» Frequently Asked Questions about the Updated Guiding Principles

What are the Guiding Principles for the Care and Use of Vertebrate Animals in Research and Training?

The Guiding Principles are a code of ethics for members of the American Physiological Society (APS) who work with animals. They provide a framework intended to promote the humane treatment of animals and are based principles of humane care articulated in 1909 by Harvard physiologist Walter B. Cannon.

Why did the American Physiological Society recently update its Guiding Principles?

The Guiding Principles were first adopted by the APS Council in 1953 and have been reviewed and revised periodically since then as U.S. animal welfare laws and policies have changed. In July 2010 the APS Council approved the first significant revision of the Guiding Principles since 1991. This update is intended to clarify certain elements of the Guiding Principles and make them easier to apply in practical situations. It is also intended to take into account the increasingly international composition of both the APS membership and the authors who seek to publish their research in APS journals. Animal welfare laws and regulations differ significantly around the world, but previous versions of the Guiding Principles referenced only U.S. law. This was problematic because the APS uses Guiding Principles as an ethical yardstick for research published in APS journals regardless of where the research was conducted.

What is meant by getting approval for animal research protocols from an “oversight body”?

Laws in many counties require approval of animal research by an ethical review committee. In the United States, these committees are called “Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees” or IACUCs, and each research institution has at least one such committee. However, other countries employ other ethical oversight systems. For example, in the United Kingdom, a project license must be obtained from the national Home Office. The APS expects that researchers will obtain appropriate approvals under the oversight system of the country where animal research is performed.

Do all animal research protocols require approval from an oversight body?

The extent of regulation varies from country to country. In the U.S., proposals to utilize live vertebrate animals in teaching or research usually require prospective approval by an oversight committee such as an IACUC, whereas proposals involving invertebrate animals do not. This is the standard applied under the Guiding Principles and in considering research submitted for publication in APS journals. All manuscripts involving research with vertebrate animals should contain a statement indicating that the relevant oversight panel prospectively reviewed and approved the work. This requirement can be waived only under exceptional circumstances.

The Guiding Principles also state that physiologists should follow all applicable laws and requirements where the research is conducted. Therefore, if local law or institutional policy regulates invertebrate species, researchers are expected to comply with those requirements.

Does APS consider it permissible to conduct research that results in pain and distress?

The APS expects that research on any animal species will be conducted as humanely as possible in line with the study’s endpoints. This means that animals must be properly anesthetized during all surgeries. Although some surgical procedures require the use of muscle relaxants or paralytics, such drugs can only be employed in combination with appropriate anesthesia or with a procedure such as decerebration that renders an animal unable to experience pain.

The APS recognizes that some important kinds of research may entail pain or the potential for distress. Examples include research on painful conditions or to assess the effectiveness of pain-relieving drugs. A research oversight body must prospectively review and approve any studies that are likely to cause pain or distress. The oversight committee should consider what can be done to alleviate pain or distress without compromising the integrity of the study by interfering with the data the experiments were intended to produce. In potentially painful or distressing studies, researchers should generally designate humane endpoints. This means to make an advance decision about when an animal in pain or distress should be euthanized. In rare cases, an oversight committee may grant approval to a study where the death of an animal is a planned part of the study design either through the progression of a disease or as the result of an experimental manipulation.

Animal experiments are to be undertaken only with the purpose of advancing knowledge. Consideration should be given to the appropriateness of experimental procedures, species of animals used, and number of animals required.

Material to help explain the updates to the Guiding Principles.