A key feature of the ACE Committee’s fall 2011 meeting was a day of Capitol Hill visits. Members of our committee participated in a total of 26 meetings in which we explained our support for the humane treatment of laboratory animals as well as our opposition to two bills that would adversely affect the use of animals in biomedical research. These bills are benignly-titled the “Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act” and the “Pet Safety and Protection Act.” We met with staff for the members of the Congressional committees with jurisdiction over the bills as well as with a number of co-sponsors of the legislation. In addition, during the spring and summer, APS circulated legislative alerts with sample letters to enable researchers to voice their opposition to the great ape bill because it was the subject of a hearing and a mark-up in the Senate. This legislation would terminate virtually research involving these animals in direct contradiction to the recommendations of an Institute of Medicine panel.
Reporting Animal Studies in APS Publications
The ACE Committee worked with the APS Publications Committee to modify the journal Instructions for Authors in light of two recent reports containing recommendations about how animal studies should be reported. According to the updated APS instructions, “The description of animal procedures in the manuscript should be sufficient to permit readers to evaluate the quality of the data presented and to replicate the experiments, if needed.” The instructions also address the mitigation of pain and distress:
Studies involving surgeries or other painful procedures must include an explanation of steps taken to mitigate pain and distress, including the types and dosage of anesthetics and post-operative analgesics that were used.
The instructions also provide links to the recommendations of the two reports. One is the Institute for Laboratory Animal Research’s Guidance for the Description of Animal Research in Scientific Publications. The other is the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and EthicalReduction of Animals in Research’s Animals in Research: In Vivo Experiments.
APS Journals’ Review Procedures
To help APS members and potential authors understand the processes used to scrutinize submitted manuscripts, APS Publications Vice-Chair Kim Barrett and I co-authored an article explaining the procedures used to ensure the scientific integrity of articles involving data from human or animal subjects. “Reporting of Studies Using Animal and Human Subjects in APS Journals: How the Society Protects Authors from Ethical Minefields” was published in the February, 2012 issue of The Physiologist. (http://www.the-aps.org/mm/Publications/Journals/Physiologist/2010-present/2012/February.pdf)
Advocacy Resources
The ACE committee organized a symposium on public outreach that was presented at Experimental Biology 2012 in San Diego. The goal of “Public Outreach and Animal Research: a Toolkit for Investigators” was to discuss various approaches. The speakers were Dario Ringach (a neurobiologist from UCLA’s Jules Stein Eye Institute) John Young (attending vet at Cedars-Sinai and Board Chair for Americans for Medical Progress), and Jim Newman (Media Team Leader at Oregon Health & Science University). A summary is available on the APS website at http://the-aps.org/mm/SciencePolicy/Animal-Research/Current-Issues/Public-Outreach-for-Investigators.html, and Flash videos syncing symposium audio to the PowerPoint slides may be viewed at http://the-aps.org/mm/SciencePolicy/Animal-Research/Current-Issues/Public-Outreach-Toolkit.
Chimpanzees in Biomedical Research
The Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act is the latest iteration of legislation that would prohibit all research on great apes. It is grounded in the premise that “research laboratory environments involving invasive research cannot meet the complex physical, social, and psychological needs of great apes.” The ban would primarily halt studies involving chimpanzees, which are most commonly used in immunological research. The bill defines the term ‘‘invasive research’’ so broadly that it would ban even procedures such as drawing blood and recording observations using MRI technology if sedation is required. The bill has made progress in the Senate where an Environment and Public Works (EPW) Subcommittee held a hearing on the legislation in April. The full EPW Committee subsequently reported out an amended version of the bill. Supporters claim that the amended version incorporates the recommendations of an Institute of Medicine (IOM) study panel, but critics say that the procedures for resuming chimpanzee research in the event of a public health crisis would be unworkable. Meanwhile, NIH has already established its own working group to implement the IOM panel’s recommendations.
8th Edition of the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals
All institutions receiving research funds from federal agencies are required to comply with the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. In 2008, NIH asked the Institute for Laboratory Animal Research (ILAR) at the National Academy of Sciences to review and update the Guide. The project that lasted two years, and the ACE committee monitored it closely, including providing detailed comments for the ILAR panel’s consideration.
In January, 2011, a new 8th edition of the Guide was released. Shortly thereafter, NIH asked for public comments, which revealed serious concerns about certain changes regarding as rodent cage densities and social housing. After reviewing these comments and concerns, in December, 2011, NIH announced that the new Guide would go into effect on January 1, 2012, but that there would also be a number of position statements to aid institutions in implementing the GuideThe ACE committee reviewed these position statements and determined that they provided adequate flexibility. The position statements are posted at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/olaw/positionstatement_guide.htm.
Future Activities
During the coming year, the ACE Committee will work on several projects discussed at our EB 2012 meeting. These include developing an online course highlighting the importance of animals in biomedical research; exploring perceived disparities between study section treatment of grants involving rodent and non-rodent animal models; developing slides highlighting the contributions of animal research to medical advances; monitoring regulatory issues; and partnering with other organizations.
The ACE and Science Policy Committees also jointly proposed to Council a Chapter Advocacy Outreach program that would send speakers to 2-3 APS Chapter meetings per year. The two committees will identify speakers who can make presentations on topics related to the humane use of animals in biomedical research and research funding advocacy. This program is intended to fulfill the 2010 Strategic Plan goals of increasing Society advocacy and encouraging greater engagement with the Chapters. The APS Science Policy Office begun one initiative with this in mind when it created creating Science Policy News, a monthly email bulletin of advocacy-oriented information that is being disseminated to the Chapters and the Sections through a designated advocacy liaison, who relays the information via listserv or newsletter.