» Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals 8^th Edition

The preliminary version of the 8^th edition of the Institute for Laboratory Animal Research’s Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals was released in June, 2010. The final version was released in early 2011. The new edition is available as a free pdf download, for sale, or as an online version from the National Academies Press.

The American Association for Laboratory Animal Sciences (AALAS) has created a table showing differences between the 7^th and 8^th editions of the Guide. It is available as a zipped file that can be downloaded from AALAS’s online bookstore. (Scroll down to “Other Downloads” and select “Guide Comparisons.”)

Both OLAW and the Association for the Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC), International utilize the Guide as a standard for animal care and use programs, but each has different plans for implementing the new Guide.

On December 1, 2011, NIH announced that on January 1, 2012 the new 8^th edition of the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals will go into effect for all animal care and use programs.

On November 3, 2011, AAALAC announced that it will grant institutions a phase-in period to make the necessary program modifications to conform with new “must” statements in the 8th edition of the Guide.

The new edition is available as a free pdf download, for sale, or as an online version from the National Academies Press.