May 2000 News

HSUS Seeks to Eliminate Lab Animal Pain and Distress by 2020

May 5, 2000

At a press conference April 27 in Washington D.C. the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the nation's largest animal protection organization, called on scientists and government officials to join them in an effort to end pain and distress in laboratory animals by the year 2020.

"Congress amended the Animal Welfare Act in 1985 in large part to limit pain and distress in laboratory animals," said Andrew Rowan, Ph.D., senior vice president for the HSUS. "Fifteen years later, the United States has made some progress toward this goal, but much more can and should be done. It's time for animal protectionists, government officials, scientists, and animal caregivers to make an urgent priority of working together to define, document, and end pain and distress, while continuing vigorous scientific inquiry."

HSUS researchers analyzed reports issued to the U.S. Department of Agriculture by facilities that conduct animal research and found evidence that pain and distress are under-reported and reported inconsistently. Furthermore, animal distress that is not the result of pain (e.g., anxiety, depression, fear) is still not assessed and quantified and so is largely ignored or overlooked by research institutions. Good workable measures to gauge levels of distress in the common laboratory animal species are not available.

In an initiative launched last year, the HSUS outlined several steps toward ending all significant pain and distress in research animals by 2020. These include developing a comprehensive technical report on pain and distress, encouraging the USDA to revise its pain and distress reporting system, promoting the development and implementation of "best practice" guidelines covering specific techniques and research areas, supporting the inclusion of mice, rats, and birds among the animals regulated under the Animal Welfare Act, and working with Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees, which have a mandate to minimize pain and distress under the Animal Welfare Act.

"It is widely recognized that poor animal welfare can confound scientific results," concluded Rowan. "Eliminating animal pain and distress can therefore benefit science as well as animal welfare."

For more information go to the HSUS web site section on pain and distress (here), which includes such documents as: