April 1998 News

Animal Activists Continue "Antibodies Without Animals" Campaign

April 8, 1998

The American Anti-Vivisection Society (AAVS) filed a second petition at the end of March with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for a ban on the use of animals in monoclonal antibody (MAB) production.

It has been a year since AAVS filed its first petition for a ban, which was denied. At a workshop in September on alternatives to the ascites method, organized by the NIH Office of Protection from Research Risks (OPRR) and the Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT), participants concluded that valid, cost-effective alternatives to the use of animals for MAB production exist for almost every case and that the ascites method is painful to animals.

Following the meeting, NIH-OPRR revised its policy to require investigators to consider alternative methods as the rule in MAB production, and animal use an exception requiring extensive justification. According to NIH-OPRR, any research facilities that continue to approve the routine use of animals to produce MABs will not be in compliance with NIH rules.