For further information on the ethics of animal use in research, visit the RAR library and review the references on Animal Welfare. An important ethical principle of animal use in biomedical research is that alternatives to live animals should be used whenever possible. While some may simplistically view alternatives in the classic Webster's sense, of a choice between two or more things, implying that good medical research may be performed with no use of live animals, a more sophisticated concept of alternatives has been put forth by Russell and Burch in their book, The Principles of Humane Animal Experimental Techniques , Charles Thomas, Springfield, IL, 1959. The American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine Foundation funds grants to study alternative methods of animal use. All animal users are encouraged to explore this and other means of improving animal welfare while still accomplishing our research mission.
Replacement means replacing 'higher' animals with 'lower' animals.
Microorganisms, plants, eggs, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates may be used in some studies to replace warm-blooded animals. This form of alternative is primarily addressed in Appendix A of the Animal Usage Form which asks about the alternatives that have been considered, why they were rejected and how the Principal Investigator searched for these alternatives. RAR moderates a tissue sharing program to help investigators minimize the need for live animals for experiments. Advantages to replacement include utilizing pre-existing knowledge for teaching, applying known principles to new systems to look for similarities, and using less expensive animals or models to screen large numbers of agents for toxicity or mutagenicity. Disadvantages to replacement chiefly stem from the fact that any models are dependent on pre-existing information.