Use of Animals in Laboratories: Scientific and Ethical Issues.

Animals are used in laboratory to increase fundamental understanding of normal functioning of body system to increase understanding of disease and to assist in the discovery of treatment and cures; to test chemicals and products of many kinds, as a mean of protecting workers, consumers, patients, and the environment as a whole and to help educate and train students and scientists. The purists among us can choose to be totally for or total against the use of animals in laboratories, but many of us will feel forced to adopta position somewhere in the middle ground. We admit that we have benefited from animal-based progress in medical research (and that we expect more progress to be made) and we expect to be protected from hazardous chemicals at work, in the home, in the hospital, and in the environment in general. At the same time, we do not want to be associated with animal suffering. A way forward was offered to us in 1959 by two British scientists, William Russel and Rex Burch who formulated a concept now known as the Three Rs. They said that everybody concerned has a duty to developed alternative procedures that could completly replace the need for animal experiments, reduce the number animals required, and refine the procedures applied to them, to diminish the amount of pain or distress suffered by animals in attempting to meet the essential needs of human beings and other animals. This concept is now the basis of various laws and controls on animal experiments.

BALLS Michael; 

1996-07-29

JRC13279