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

• Council accepted the report of the Animal Care and Experimentation Committee.

• Council approved the necessary funding to convene a planning meeting on pain and distress management issues in laboratory animals.

• Council approved the request to designate the APS representative to FASEB's Science Policy Committee as an ex officio member of the ACE Committee.