body weight are recorded, and more detailed behavioral assessments are recommended if behavioral problems are identified. If no animal welfare problems are identified in neonates or weanlings, animals are monitored during routine husbandry procedures.
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From page 166... ...
These kinds of data may also assist in evaluating or predicting the impact of the GM on animal welfare. Finally, when assessing phenotypic changes in GM animals, comparison with their wild-type, littermate controls is important.
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The animal's negative experiences may be limited to the brief test period and in these circumstances the frequency of testing should be considered in limiting impact. However, the occurrence of these kinds of behavioral changes concurrent with evidence of changes under normal living conditions shifts the weight of evidence and may indicate animal welfare concerns.
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concluded that stereotypies are undesirable and their prevention is likely to improve animal welfare. The weight that is given to the presence of stereotypies in setting humane endpoints may be contentious.
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From page 169... ...
Conclusions The establishment of humane endpoints in GM animal models presents particular challenges due to the unpredictable nature and occurrence of adverse events. However, the scope and depth of monitoring required to accurately describe a phenotype, together with careful monitoring to assess animal welfare, provide a comprehensive framework to establish humane endpoints with a high level of accuracy as well as informing the development of effective strategies to reduce the impact of a specific genetic modification.
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2000. Humane endpoints for genetically engineered animal models.
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2001. The Use of Genetically Modified Animals.
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1999. Altered emotional states in knockout mice lacking 5-HT1A or 5-HT1B receptors.
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The relevant ethics that figures in the animal welfare equation comes from the societal ethic for animals, and there is in fact a new societal ethic emerging over the past 40 years that will likely dominate not only the West but, insofar as the West is the source of science in the East and elsewhere, the East as well. In recent years ethnocentrism has become a dirty word and a variety of factors have converged to create a bias against the bias in favor of our own culture.
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From page 174... ...
In my view of welfare, animals have intrinsic value rather than merely instrument value -- that is, value merely as tools -- because they are capable of valuing in their subjective life what happens to them. There were other definitions of welfare -- e.g., the Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC)
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From page 175... ...
Defining animal ethics and animal welfare became an issue when the nature of agriculture changed from husbandry to industry. The values changed as well.
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From page 176... ...
Whereas 30 years ago in the United States one would have found no federal bills pending in Congress pertaining to animal welfare, the last decade has witnessed up to 50 and 60 per year. On a state level in 2004, there were well over 2,100 bills proposed in state legislatures pertaining to animal welfare; there were over 200 in California alone.
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From page 177... ...
Historically, both the laws protecting animals and the social ethic informing them were extremely minimalist, in essence forbidding -- and this is language from the legal system, from the cruelty laws as well as from judicial interpretations of those laws -- deliberate, willful, sadistic, deviant, extraordinary, unnecessary cruelty not essential, as one judge put it, to ministering to the necessities of man, or completely outrageous neglect. Those of you involved in animal welfare may well be aware that early efforts to regulate animal research invoked the cruelty laws and tried to present in evidence certain research that was "cruel," and the universal judicial assessment was that research is not the sort of thing that can be cruel.
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From page 178... ...
An example of that occurred when the governor called a conference on the effects of animal welfare and animal rights on Colorado agriculture about 18
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From page 179... ...
Clearly, then, the notion that animals ought to have legal protection for fundamental aspects of their natures, a notion actualized in the Swedish agricultural law of 1988 and implicit in the Brambell Commission, is a mainstream phenomenon. One of the most extraordinary things about writing the laboratory animal laws was the fact that the public did not divide on party lines.
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From page 180... ...
This is perhaps truer in Europe than in America. Insofar as this notion seems to pervade Western democratic societies, which dominate the world politically and economically, it appears that this notion will dominate as the key notion of animal welfare, even as Western democratic notions of human rights have dominated discourse regarding human ethics.
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From page 181... ...
Interestingly enough, I would argue that whatever position you take on human nature, the notion of animal nature is far less problematic than the notion of human nature. Animal life is far less plastic than human nature and is far less influenced by culture, and is thus far easier to define.
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In my view, part of the job of what is called animal welfare science is getting as close as possible to happiness for the captive animal. So there is more to being ethical to the research animals than simply minimizing pain.
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From page 183... ...
In sum, we have argued that emerging social ethics for animals in democratic societies will largely dictate the form animal welfare takes, and particularly in the research area, since social and economic pressure will help impose it on other societies. This emerging ethic emphasizes the rights animals should have based on their biological and psychological natures or teloi.
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