The ethics of research involving animals - Nuffield Council on ...

T h e e t h i c s o f r e s e a r c h i n v o l v i n g a n i m a l s
animal patient or a group <strong>of</strong> such patients. <strong>The</strong>re is no <strong>research</strong> function; these are essentially
applied studies, predominantly <strong>involving</strong> the production <strong>of</strong> biological reagents, for example
antibodies and clotting factors.
Toxicological procedures
■ Procedures for toxicological purposes accounted for 16% <strong>of</strong> all procedures started in 2003.
■ Some <strong>of</strong> these procedures are included in the categories Fundamental biological <strong>research</strong> and
Applied studies: human medicine or dentistry, and veterinary medicine. Others are included
under Protection (see Figure 2).
Severity <strong>of</strong> Procedures
Figure 3: Number <strong>of</strong> licences by severity banding
One <strong>of</strong> four levels <strong>of</strong> severity is assigned to project licenses, based on protocols that are:
Mild: procedures that give rise to slight or transitory minor adverse effects, including taking
infrequent blood or tissue samples from an animal, conducting skin-irritation tests with
substances that are expected to be non-irritant or mildly irritant.
Moderate: procedures such as injecting substances to produce antibodies, toxicity tests that do
not involve lethal end points, and the implantation <strong>of</strong> a microtransmitter to monitor blood
pressure. In general, <strong>research</strong>ers must ensure that pain is minimised, and <strong>animals</strong> must be given
pain relief. Animals that undergo surgery are given anaesthetics.
Substantial: procedures including major surgery, toxicity testing leading to significant morbidity
or death and the use <strong>of</strong> some <strong>animals</strong> as disease models.
Unclassified: protocols in which <strong>animals</strong> are anaesthetised before a procedure starts and are
killed without recovering consciousness.
GM <strong>animals</strong>
■ In 2003 there were 764,000 procedures <strong>involving</strong> GM <strong>animals</strong>.
■ More than a quarter <strong>of</strong> all procedures in 2003 involved GM <strong>animals</strong>.
■ Ninety-seven percent <strong>of</strong> these procedures involved mice, 2% fish, 0.3% rats, 0.2% amphibians,
0.03% sheep and 0.03% domestic fowl.
APPENDIX 2: STATISTICS - RESEARCH INVOLVING ANIMALS IN THE UK, EU, USA AND JAPAN
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