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2004 Animal Care and Experimentation Committee Report
The ACE Committee organized another successful
Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) training program at EB
2004 in Washington, DC. “IACUC 101 For Scientists: Dealing with Problem
Areas,” was chaired by John Stallone, past chair of the ACE Committee. This
four-hour workshop was held on Saturday, April 17 and attracted over 70
scientists from the APS and other societies. The NIH Office of Laboratory
Animal Welfare (OLAW) provided major support for this program with
additional contributions provided by the American Society for Pharmacology
and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET), the American Association of
Immunologists (AAI), the American Society for Investigative Pathology (ASIP),
the American Association of Anatomists (AAA), and the Federation of American
Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB). The goal of this workshop was
to provide scientists with focused training to improve their performance on
and interaction with IACUCs. In addition to the regular workshop topic
presentations, representatives from the Association for Assessment and
Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC), USDA, and NIH/Office of
Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW) were available to answer questions and
discuss their own organizations’ areas of concern.
Considerable progress has been made on the development
of a resource book for the conduct of research involving animal exercise
studies to provide guidance on how to design effective experimental
protocols that assure the welfare of research animals. This project grew
out of a request from the Environmental and Exercise Physiology Section
leadership for the APS to provide guidance on the conduct of exercise
research protocols involving animals. A group of exercise physiologists and
other experts held a planning meeting in December 2002. An expanded group
subsequently held two workshops in June 2003 and March 2004 to review what
topics to address and to discuss various concerns. A smaller group met in
June 2004 to determine how best to compile the contributions of the
different authors. By pointing out key considerations in the design of
exercise protocols, it is hoped that the resource book will be useful to new
researchers, IACUCs, journal editors and reviewers, regulators, and others.
The document is expected to be ready for publication early in 2005.
The ACE Committee also continues to be involved in
educational outreach. In 1998, the APS created an eight-page color brochure
entitled “Questions People Ask About Animals in Research. . . .With
Answers from the American Physiological Society.” The intended
audiences include high school students and the general public. The brochure,
which is also available on the APS website at http://www.the-aps.org/pa/animals/index.htm,
contains a series of essays on frequently asked questions about the use of
animals in research. The brochure has been very popular and, as of June
2004, almost 50,000 copies had been disseminated either directly by the APS
or by universities, companies, individuals, or educational organizations.
The latter category includes the dozen or so organizations that comprise
States United for Biomedical Research. The APS has been actively trying to
partner with these state-based biomedical research advocacy organizations by
providing complimentary copies of the “Questions” brochure, as well as other
materials produced by the APS Education Office. The APS has set up web
links to these groups and invited them to link to the APS Public Affairs and
Education Offices. In addition, the APS seeks to collaborate directly with
these groups in other ways and provides them with modest financial
contributions. For additional information about these groups and their
programs visit the APS website at
http://www.the-aps.org/pa/action/news/state_societies.htm.
One important issue under discussion by the Committee
this past year was the use of animals in medical and veterinary education.
A task force comprised of members of the ACE and Education Committees began
examining this issue, and APS Public Affairs Officer Alice Ra’anan reviewed
a number of studies intended to evaluate the effectiveness of animal
experimentation as an educational tool. However, there were gaps and other
problems with the data, in addition to which it would be very difficult to
probe the subtleties of this question by comparing students’ test results.
Therefore, the APS Council has decided to frame the question more broadly
and directed the Education Committee to review educational research on the
advantages and disadvantages of various pedagogical strategies.
In terms of future projects, the management of pain and
distress in laboratory animals is an ongoing area of concern. Within the
scientific community, determining appropriate relief of pain and distress
consistent with the scientific aims of the study is sometimes a subject of
dispute between researchers and IACUCs. This issue is also important
because the adequacy of measures to control pain and distress plays an
important role in influencing public support for animal research. There is
a clear need for additional guidance on pain and distress management so an
ACE subcommittee has agreed to explore these matters in more detail.
As the new Chair of the ACE Committee, I would like to
urge all APS members to make a practice of discussing the value of animal
research with your family and friends as well as to your elected officials
at every level. It is important that individual scientists join with
professional societies such as APS in making their voices heard if we are to
preserve our privilege to use animals in research and teaching.
Kevin C. Kregel, Chair
Council Actions
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Council accepted the report of the Animal Care and
Experimentation Committee.
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Council approved the necessary funding to convene a
planning meeting on pain and distress management issues in laboratory
animals.
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Council approved the request to designate the APS
representative to FASEB’s Science Policy Committee as an ex officio
member of the ACE Committee.
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