Animal Experimentation and Research Commons^™

Refining The Precautionary Framework, Jonathan Birch

Animal Sentience

Most of the commentators so far agree that the precautionary principle can be usefully applied to the question of animal sentience. I consider various ways of refining my proposals in light of the suggestions. I amend BAR to implement C. Brown’s suggestion that the scope of animal welfare law should be extensible by phylogenetic inference from orders in which credible indicators of sentience are found. In response to C. Brown, Mallatt, and Woodruff, I amend ACT to allow that a single credible indicator may sometimes call for urgent further investigation rather than immediate protection. In response …

Animal Sentience And The Precautionary Principle, Jonathan Birch

Animal Sentience

In debates about animal sentience, the precautionary principle is often invoked. The idea is that when the evidence of sentience is inconclusive, we should “give the animal the benefit of the doubt” or “err on the side of caution” in formulating animal protection legislation. Yet there remains confusion as to whether it is appropriate to apply the precautionary principle in this context, and, if so, what “applying the precautionary principle” means in practice regarding the burden of proof for animal sentience. Here I construct a version of the precautionary principle tailored to the question of animal sentience together with a …

Animal Research: A Review Of Developments, 1950–2000, Andrew N. Rowan, Franklin M. Loew

State of the Animals 2001

The third phase of the animal research debate started around 1950. After World War II the government became a major sponsor of scientific research, including biomedical research. The budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) grew dramatically and has continued to grow, with a few minor retrenchment periods, up to the present time (see Figure 1). This growth led to an enormous expansion in publicly funded research. In the private sector, the discovery of penicillin and streptomycin led to a tremendous expansion in pharmaceutical research and in the size of the prescription drug industry. These expansions in government funding …

Reporting Requirements Under The Animal Welfare Act: Their Inadequacies And The Public's Right To Know, Mark Solomon, Peter C. Lovenheim

Laws and Legislation Collection

We conclude from the analysis that the Reporting System, as presently administered, fails to achieve its primary statutory objective: it does not provide APHIS with information sufficient to demonstrate that researchers have used pain-relieving drugs "appropriately" and in accordance with "professionally acceptable standards." The chief reasons for this failing are (1) regulations and guidelines do not define "pain" or "distress," (2) regulations and guidelines do not adequately define "routine procedures," and (3) regulations and guidelines do not require meaningful explanations for the withholding of pain-relieving drugs in procedures acknowledged to cause pain.

The Case For Revising Our Laws On Animal Experimentation, David L. Markell

Experimentation Collection

The current laws regarding experimentation upon animals should be drastically revised. These laws permit virtually unrestricted experimentation on animals without regard to the benefits to be obtained from such experimentation, and without regard to the consequences of such experimentation upon the subject animal. Legislation constituting a two-step jump from the current laws is needed: laws sanctioning and requiring animal experimentation should be repealed; and laws significantly restricting acceptable experimentation should be enacted. The principle underlying this proposal for change is straightforward: Nonhuman animals, like human animals, have interests in the integrity of their bodies which deserve legal protection. Only by …

Biomedical Research And Animal Welfare: Traditional Viewpoints And Future Directions, Franklin M. Loew

Experimentation Collection

It has been twenty years since C.P. Snow first presented the concept of "The Two Cultures"; referring to the "culture" of scientists and the "culture" of literary intellectuals (mainly writers), Snow said (1969):

... constantly I felt I was moving among two groups- comparable in intelligence, identical in race, not grossly different in social origin, earning about the same incomes, who had almost ceased to communicate at all, who in intellectual, moral and psychological climate had so little in common ...

In some ways, "Two Cultures" goes far to characterize the current state of affairs surrounding those whose scientific endeavors …