During much of 2008, the ACE committee developed recommendations submitted on behalf of the APS to a National Academy of Sciences committee charged with updating the Institute for Laboratory Animal Research�s Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. The APS recommendations emphasized the advantages of performance-based standards to ensure animal welfare and the need to take approaches that minimize regulatory burden. Other points of emphasis in the APS statement included:
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the need for IACUCs to make informed determinations about study design;
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that references on minimizing pain and distress should be updated and made accessible through the web, but the updated Guide should not try to offer uniform or objective ways to measure them;
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that the updated Guide should retain the current guidance on providing environmental enrichments. This guidance states that such enrichments should be used when they are known to be beneficial without compromising animal welfare or study design, and that it is permissible to exercise professional judgment in making determinations about whether or not to implement enrichments;
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that the current definition of major survival surgery as the penetration ofds a body cavity should be revised in light of new minimally invasive surgical techniques to emphasize instead the actual pain or distress caused by a given procedure;
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that recommendations concerning housing densities, temperatures, humidity levels, and environmental enrichments should be revised so that these factors are seen as part of an integrated environment.
The Committee to Update the Guide began its work in September 2008. Members of the ACE committee participated in a September 26, 2008 open forum where the individuals and organizations offered comments to representatives of the Guide update panel. Representatives of the ACE Committee also attended two other public hearings on the Guide that were held in Irvine, CA (October) and Chicago, IL (November). The comprehensive APS position statement was submitted in January, 2009. The Guide update is expected to take about two years with the updated Guide completed in September 2010.
Transition team recommendations: In January 2009, the APS contributed recommendations to the Obama administration transition team's NIH review committee. The APS urged the new administration to publicly acknowledge the need for research involving animal models of disease and to provide protection to researchers engaged in these activities.
Concerns about a presidential appointee: The APS raised concerns about President Obama�s selection of Cass R. Sunstein as the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Analysis. On February 12, 2009, APS wrote to John Holdren, the Director-Designate of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, about Sunstein�s position that animals should be granted legal rights and that the use of animals in research requires additional regulatory restrictions. On May 19, 2009, APS wrote to Chairman Joseph Lieberman and Ranking Member Susan Collins of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, requesting further clarification of Sunstein's views on these subjects prior to his confirmation. Although the Senate Homeland Security Committee supported his nomination, but a vote on his confirmation was delayed until at least September because several Republican Senators were concerned by Sunstein's positions on agriculture, animal rights, and hunting.
Clarifying OLAW requirements: The ACE Committee wrote a letter to the editor that was published in the February 2009 issue of Lab Animal. The letter challenged a column about protocol review that appeared in the June 2008 issue in which several commentators voiced the opinion that IACUCs are required to re-review every instance in which an investigator performs fewer procedures than were contained in the original protocol. The APS letter argued that since experimental work is inherently dynamic, re-review should not be required for minor protocol deviations that have no impact on animal welfare. NIH's Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW) published a companion letter in the same issue of Lab Animal stating that it leaves to the IACUC to "clearly define and communicate to investigators what it considers to be a significant change, or its mechanism for determining significance."
Random source dogs and cats: The ACE Committee is reviewing the recommendations of the ILAR Committee on Scientific and Humane Issues in the Use of Random Source Dogs and Cats in Research. This report found strong evidence of an ongoing need for random source dogs and cats animals in several important areas of NIH-funded research. However, due to continuing problems with Animal Welfare Act enforcement, the panel also called for the replacement of Class B dealers with other sources of supply for these animals. This recommendation was tempered with an acknowledgement that it may be difficult to obtain certain kinds of animals from sources other than Class B dealers.
EB 2010: The ACE Committee will sponsor a public affairs symposium slot at EB 2010 in Anaheim on Trends in Animal Rights Activism and Extremism. Speakers will include UCLA Senior Counsel Amy Blum (Federal Freedom of Information Act and California's open records law); Univ. of Iowa Director of Animal Resources Paul Cooper (How institutions should respond to an animal rights attack); and UCLA researcher and US Pro-Test founder David Jentsch (Responding to threats against science by going on the offense).