Further assurance of high quality animal care is provided by numerous laws, regulations, and guidelines governing animal research. Heightened public awareness about the use of animals in biomedical research, development, and product testing has raised a number of issues and concerns pertaining to the use and well being of animals. By studying animals, it is possible to obtain information that may be difficult or impossible to obtain in other ways. When a new drug or surgical technique is developed, it is unethical to use that drug or technique first in man because of the possibility that it may cause harm rather than good. It is therefore tested in an animal model to assure that it is safe and effective.
Animals offer research models that are impossible to replicate using human subjects.
Animals can be fed identical, closely monitored diets. Members of some animal species are generally identical, enabling researchers to compare different procedures on identical animals. Mammalian species are especially important to researchers because they are closest to man from an evolutionary perspective. Many diseases that affect man also affect other mammals, but these diseases do not occur in insects, plants, or bacteria. Many conditions affecting human heath could not have been overcome without the use of animals in research.